The Marshall Islands 1944: Operation Flintlock, the capture of Kwajalein and Eniwetok (Campaign)

Rating:
Summary: Fills in the Details on Forgotten Operations
Review: In Osprey's Campaign series #146, The Marshall Islands 1944, Gordon L. Rottman continues his painstaking effort to detail US Marine operations in the Pacific in the Second World War. As usual, Rottman provides ample information on unit movements, casualties and orders of battle, while avoiding any effort to put the campaign in a human perspective by including first-person accounts or mentioning Medal of Honor recipients. Nevertheless, the Marshall Island campaign of 1944 has faded from sight due to all the attention on D-Day and bigger Pacific actions like Okinawa, so Rottman's effort is not without its merit. By including this operation and all the others that Rottman has written about, Osprey has established a common framework for looking at these largely forgotten campaigns of 1943-1944.

Rottman provides more strategic background to this campaign than he has in other volumes. In his section on opposing plans, Rottman notes that the Japanese misjudged American intentions in the central Pacific and deployed only "odds and ends" forces into the Marshall Islands and the leadership in Tokyo viewed the islands as beyond their main defensive sphere. Given the Japanese refusal to commit additional air or naval forces to the defense of the Marshalls, the Japanese effort in the islands was doomed from the start and the 28,000 troops deployed on the numerous islands in the chain were merely intended to delay the inevitable American victory. Thus, studying the campaign in the Marshalls has its limitations, since one side never intended to win and the question of superior generalship is a moot point under such circumstances. The author also details the opposing commanders and opposing forces in some detail, including a very detailed order of battle. There are more 2-D maps in this volume than a usual Osprey; there are 9 2-D maps, including ones on the strategic situation, and each of the main islands. The three 3-D maps are: Roi-Namur, Kwajalein and Engebi islands. The three battle scenes are: tank support on Roi island; clearing spider holes on Kwajalein and Japanese defense of a bomb crater on Engebi island.

As usual, Rottman gives the details of military operations without much analysis and he tends to favor the US Marines. For example, he provides details on the 4th Marine Division's effort to clear all the minor islands around Roi-Namur on D-1 (31 January 1944). However, Rottman fails to connect the dots in these preliminary operations, since it is clear that the Marines used over 3,000 men to eliminate fewer than 100 Japanese defenders. While these preliminary operations were useful - they gave the Marines positions to land their artillery to support the main landings on the next day - they also disrupted the landing craft availability on D-Day (almost half the amphibious tractors were not back in time to land the main force). By the laws of war, the 4th Marine Division violated economy of force by using an entire regiment to take out essentially a dispersed company and this impacted the performance of the division for the main operation. Once the Marines did land on Roi-Namur, Rottman notes that there was an unusual breakdown in controlling the troops given the lighter-than-expected resistance. A large amount of the casualties on Roi-Namur were inflicted by a careless detonation of a Japanese torpedo bunker (this happens to just about everybody in war, e.g. the Germans in 1916 lost hundreds of troops to carelessness in an explosion in Fort Douamont at Verdun) and readers should note the very high number of MIAs in this operation (more than KIAs).

Another factor that makes these campaigns somewhat unusual is that the Japanese defenders had not had much time to construct strong bunkers and they had very little in the way of indirect fire support. Consequently, the American preliminary bombardments of these islands was more effective than usual and the Japanese had much less ability to contest the beachheads. Readers should note that US Army units tended to suffer less casualties than US Marine units, a discrepancy left unexamined by Rottman. In the end, these operations were foregone conclusions, although at the price of 3,200 US American casualties (including over 600 dead) and that cost should not soon be forgotten.