Anniversary: The Last Command Post Falls, Saipan — July 9, 1944

On 9 July 1944, the 4th Marine Division took the Last Command Post at Marpi Point, and Saipan was declared secure. Three days earlier, on 6 July, Lt. Gen. Yoshitsugu Saito had taken his own life inside the bunker rather than surrender, after directing Japan’s defence of the island through the battle’s final weeks.

In the days between Saito’s death and the island’s fall, thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians — told by their own propaganda that American capture meant rape, torture and death — jumped from the cliffs nearby rather than be taken. US Marines brought forward loudspeakers and used already-surrendered civilians to plead with those still on the cliffs; the appeals worked for some and failed for many more. No account, including the US National Park Service’s own, gives a precise count of how many died there.

The Last Command Post entry tells the battle, the bunker’s final days, and the Okinawan civilian testimony that gives the mass deaths at Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff a name and a face.