Early on the morning of 12 July 1944, BLT 1-24 left their foxholes and deployed for their final combat assignment on Saipan. The plan seemed simple – start from the high ground and slowly sweep south, paying close attention to any caves, gullies, or ruined buildings that might harbor Japanese troops or civilians. This sort of “mopping up” was dull, stressful, and terrifying in equal measure. No organized resistance remained – but the bypassed enemy had nothing to lose, and it only took one determined sniper or machine gunner to end a Marine’s life. The battalion would move deliberately and cautiously – and respond to threats with overwhelming force.

They ran into trouble almost immediately. “We flushed several dozen well-provisioned enemy while in the initial stages of deployment,” wrote 1Lt. Frederic A. Stott, “once again with small casualties to ourselves.” The fight came as a surprise, but was overwhelmingly one-sided. Stott noted that the Japanese had appropriated American supplies – abandoned by necessity during the rapid advance – and some wielded American small arms and grenades. “A few men fell before our own weapons in Japanese hands,” he said.^[2] Platoon Sergeant Elmo A. Burns and PFC Elmer W. Segraves were slightly wounded in the scrap. The Japanese, it may be assumed, perished to a man.