During the Battle of Saipan, American troops gave first aid to a seriously injured Japanese soldier on June 23, 1944. After that, they laid the Japanese soldier on a stretcher on his back, but it was too late and he died in battle.

 　　During the Battle of Saipan, American troops gave first aid to a seriously injured Japanese soldier on June 23, 1944. After that, they laid the Japanese soldier on a stretcher on his back, but it was too late and he died in battle. Next to him, the bodies of Japanese soldiers who had died in battle lay scattered on the road on Saipan's west coast.

　　The battle for Saipan, where the American army landed on June 15th 1944, saw the Japanese army's defensive line stretch from Garapan on the west coast to the south slope of Mount Tapachu to Magician's Bay on the east coast. The Japanese army occupied the high ground on Saipan Island, monitoring the movements of the American army, and the rugged terrain was filled with caves hidden by trees and plants. The American attack was renewed on June 22. The 2nd Marine Division on the west coast invaded towards Garapan and Mount Tapachu, while the 4th Marine Division invaded along the east coast. That night, the 27th Infantry Division invaded at Nafutan Point and moved into the difficult terrain between the two Marine divisions.

　　On June 22, the Marine divisions on the flanks invaded, but the 27th Infantry Division, which had started its attack late, was stalled in its attack on the valley surrounding the low ridge defended by about 4,000 Japanese soldiers. The fighting around the terrain that American soldiers called “Death Valley” and “Purple Heart Ridge” began to bend the American advance into a horseshoe shape. A gap was created on the flanks of the Marine Division, and they were forced to stop.

　General Holland Smith became frustrated with the 27th Division and relieved its commander, Major General Ralph Smith, replacing him with Major General Sanford C. German of the Army. The appropriateness of Smith's dismissal caused a dispute between the services. Even with a change of commander, it took six days to capture the valley. Even after German was replaced as division commander, there was no significant progress in the battle situation. German removed Colonel Russell G. Ayers, the commander of the 106th Infantry Regiment, from his position due to his responsibility for the delay in the advance, but this had the opposite effect of lowering the morale of the 27th Infantry Division, and four days later, on June 28th, the division commander was replaced again, this time with Major General George W. Greener. The dismissal was called the “Smith vs. Smith Incident” and became a major problem within the US military, causing major problems with the coordination of the three services. In the Battle of Okinawa, which was a large-scale operation involving the three services, the overall commander of the land operations was Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner of the Army, but the Navy and Marine Corps were hesitant to go against the Army, making it difficult to make proactive proposals for operations, and this was one of the reasons for the difficult battle of Okinawa.

Almost all of the Japanese garrison on Saipan, around 30,000 men, were killed in the battle. In the end, 1,700 Japanese soldiers and around half of the Korean workers were taken prisoner. The American military suffered around 16,500 casualties, with 3,100 killed and 13,000 wounded, and of the 71,000 men who were part of the attacking force, more than 20% were killed or wounded.