Hell In The Pacific: Rare WWII Photographs Of American Soldiers and Marines During The Brutal Battle of Saipan

Lydia Warren at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a good story on the furious fighting on Saipan in the South Pacific in World War II. 

It is the little-known battle that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans during World War II.

But now black-and-white photographs, captured by Life magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith, show the everyday horrors for the U.S. soldiers fighting against Japanese forces on the Mariana Island of Saipan between June 15 and July 9, 1944.
Faces etched with the pain of their experiences, war-weary men are captured transporting their wounded comrades or forcing Japanese civilians from their hiding places.

You can read the rest of the peice and view the great photos via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087023/World-War-II-photographs-American-soldiers-fight-survival-brutal-Battle-Saipan.html

You can also learn more about the Battle of Saipan by reading a good piece by Francis A. O'Brie at Historynet.com via the below link:

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-saipan.htm

The Battle of Saipan interests me as my late father was a UDT frogman who hit the Saipan beach on June 14, 1944, a full day before the American troops landed.

I wrote about my my father and the WWII Navy frogmen for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the piece via the below links:   

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/WWIIFrogmenJPG1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/WWIIFrogmenJPG2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/WWIIFrogmenJPG3.jpg