Buraku wrote:Banzai Cliff was where thousands of Japanese committed mass suicide, to escape the American siege of Saipan. Instead of surrendering to American forces, the Japanese troops chose to "die with honor," by jumping off the cliff, even bringing along family members to their death!
This article was written from a tourist where to go type of view point from the PI rather than a histrorical thesis.
Banzai Cliff was noted in the famous movie of the woman throwing her child and then jumping herself to escape the barbarian horde. There were not "thousands" of Japaneses troops. Most of the suicides were civilians. The Japanese were slaughtered in the "banzai" charges in defense of Garapan, the capital.
Saipan was the then capital of the Micronesian trust, having been ceded to Japan as a member of the allied powers in WWI. Garapan was known as "Little Tokyo" and the "Southern Tokyo". After WWII, the US made Guam the capital of the Micronesian Trust, reducing Saipan to a subserveant child and there has been fairly bad blood since. Although all being Chamorros, they function as separate peoples, with no doubt the Guamanians (in the past) showing the resentment to the Saipanese for the better treatment that was their's prior to and until the war.
Interestingly, the battle for Saipan and Tinian are ofter refered to as major battles in the war. This because of course, both were used for B-29 bases for the attacks on mainland Japan, with Tinian of course being the home base for the Enola Gay and Bock's Car.
However, on the Japanese side, the Combined Commander of the Imperial Forces on Saipan was a Navy Admiral, who was killed, or more than likely committed seppuku to cap off the festivities. This was Admiral Nagumo, who was no less than the operational commander of the task force that attacked Pearl Harbor. Sorry to hurt your feelings again Buraku, but because he had generally screwed up a brilliant attack plan that had achieved surprise by not following up and ordering additional strikes to destroy the US oil reserves and other military assets in Hawaii, the secondary target of the mission, he was eased out of major command posistions by Yamamoto Isoroku. This was escalated after Nagumo's showing as the strike commander in the Midway Campaign, which was his last combat assignment until attacked at Saipan. He was placed there with the titular position of Commander of the Imperial Central Pacific Fleet (?), which of course after, mid-way was primarily on the bottom. All other major and capital ships were in the Philippines or back in Japan. Also, two of the US ships used in close support shelling of Saipan, were ships that Nagumo reported destroyed at Pearl and had he ordered a second wave then, he might have not been facing than at Saipan.
Military studies of the battle of Saipan also would indicate that he had not changed his ways and although it was a fiece battle that claimed a lot of allied and primarily US military casualties (my cousin got blown away there). His blundering use and deployment of his troops was hampered by his Naval training and he had little knowledge of the use of infantry. His constant overruling of the on scene Imperial Army Commander, General Saito, was of great assistance to the US during the battle. He insisted on the banzai type charges that would drive the long noses into the sea. One of the first ones he ordered, he lost just under 1,000 men and apparently he felt that worked so well that he ordered some more. On one of the next few charges, he lost almost 4,000 troops which also seemed to impress him, because he continued to use these charges until he ran out of organized troops and the island was secured.
Since this thread is about suicides, it's back to Banzai Cliff. There is a lot of speculation about just how many died there. It is known that very few soldiers did and that most who were taking that this to flee from the keto's were civilians, and mainly women and children.
Wikipedia says this about it:
"....Many hundreds of Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle, some jumping from "Suicide Cliff" and "Banzai Cliff". Efforts by U.S. troops to persuade them to surrender instead were mostly futile...."
However, other references have indicated that the number was quite a bit less and US news reports (propaganda for the home front on Japanese to fight to the end or commit suicide?) were quite a bit over blown and always reported that many more than the actual numbers had killed themselves.
Nagumo was a great guy to have on our side. He screwed up what should have been a great military victory at Pearl. He manuvered midway into a wonderful disaster and his plans for defense of the Marianas lost Saipan, Tinian and Guam.
He also acheived another great feat for the US. Tojo Hideki and his whole cabinet had to resign about one week after the loss of Saipan, which next to Rabaul was the Pacific icon of Imperial Japan, the loss of which was inconceivable.
Plus sharing my time with bus loads of tour groups makes me come out in a rash. 
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all part of the kamikaze culture ? 
