On the afternoon of June 24, 1944, a messenger entered Maj. Gen. Ralph C. Smith's command post on Saipan and handed him a brief message. Smith read it, pocketed it, and continued to direct the battle that continued around him.
The message informed him he was fired.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Holland M. “Howlin' Mad” Smith—commanding the V Amphibious Corps—had just done something unprecedented in the Pacific War and the history of the U.S. military. He relieved an Army division commander in the middle of combat. The decision would ignite an interservice firestorm that threatened to disrupt American operations across the Pacific.
The 27th Infantry Division's Fight Through Death Valley and Purple Heart Ridge
For nine days, the 27th Infantry Division—a New York National Guard unit federalized in 1940—had been advancing through Saipan's brutal interior alongside the 2nd and 4th Marine divisions. The island, just 1,250 miles from Japan, was a crucial target. Its capture would allow B-29 Superfortress bombers to strike the Japanese home islands.
But the terrain was difficult. The Marines moved up the island's flanks across relatively open ground. The 27th was in the center, moving through a thick jungle valley surrounded by cliffs and ridges crawling with Japanese defenders firing from caves and reinforced positions.
Progress was slow and methodical. Two of the 27th's regiments became bogged down attacking areas the soldiers dubbed Purple Heart Ridge and Death Valley while trying to take Mount Tapotchau, the island's main terrain feature. American casualties mounted as Japanese defenders poured fire down from the heights and launched suicidal attacks.
Holland Smith was furious with the soldiers. The Marine divisions on the flanks had to halt their advance because the 27th's slow progress in the center left their flanks dangerously exposed. The delay threatened the entire operation.
The Makin Atoll Incident
The two generals shared more than a surname. Both had decades of service and leadership experience behind them. But Holland Smith was openly contemptuous of the Army in general and the 27th Infantry Division in particular.
Their personal problems started months earlier. At Makin Atoll in November 1943, Holland Smith expected the Army's 6,500 men to overwhelm 800 Japanese defenders in a day while his Marines secured Tarawa. When it took four days, Holland Smith was livid.
When he arrived to inspect the Army’s progress, he discovered one of the regimental commanders dead in a field after being hit by sniper fire days prior. He became enraged at the Army’s lack of professionalism and decency.
He commandeered a jeep, drove to what he thought was a stalled attack, and found the area “as quiet as Wall Street on a Sunday.” He exited the vehicle and began cussing up a storm at the unfortunate soldiers standing around.
When Army leaders investigated, they discovered Holland Smith never made it to the front line—he was miles behind it. The soldiers he berated weren't even infantrymen. They were supply troops unloading cargo and doing their jobs. He also failed to acknowledge that the Marines who secured Tarawa were mostly Guadalcanal veterans, while most of the soldiers on Makin were green.
Nevertheless, Holland Smith began lecturing junior Army officers about Marine Corps superiority and the need for aggression in the face of the enemy. Ralph Smith felt his leadership had been overstepped by an overly aggressive and domineering bully.
At Saipan, Holland Smith didn't even inspect the terrain the 27th was attacking. He didn't grasp the tactical difficulties Ralph Smith's troops faced. He saw only that the Army was moving slower than his Marines. With past grievances in mind, Holland Smith wasted no time in deciding to fire one of his division commanders.
Three days after the firing, Holland Smith summarized his feelings bluntly. According to a unit history, he stated: “The 27th Division won't fight, and Ralph Smith will not make them fight.”
On June 24, Holland Smith met with Vice Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner and Maj. Gen. Sanderford Jarman, who would become Saipan's garrison commander after the battle. After Holland Smith described what he called the 27th's “defective performance,” both officers agreed with the decision.
Jarman took temporary command of the 27th Division.
The Army Becomes Enraged
The impact of the firing was immediate and catastrophic.
Army officers on Saipan viewed the relief as a slight against their entire branch. Relationships between senior Army officers and Holland Smith's staff reached the breaking point. Liaison officers at every level became jaded and refused to cooperate. Soldiers and Marines who crossed each other’s paths verbally accosted their rivals, more so than usual that is.
On his way out, Ralph Smith urged that “no Army combat troops should ever again be permitted to serve under the command of Marine Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith.”
Jarman—who initially agreed that the 27th lacked aggression—came to see what Ralph Smith had been through. He quickly noticed the same tactical difficulties that Ralph Smith had and found the Japanese defenses were formidable. He ultimately came to believe Holland Smith was too prejudiced against the Army to have made an impartial assessment.
Maj. Gen. George W. Griner, who took official command of the 27th from Jarman on June 26, also came to the same conclusion. His soldiers were partially overrun by the largest Japanese Banzai charge of the war just prior to the end of the battle, leading to Holland Smith berating him as well.
Griner quarreled so much with Holland Smith that he came away with the “firm conviction that he is so prejudiced against the Army that no Army Division serving under his command alongside of Marine Divisions can expect that their deeds will receive fair and honest evaluation.”
Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson, commander of Army forces in the Pacific, was enraged. Like Holland Smith, he was biased. Richardson had campaigned against Marines receiving commands above division level. He saw the relief of Ralph Smith as proof the Marines were trying to overtake Pacific operations.
On July 4—while troops were still fighting on Saipan—Richardson convened a board of inquiry. The Buckner Board, headed by Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner and consisting entirely of Army officers, heard only Army testimony. It found that while Holland Smith had command authority to relieve Ralph Smith, the action was not justified by the facts.
Holland Smith did not familiarize himself with the particular difficulties the Army troops faced on Saipan. He also did not understand the difference in training and tactics between Marines and soldiers. The Army trained in slow, methodical, combined-arms operations across broad fronts. Marines usually rehearsed amphibious operations against fortified targets under the cover of naval support.
Richardson's Unauthorized Visit
A week after Saipan was secured, Richardson landed on the island without permission from Holland Smith or naval commanders. He reviewed the Army troops and presented decorations—all without consulting the Marine general.
When Holland Smith protested this, Richardson unleashed a verbal barrage: “I want you to know that you cannot push the Army around the way you have been doing; you and your Corps commanders aren't as well qualified to lead large bodies of troops as general officers in the Army, yet you dare to remove one of my generals. You Marines are nothing but a bunch of beach runners anyway. What do you know about land warfare?”
He had a point. Saipan was the first time in history the Marines commanded a Corps level operation. Such a large organization of troops was usually run by Army commanders who had experience leading mass formations.
Holland Smith—normally combative—held his temper during the confrontation. But he stormed out and visited Turner's flagship afterward and vented his fury.
Navy Admirals Raymond Spruance and Richmond Turner complained to Adm. Chester Nimitz about Richardson's actions and his altercation with Holland Smith. The dispute climbed to Washington.
Marshall and King Respond
Gen. George C. Marshall and Adm. Ernest J. King were both alarmed at the incident. On Nov. 22, 1944, Marshall wrote to King that “relationships between the Marines and the Army forces on Saipan had deteriorated beyond mere healthy rivalry.”
Marshall's deputy chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, reviewed the evidence and found faults on both sides. Holland Smith's V Amphibious Corps staff work was below acceptable standards. Ralph Smith showed reasonably good tactical direction, but the division suffered from poor leadership among regimental and battalion commanders.
Maj. Gen. Thomas T. Handy, Marshall's assistant chief of staff, was more direct. He concluded that Holland Smith had some cause for complaint about the 27th's aggressiveness, but that “Holland Smith's fitness for this command is open to question” because of his deep-seated prejudice against the Army. Handy recommended both Smiths be removed from the Pacific.
Marshall and King decided against official action, hoping the controversy would die.
The Saipan Feud Becomes a Media Firestorm
July 8, 1944, the San Francisco Examiner accused Holland Smith of firing Ralph Smith when the latter protested a “reckless and needless waste of American lives.”
William Randolph Hearst editorialized that Army commanders used “subtle, intelligent tactics” while Marines were one-dimensional and preferred direct aggression. He accused Holland Smith of being a butcher who measured fighting spirit by casualty numbers.
Time magazine's correspondent Robert Sherrod, who had landed with the Marines and stayed with them through the battle, fired back. In a September 1944 article, he wrote that the 27th's soldiers “froze in their foxholes” and had to be rescued by Marines.
Sherrod never once visited the soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division and based these views entirely on Marine Corps accounts.
Historian Geoffrey Perret later wrote that the humiliating article devastated the men of the 27th. Despite the horrendous casualties the men had faced and the odds they had overcome, their morale never recovered.
Command and Career Consequences
The controversy had lasting consequences for both men and the services.
When planning the 1945 Okinawa invasion, Admirals Spruance and Turner wanted Holland Smith to command the assault forces. Nimitz overruled them because of the Saipan controversy and the “justifiable animosity between senior U.S. Army staff” toward the man.
Holland Smith was promoted to commanding general of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific—officially a promotion but actually a move to sideline the confrontational general away from combat. His battlefield role at Iwo Jima in February 1945 was largely supervisory.
Ralph Smith received command of the 98th Infantry Division defending Hawaii, but the negative publicity made it impractical for him to remain in the Pacific Theater.
Richardson wrote to Marshall recommending that no Army troops ever serve under Holland Smith again, stating he was “prejudiced, petty, and unstable” with “an apparent lack of understanding of the acceptance of Army doctrines for the tactical employment of larger units.”
Historical Assessment and Branch Rivalry
The question of whether the relief was justified remains debated. The official Army history published 15 years after the battle acknowledged that the 27th was late jumping off on the morning of June 23—though not as late as Holland Smith claimed—and that Army troops attacking Death Valley were “slow and faltering in their advance.”
But the history also noted the difficult terrain and bitter resistance the Army regiments faced. The two Marine divisions on the flanks suffered greater casualties than the Army troops in Death Valley, though this is likely because of the casualties they endured in the initial landings.
The battle for Saipan cost roughly 3,000 American dead and 13,000 wounded. The battle between both Smiths almost eroded the ability of American forces to fight together.
Holland Smith's relief of Ralph Smith on Saipan was unprecedented—the only time a Marine general ever fired an Army general. The firestorm it created burned for the rest of the war and even affected command relationships in Korea and Vietnam.
