War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music James Early. Welcome back to Key Battles of the Pacific War in World War II.

This is your host, James, as always.

And we are now moving finally, now that we're on the 19th episode,

we're moving to our fifth key battle. But don't worry, we're not going to do, that doesn't

mean we're doing 38 episodes, although we're going to do, it's going to be around 35.

Pretty close, yeah. Yeah, pretty close. I shouldn't be too, make too many promises.

But hopefully it will be worth it.

Hopefully you enjoy every minute of it.

In our last episode, we talked about how the United States Navy and the Marines and the Army are all conducting operations in several different parts of the Pacific, moving slowly, surely, but inexorably toward the

Japanese home islands. We talked last time in our previous episode about Japan's new operational

policy, which was basically pulling back their long defensive line, thousands of miles long,

abandoning some of their former possessions in an effort to try to hold on to that which they still had.

Talked about the U.S. invasion of Biak, Carolina Islands, especially the massive naval airbase of truck, which the Americans eliminated essentially.

And then the decision to move even further to Japan and take the Mariana's.

We talked about the Japanese fleet and the American fleet, which would be coming to oppose it.

And now, at last, we come to the actual battle itself, the Battle of Saipan.

...