Among the most strategically vital objectives for the United States forces in the Pacific during World War II were three islands in the Marianas: Saipan, Guam and Tinian.
Close enough to the Japanese Home Islands to be reached by the new Boeing B-29 heavy bombers, they were desperately defended, including history’s largest aircraft carrier duel in the Philippine Sea on June 19-20, the largest suicidal “banzai charge” of the war and the horrific mass suicide by Japanese military and civilians at Marpi Point.
Smaller and less dramatic than the other two battles of the Marianas Campaign, Tinian nevertheless produced its share of horror and heroism, as well as fielding the most important aerial sorties of the conflict. Also standing out during the battle was Pvt. Joseph Ozbourn’s sacrifice to save four fellow Marines.
Enlisting in the Marine Corps Reserve on Oct. 30, 1943, Ozbourn served as a Browning automatic rifleman in the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, and got his first taste of combat during the Battle of Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands in early 1944.
On July 24, 1944 the 4th Marine Division advanced on Tinian. Awaiting them were Japan’s 50th Infantry Regiment under Col. Kiyochi Ogata and the 56th Naval Guard Force under Capt. Goichi Oie. Because the island was ringed in by low coral cliffs, Ogata focused most of his defense at the southwest, through which ships could best enter the atoll.
The Marines, however, modified LVTs with ramps that allowed their men to penetrate the atoll on the northwest. Moreover, the 2nd Marine Division under Maj. Gen. Thomas E. Watson launched a feint that also threw the Japanese defense off kilter while the 4th Division made the main assault.
Although worsening weather held things up, by July 30 the 4th Division reported securing Tinian’s town.
Among those fighting their way in was Pvt. Ozbourn, flanked by two fellow Marines on either side, clearing out dugouts, pillboxes and any remaining pockets of resistance.
As Ozbourn was about to throw a hand grenade into a dugout, however, a blast suddenly emanated from it, knocking all five Marines down.
As he and his partners, all wounded and stunned, tried to recover, Ozbourn realized that he was still holding his grenade and that it could very ironically achieve what his enemy failed to do.
As his citation noted: “Unable to throw it into the dugout and with no place to hurl it without endangering the other men, Pvt. Ozbourn unhesitatingly grasped it close to his body and fell on it, sacrificing his own life to absorb the full impact of the explosion but saving his comrades.”
The next day, the Marines declared Tinian secured. It had cost them a total of 353 dead, 1,515 wounded and 181 missing. The Japanese lost 5,745 servicemen killed and 404 taken prisoner, while the island’s civilian population suffered 2,610 dead.
Captain Oie reportedly died fighting, while Col. Ogata, upon seeing the last of his defense crumble, retired to a cave and committed seppuku (ritual suicide).
Once the Marines secured Tinian, the Navy Construction Battalions got to work, paving six 8,500-foot-long runways and facilities for B-29s of the Twentieth Air Force.
The closest of the three Marianas bases to reach the Home Islands, Tinian ultimately made its presence known by launching, among others, the devastating incendiary bombing of Tokyo on March 10, 1945, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and the atomic follow-up on Nagasaki on Aug. 9.
For his sacrificial contribution to Allied victory, Ozbourn was awarded the Medal of Honor. Initially buried on Tinian, his remains were transferred to the National Cemetery of the Pacific on Honolulu, Hawaii. On March 5, 1946, his widow was present at the Boston Naval Yard for the commissioning of the Gearing class destroyer Ozbourn (DD-846), which would serve in Korea and Vietnam.
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