Flea Bites?! Battleship Colorado - Joint Warfare Hero | Channel Markers

On 24 July 1944, Battleship Colorado (BB-45), Norman Scott (DD-690), Cleveland (CL-55) and other US Navy ships on gunfire support duty for the operation to capture Tinian got into a nasty fight with several well-concealed Japanese shore batteries, at the heart of which were three British-made 6-inch guns firing from caves. With the Marines headed toward the beach in their vulnerable landing craft, at only 3,200 yards range the old battleship came under heavy fire. Colorado's CO maneuvered but refused to open the range, taking 22 direct hits. 43 of his men were killed. Norman Scott closed to less than 2,000 yards, attempting to draw fire from the battleship, and took 6 direct hits. Her CO and 18 other men were killed. The ship was badly damaged and eventually returned to Pearl Harbor and then Mare Island Navy Yard (where she became the subject of a British documentary about US navy yards). Cleveland intervened, placing herself between the enemy batteries and Norman Scott. What was the point? Joint Warfare. The answer is that the Navy and Marines needed to capture Tinian, so that it could be used as a base for the Army Air Force's very long range heavy bomber, the B-29. By the beginning of 1945, Navy CBs had turned Tinian into the largest airport in the world. In August 1945, B-29 Enola Gay flew from Tinian on its fateful mission to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan. Despite the Air Force's claims of having won the wars in Europe and the Asia-Pacific theaters, clearly modern war was a joint effort. Those flea bits on Colorado and Norman Scott, as Samuel E. Morison called them, added up to victory.
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Image and video Sources: US National Archives; film clip: Masters of the Air (Apple TV+, 2024).
Channel Markers, Ep. 13 | "Flea Bites?!"
Thumbnail: USS Colorado (BB-45) off Tinian, on 24 July 1944, with hull and topside damage, the result of 22 hits from shore batteries.

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