U.S. engineers repair Japanese railroad on Saipan Island.

U.S. engineers repair Japanese railroad on Saipan Island. American aviation engineers repair blasted sections of a Japanese railroad while another U.S. soldier with rifle ready keeps watch for snipers in a newly-won sector of Saipan Island where all organized Japanese resistance was crushed on July 8, 1944. American supplies were moved over the repaired railroad from the coast to the interior of the strategic island in the Marianas group were U.S. troops were pounding back the Japanese into a trap. American control of Saipan, at the crossroads of Japanese supply lines in the Central Pacific, breaches the enemy's inner defense perimeter. The island, second largest in the Marianas' chain, is within easy U.S. B-29 Superfortress range of Japan, less than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) distant.