U.S. Marines hunt Japanese snipers on Saipan Island.

U.S. Marines hunt Japanese snipers on Saipan Island. Three dead Japanese soldiers (foreground) lie on a shell-torn portion of Saipan Island, in the Marianas group of the Central Pacific, where American Marines hunt enemy snipers. U.S. infantrymen who stormed ashore on the Central Pacific island on June 14, 1944, had occupied half of Saipan loss than one week after their landings, in spite of bitter resistance by Japanese defense garrisons. The operations of a strong U.S. Pacific Fleet task force in the Marianas area of the Central Pacific prevent hundreds of thousands of enemy troops based south of Saipan from receiving naval support and supply. When Japanese naval units attempted to interfere with the American task force, the enemy lost 747 planes, 30 ships and suffered damag to 51 other vessels, between June 10 and June 23. American losses were 151 planes. Four U.S. ships were damaged.