Religious service commemorates American soldiers killed on Saipan. A U,S.

Religious service commemorates American soldiers killed on Saipan. A U,S. Navy Chaplain leads Mass on Saipan Island in memory of American soldiers killed while landing on the Marianas base in the Central Pacific on June 14, 1944. By June 28, 1,474 Americans had died fighting the fiercely resisting Japanese, and U.S. troops had buried 4,951 enemy dead. Saipan, a key base in Japan's inner defense system, is only 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the enemy homeland. The operations of a U.S. Pacific Fleet task force which supported American landings on the island prevent hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops to the south from receiving naval support and supply. The enemy lost 747 planes, 30 ships and suffered damage to 51 other vessels when Japanese naval units attempted to interfere with the American task force whose planes and guns blasted Saipan coastal fortifications and gun emplacements and ripped enemy strongpoints on other Marianas islands. The U.S. Naval force suffered damage to four ships and lost 151 planes.