U.S. warship blasts Japanese shore targets on Saipan.

U.S. warship blasts Japanese shore targets on Saipan. Fourteen-inch guns of an American warship belch smoke and flame as they hurl shells on Japanese shore installations on Saipan Island, paving the way for landings of U.S. troops. American Marines who stormed ashore on the Marianas base in the Central Pacific on June 14, 1944, were protected by a heavy naval and air bombardment similar to the Allied attack that smashed the German coastal defenses in northern France. U.S. soldiers on Saipan routed the Japanese from carefully prepared defense positions, pounding back the enemy into a trap on the northern end of the strategic island by July 7.