Suicide Cliff (also known as Banzai Cliff) is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II. Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where hundreds of Japanese civilians and Japanese soldiers committed suicide by jumping to their deaths in 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States, as Japanese propaganda announced that 'American devils [were] raping and devouring Japanese women and children.' The precise number of suicides there is not known, but has been estimated at around 8,000 deaths. A contemporary correspondent, praising their actions as 'the finest act of the Shōwa period', described them as 'the pride of Japanese women.' The alternative name of the pace, Banzai