Here's a big battle over a small patch of land...
In the early 1940's, the sight of a low-lying Pacific atoll with its
wind swept coconut palms was likely to stir in the minds of most
Americans recollections of some Hollywood grass-skirt idyll starring Jon
Hall. Weeks of aerial and submarine reconnaissance had established Betio
as a singular contradiction to this popular image. In 20 months of
occupation, the Japanese had turned the island's scant 291 acres, less
than half the size of New York's Central Park, into one of the world's
most heavily fortified places. In addition to 14 coastal defense guns,
including some 8-inch guns captured from the British at Singapore the
islands palms concealed 100 or more field pieces and dual-purpose
anti-aircraft and perhaps as many as 500 automatic weapons.
This mass of ordnance had been carefully sited to turn almost every
square yard of the island into a field of fire and, then, made virtually
impregnable under layers of concrete, steel, coconut logs, and sand. Not
wholly without reason atoll commander RAdm. Keiji Shibasaki boasted to
his staff that: "a million men could not take Tarawa in 100 years."
Even intelligence about the garrison was sobering. Briefing a group of
correspondence before the landing, Col. Merrett Edson, Second Marine
Division chief of staff, identified the defenders as members of the
Special Landing Force - Japanese Imperial Marines. "That means they are
the best Tojo's got," Edson added. Although the colonel may have
intended the remark as a bit of playful Marine arrogance, it proved
prophetic. Only 17 Japanese surrendered.
That the Navy's shelling had been ineffectual became evident before the
assault waves were within 1,000 yards of the beach. The heavy fire from
ashore made clear that a fire storm of resistance was building. Most of
the amphtracs, which were carrying the first three waves, made it across
the reef, just as they were designed to do. But from that point on they
were so badly mauled by anti-boat guns, mines, barbed wire beach
barriers and grenades that they would play no significant part in the
remainder of the operation. Of the 125 amphtracs brought to Tarawa, 90
were eventually destroyed. Of the 500 men who operated them, 323 became
casualties.
Although most of the Marines in the assault waves managed to make it
ashore they caught hell when they got there. Losses among officers and
non-coms were alarmingly high. Sgt. Marion Guadet of the 18th Assault
Engineers, who was in the first wave at Red Beach 1, remembers the early
minutes ashore as a phantasmagoria of "bullets, shells and grenades;
blood guts and death." When Gaudet had succeeded in clambering over the
coconut-log seawall a few yards in from the surf, he asked a Sergeant
from the Second Marines where the front line was? "This is it," was the
laconic reply. Fewer than 100 Marines were holding the fragile beachhead
at Red 1. On Red Beaches 2 and 3, the situation was not a great deal
better. The commander of the assault waves, Col. David Shoup, lost no
time in ordering his regimental reserve, the 1st Battalion, Second
Marines, or "1/2", as they were operationally designated, to land on Red
Beach 2, were problems had been compounded by the death of Landing Team
Two's commander, LtCol. Amey. The handful of amphtracs that remained
operative helped to shuttle 1/2 ashore to reinforce their hard-pressed
mates of the Regiment's 2nd Battalion.
By midday, Col. Shoup, hobbled by shrapnel wounds in the leg, had worked
his way ashore at Red 2 ands established a crude command post alongside
a coconut-log bombproof about 15 yards inland. Inside the bombproof,
just three feet away, were live and bellicose Japanese. They could not
get at Shoup; he could not get at them. He viewed it as a minor
inconvenience. More pressing was the fate of some 1,500 Marines who
clung to a nail's breadth of beach, a portion of them isolated at the
west end of the island, the Bird's Beak. With most radios ashore either
damaged or waterlogged, communications with the fleet was uncertain.
Communications between Marine units had to be by messenger. In desperate
frustration. Shoup dispatched Col. Evan Carlson, present as an observer,
to the flagship with an urgent request for reserves, ammunition, water
and medical supplies. Carlson did not reach the Maryland until
nightfall.
By nightfall on D-Day, about 5,000 Marines had been landed on Betio and
they had suffered almost 1,500 casualties. They held only about a
tenth-of-a-mile of beach, described by correspondent Richard Johnston
as, "one-tenth-of-a-mile such as few men have ever won before;
one-tenth-of-a-mile with more fortifications than most nations." That
night the Marines received the single good break that may have salvaged
the operation. Adm. Shibasaki failed to counterattack after dark as he
might have been expected to do. Historians have guessed that his
communications system was too badly damaged for him to organize the
effort, the naval bombardment had it seems, accomplished that much.
Characteristic of the chaos on Betio, Lt. Albert Tidwell of the 1st
Platoon, Able Company, had been assured by the battalion commander that
his landing would be unopposed. "This unopposed landing," he says, "cost
my platoon of 41 men, 18 dead and 3 wounded before we touched the
beach." In Baker Company only 90 out of 199 men made it ashore.
Not all the news was bad. Lt. William Deane Hawkins and his
indefatigable Scout- Sniper Platoon ranged up and down the beachhead
taking out Japanese pillboxes in the only way that it could be done -
with grenades, TNT or flamethrowers from close in. Every strong point on
Betio would have to be reduced in the same way before resistance ended.
Hawkins was to die of wounds that night and become one of Tarawa's four
Medal of Honor recipients.
The courage and initiative of Marines paid off in unexpected and bizarre
ways. On the second morning, Capt. Maxie R. Williams of 1/2's Baker
Company received orders to move his people across the airstrip to the
south shore of the island. "It appeared to be a suicide order," he said.
"Absolutely no cover, terrain wide open and flat as a pancake."
Their only chance, he concluded, was to stage a banzai charge and hope
to catch the enemy off guard. Jumping from their foxholes, the Marines
ran screaming toward the other side of the island. Every man made it
safely across the strip. "Once we occupied their trenches, however,"
William's added grimly, "it was different story. Nevertheless, a single
daring company had succeeded in cutting the island in two.
At noon, Col. Shoup was still reporting the situation ashore as
"uncertain," but slowly things began to improve. At the west end of the
island Maj. Michael Ryan's ad hoc battalion, with the help of two tanks
and offshore fire from destroyers, had cleared Green Beach and opened
the way for the Sixth Marines to land. Shibasaki's determined garrison
was outflanked. By late afternoon Shoup felt confident enough to signal
Julian Smith, "We are winning." Much heavy fighting and many casualties
still lay ahead. The outcome of the operation, however was no longer in
question.
Just a little more gripping than the typical "fluff" text`. I did snip
some parts. The website addreess is
http://www.cyberplus.ca/~chrism/tarawa.htm
Chris Miller
Received on Wed Jul 23 1997 - 16:37:24 UTC