Tarawa—Lines from Tarawa: The Story of a Battle by Time-Life correspondent Robert Sherrod, who came in across the reef with the 2d Battalion, 2d Marines, on the first morning of the assault.
These Marines [manning a 75-mm pack howitzer] calmly accept being shot at. They've grown used to it by now, and I suddenly realize that it is to me no longer the novelty it was. It seems quite comfortable here, just bulling. But I am careful to stay behind the upright coconut log which is my protection against the sniper. ... I was not sorry to leave the appalling wreckage of Betio and its 5,000 dead. I teas thankful that I had lived through the toughest job ever assigned to the toughest outfit the U.S. has produced: the magnificent U.S. Marines.
Our line across the island had held during the night, preventing any fresh Japs from filtering toward the scenes of the toughest fighting. On the third day the question was not, ‘How long will it take to kill them all’ but, 'How few men can we expect to lose before killing the rest of the Japs?’ . . . Burial parties are beginning to bury the Japs a little farther inland, because the smell of the dead is becoming overpowering after three days. If any sign were needed that victory is ours, this is it: we have started burying the Japs.
Guam—Lines from The Liberation of Guam: 21 July- 10 August 1944 by Harry Gailey
Perhaps the most pressing problem had to do with the difficulty of bringing up supplies to the advancing units. Water, particularly, was in short supply. Water points with 500-gallon tanks were established as far forward as possible, but the reality was that the majority of the men had to ration the water in their canteens very carefully. General [James] Landrum recalled:
‘I can remember it was damned hot and we never had enough water at first. . . . Cutting across the island we didn’t get water for 2 1/2 days.’
A platoon from Company A of 1/4 which was acting as a stopper in the area between the 4th and 22nd Marines was at this same time involved in its own special type of war. The Japanese at their front were not only drunk, but confused and seemingly lacked any type of leadership. The Marine riflemen picked off the would-be warriors, as in their own version of the ‘Marianas Turkey Shoot.' A count later in the morning showed 256 Japanese dead in front of their positions.
. . . There were still over 7,000 Japanese on the island hiding out in the bushes and they would eventually have to be killed or forced to surrender. This task would fall primarily to the men of the 3d Marine Division, which had already paid the highest price in casualties of all combat units. The cost of the conquest of Guam for the Army and Marines had been high.
Saipan—Lines from Saipan: The Beginning of the End by Major Carl W. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps. This, and the following excerpt about Tinian, were part of the Marine Corps official history of the war. Hoffman had been wounded on Tarawa.
TINIAN—Lines from The Seizure of Tinian by Major Carl W. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines got onto Tinian through the back door, on beaches with restricted access that the Japanese considered unnecessary to defend.
[Marines carrying their dead to the rear for burial.] By D-plus 7, a night disturbed by only a few rounds of Japanese mortar fire or an infrequent blast from an enemy rifleman, could indeed be classified as ‘unusually quiet.’ And yet on closer inspection, men got killed and wounded that night. And for them, there was never a noisier night.
Civilians were at first afraid of United States troops but grew to trust them as time went on. Many civilians, saturated with Japanese propaganda to the effect that the Americans would torture them, committed suicide rather than surrender.
Mail call, most popular of all calls. Attitudes, as usual, ranged from studied nonchalance to dreamy expectancy.
In two previous assault landings it had been noted that the companies which landed initially had undergone certain control difficulties which actually had slowed them more than had enemy opposition (which teas always light in the minutes closely following the lifting of the preliminary bombardment). . . Control. . . teas better at Tinian than on any other assault.
