Not many tourists put the remote central Pacific atoll of Tarawa on their itineraries. It consists of a horseshoe-shaped string of islands surrounded by a coral reef. For the relatively few present-day travelers who do venture there, Tarawa features an idyllic-looking lagoon that was an exposed killing ground for U.S. Marines on 20 November 1943.
Early that morning, a U.S. invasion force approached Betio, Tarawa’s westernmost island, where the Japanese Navy had constructed an airfield. An intense preassault naval and air bombardment had little effect on the island’s fortifications. The small LVTs (landing vehicles, tracked) and LCVPs (landing craft, vehicle and personnel, or “Higgins boats”) carrying troops of Major General Julian C. Smith’s 2d Marine Division had a long, slow approach. After entering the lagoon through a gap in the reef, they made a 90° turn and motored toward Betio’s 600-to-1,200-yard-wide reef apron and the assault beaches—Red One, Two, and Three—on the island’s northern shore. The Marines then had to contend with a disastrously low tide. While the LVTs (also known as amtracs, or amphibian tractors) comprising the first three assault waves were able to chum their way onto and across the apron to the beaches, the water over the coral was too shallow for the LCVPs. Heavy and accurate Japanese gunfire knocked out too many of the amtracs for them to shuttle appreciable numbers of troops from the edge of the reef. Thousands of Marines therefore had to disembark from the Higgins boats and wade ashore in waist-deep water as Japanese fire from small arms, machine guns, and various heavy weapons raked the lagoon.
Tarawa is now part of the Republic of Kiribati, and the area is scenic and beautiful. But a causeway linking many of the atoll’s islands is preventing the natural flow of water from flushing out the now-polluted lagoon. Local residents swim and fish there, but visitors are strongly advised not to do so even though the clear blue water looks inviting. The sight, visible from the comfort of a hotel beach bar, of wading fishermen casting their nets in the lagoon contrasts dramatically with events that took place there in November 1943. But then seeing the natives ponderously trudging through the water carrying their weighted nets is a stark reminder of the Marines who also strenuously waded through the lagoon, not weighed down by fishing nets but by weapons, ammunition, supplies, and equipment.
Once ashore, the Leathernecks faced formidable obstacles. The defenders had constructed a coconut-log and coral-stone seawall that prevented most LVTs from advancing inland, and heavy automatic-weapons fire pinned down most of the infantrymen. While engineers attempted to blast their way through the seawall, small groups of Marines tried to take on the machine-gun nests. Farther inland, concrete and steel pillboxes protected 25 field guns, and concrete blockhouses and coconut-log and angle-iron bombproofs sheltered Japanese troops. The elaborate defenses were manned by 2,600 crack rikusentai (marines) and about 1,600 construction troops.
The remnants of the initial assault are still ominously present more than 60 years later. Sherman tanks that never made it ashore lie rusting in the shallow lagoon, and the hulks of several of the LVTs still litter the beach where the local children swim and play. The seawall, now entirely made of coral stone, protects the open-air grass huts of Betio village from high tides and flooding. Beach erosion has fully exposed some of the coastal defense gun emplacements, which were well concealed during the war. To find the easiest and quickest way off the beach, present-day travelers can simply follow the kids up the eight-foot seawall and into the village, where they are soon confronted by several of the indestructible Japanese fortifications.
The Marines took heavy casualties throughout the morning of 20 November. The original invasion plan for Red Beach One and Red Beach Two fell apart. Destroyed tanks and amtracs along with dead bodies filled the lagoon. Most of the survivors huddled behind the seawall for protection; others sought the shelter of a wooden pier that extended 600 yards into the lagoon and separated Red Two from Red Three. Near the latter, naval gunfire from the destroyers Dashiell (DD-659) and Ringgold (DD-500) had been fairly effective, and the 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, was able to land and seize a beachhead. Two of the 2d Battalion’s amtracs weathered heavy Japanese fire, broke through a gap in the seawall, and advanced to the edge of the airfield, the island’s primary objective.
During much of the first day’s fighting, the headquarters of the Japanese commander, Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki, was located in a large blockhouse that still stands, inland from Red Beach Three. That afternoon, Shibasaki was killed by naval gunfire as he moved his headquarters to allow the structure to be used as a hospital. Rikusentai and other Japanese troops defended the area around the blockhouse tenaciously, resulting in some of the fiercest fighting of the battle. By nightfall, about 5,000 Marines had landed on Betio, but some 1,500 were casualties.
Heavy fighting continued on the invasion’s second day, as Leathernecks clawed their way inland. That afternoon, the protracted low tide finally turned, allowing landing craft carrying reinforcements, tanks, and equipment to float over the coral apron and onto the beaches. A makeshift battalion led by Major Michael Ryan broke out of its foothold at the northwestern end of Betio and charged down the western edge of the island, overrunning and capturing enemy fortifications. Disrupted communications and lack of effective leadership would prevent the Japanese from mounting significant coordinated counterattacks until the third night. They, however, continued to fight on fanatically, and reports reached U.S. commanders that when all hope was lost defenders were committing suicide rather than being taken prisoner.
The samurai who fiercely defended the island’s strong- points—as well as the Leathernecks who fought hard to capture them—would no doubt be appalled to see the bastions now. The clatter of machine-gun fire that once erupted from most of the fortifications has been replaced by the snorting of pigs that currently call some of the concrete behemoths home. Local residents use others as trash bins or toilets. It’s not likely, however, that there have been many complaints from Betio’s defenders; out of an initial Japanese force of approximately 4,200 men, only 17 survived the battle. Even today, workers at construction sites around the island regularly unearth the remains of unidentified Japanese defenders. A memorial garden near Red Beach Two honors Japan’s dead.
On D-day+2, the third day of the campaign, fierce fighting continued over much of the island. Marines attempting to expand their control still faced determined resistance from Japanese protected by thick walls of coconut logs, concrete, or steel. Using small arms, grenades, and flamethrowers, as well as tanks and 75-mm self-propelled guns, groups of Leathernecks took on the defenders. First Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman led 20 engineers in a daring attack against perhaps the most formidable fortification, a large sand-covered blockhouse topped with machine-gun nests near Red Beach Three. The Marines captured the position, but six of the attackers, including Bonnyman, were mortally wounded in the process. Meanwhile, reinforcements that had landed at the western end of Betio advanced along the island’s southern coast, neutralizing enemy strong- points as they went.
That night, the Marines fought off a series of desperate but forlorn Japanese counterattacks, and the next day, 23 November, they completed the bloody conquest of Betio. The first Navy fighter planes began landing at Tarawa’s airfield on the 24th.
Back in the United States, the public soon received a rude awakening as to the determination of their Pacific war enemy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the release of graphic photographs and film footage showing dead U.S. Marines at Tarawa to drive home how difficult the task ahead would be and to stiffen America’s resolve to finish the job. The public was also shocked so many U.S. casualties—more than 3,000, including more than 1,000 dead—were sustained seizing an island only two miles long and a half-mile across at its widest point.
Top: Some of the fiercest fighting raged in the vicinity of the large concrete blockhouse that served as the Japanese commander’s headquarters early in the battle. Above: The heavily pockmarked structure is now fenced off.
Today, local guides on Betio will escort travelers to places of historic interest, though their knowledge of the actual battle is not always accurate. Nahm, an islander who clearly had been drinking too much Australian XXXX Bitter at the hotel bar, provided his simplistic perspective: “Americans came here and sacrificed themselves for our ancestors ... so we could be free.” Behind some shops and in front of a construction site, a simple monument honors the 2d Marine Division’s sacrifice. The inscription on the memorial, which the division’s association helped finance, reads in part, “To our fellow Marines who gave their all.”
Sources:
Joseph H. Alexander, Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995).
Kate Galbraith, Lonely Planet: Micronesia (Lonely Planet Publications, 2000).
Kent Robert Greenfield, gen. ed., The War Against Japan, The U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, DC: U.S. Army, 1952; reprint Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1994).
Jim Mesko, Amtracs in Action (Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1993).
Samuel Eliot Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls: June 1942-April 1944, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1955).
Rafael Steinberg, Island Fighting, World War II (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1978).
Derrick Wright, Tarawa, 1943: The Turning of the Tide (Oxford, England: Osprey Publications, 2004).
