Map of Betio, Tarawa Atoll
The Battle of Tarawa was a battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, largely fought from November 20 to November 23, 1943. It was the second time the United States was on the offensive (the Battle of
Guadalcanal had been the first), and the first offensive in the critical central Pacific region. It was also the first
time in the war that the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to a U.S. amphibious
landing. Previous landings met little or no initial resistance. The 4,500 Japanese defenders were well-supplied and
well-prepared, and they fought almost to the last man, exacting a heavy toll on the American Marines.
Background
In order to set up forward air bases capable of supporting operations across the mid-Pacific, the Philippines, and into Japan, the U.S. needed to take the Marianas
Islands. The Marianas were heavily defended, and in order for attacks against them to succeed, land-based bombers would have to be used to "soften up" the defenses. However, the nearest islands capable of supporting
such an effort were the Marshall Islands, northeast of Guadalcanal. Taking the Marshalls would provide the base needed to launch an offensive on the
Marianas, but the Marshalls were cut off from direct communications with Hawaii by a garrison on
the small island of Betio, on the western side of Tarawa
Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Thus, to eventually launch an invasion of the
Marianas, the battles had to start far to the east, at Tarawa.
The Japanese forces were well aware of the Gilberts' strategic location and had invested considerable time and effort
fortifying the island. The 7th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force
of 2,619 men under the command of Commander Takeo Sugai was an elite Japanese marine unit. This
unit possessed 14 Type 95 Light Tanks led by Ensign
Ohtani. In order to bolster the defenses, the 1,247 men of the 111th Pioneers (similar to
American Seabees) along with the 970 men of the Fourth Fleet's construction were brought in as
well; approximately 1,200 of the men in these two groups were Korean workers. A series of fourteen
coastal defense guns, including some 8-inch guns bought from the British before the war,
were located around the island and placed in concrete bunkers. A total of 500 pillboxes,
"stockades" built from logs, and forty artillery pieces were scattered around the island. An airfield was cut into the bush along
the high point of the island. Trenches connected all points of the island, allowing troops to move where needed, under some sort
of cover. Rear-Admiral Keiji Shibazaki, who commanded the garrison, had boasted that "it
would take one million men one hundred years" to conquer Tarawa.
Betio is shaped roughly like a long, thin triangle, with the point to the east and the base on the west. The lagoon of the
atoll lies to the north and east, with the entire northern coast of the island in the shallow waters of the atoll, and the
southern and western sides in deeper waters. An attack would almost certainly have to approach from the lagoon; the deeper waters
on the south offered no reasonable landing areas. In order to prevent this, a huge wall was constructed across the lagoon just in
from the high water mark, behind which a series of machine gun posts and pillboxes could fire on anyone trying to get over the
wall. A long pier was constructed pointing north from the western end of the island, allowing cargo ships to be unloaded out past
the reefs and shallow waters, while still allowing them to anchor in the protected waters of the black lagoon.
November 20
The American invasion force was the largest yet put together for a single operation, consisting of 17 aircraft carriers (6 CVs, 5 CVLs, 6 CVEs), 12 battleships, 8
heavy and 4 light cruisers, 66 destroyers and 36 transports. The force carried the 2nd Marine Division and a part of the Army's 27th Infantry Division, for a total of about 35,000 soldiers and Marines.
The naval forces opened fire on November 20, 1943, shelling
continually for over an hour and a half, stopping only briefly to allow dive bombers from
the carriers to operate against the fixed positions. Most of the larger Japanese guns were knocked out during this period. The
island was at most points only a few hundred yards wide, and the bombardment turned much of it into rubble. By the time of the
invasion, it was thought that no one would remain to defend what was left of the tiny island.
Remains of a US
M4A2 tank left stranded on Tarawa beach
The attack plan consisted of three major beaches along the northern coast of the island, Red 1 through 3; Red 1 on the extreme
west at the "toe" of the island and Red 3 to the east against the pier. Beaches Green and Black were the western base and
southern shore respectively, and not considered suitable for initial landings. The airstrip, running roughly east-west, divided
the island into north and south.
The Marines started their attack on the lagoon at 09:00, later than expected, and found themselves stuck on a reef some 500
yards off shore. Marine battle planners had allowed for Betio's neap tide and expected the normal rising tide to provide a water depth of five feet over the reef, allowing larger
landing craft, with drafts of at least four feet, to pass with room to spare. But that day and the next, in the words of some
observers, “the ocean just sat there,” leaving a mean depth of three feet over the reef. (The neap tide phenomenon occurs twice a
month when the moon is near its first or last quarter, because the countering tug of the sun causes water levels to deviate less.
But for two days the moon was at its farthest point from earth and exerted even less pull, leaving the waters relatively
undisturbed.)
The Japanese, hiding in deep shelters during the bombardment, quickly manned their guns when the naval fire stopped to allow
the Marines to unload. Japanese fire from the island soon started up, and the boats caught on the reef were soon burning. Troops
jumped out and started making their way ashore, under machine gun fire the entire time. The small number of Amtrac amphibious tractors were able to make it over the reef, with some difficulty, but many
were knocked out by larger guns as they climbed over, and half were out of action by the end of the day. The first wave was only
able to land a few men, who were pinned down against the log wall on the beach.
Several early attempts to land tanks and break through the wall failed when the landing craft were hit on the run in and
either sank or had to withdraw while taking on water. Two tanks eventually landed on the east end of the beach but were knocked
out of action fairly quickly. Three were able to land on the western end and helped push the line in to about 300 yards from
shore, but one of these fell into a shell hole and another was taken out by a magnetic mine.
The remaining tank was used as a portable machine gun pillbox for the rest of the day. A third platoon was able to land all four
of their tanks on Red 3 around noon and operate successfully for much of the day, but by the end of the day only one tank was
still operable.
By noon the Marines had successfully taken the beach as far as the first line of Japanese defences. By 15:30 the line had
moved inland in places but was still generally along the first line of defenses. The arrival of the tanks started the line moving
on Red 3 and the end of Red 2 (the right flank, looking south towards the island), and by nightfall the line was about half-way
across the island, only a short distance from the main runway.
During the later hours the Japanese defenders continued harassing fire. In one action, one of the Japanese Marines swam out to
one of the disabled amtracs and brought its .50 caliber machine gun into action against the rear of the Marine lines. By the time
the U.S. forces retook the vehicle, several men had been injured or killed.
November 21
With the Marines holding a line on the island, the second day turned to cutting the Japanese forces in two, by expanding the
bulge near the airfield until it reached the southern shore. Meanwhile the forces on Red 1 were instructed to secure Green beach,
the entire western end of the island.
In the end, taking Green proved somewhat easier than expected. With heavy resistance all through the area, the commander
decided to avoid direct combat and instead called in naval fire from offshore. Inching their way forward during the day, the
artillery spotters were able to take out machine gun posts and remaining defenses. After the fire stopped, the troops were able
to take the positions in about an hour with few losses.
Operations along Red 2 and Red 3 were considerably more difficult. During the night the defenders had set up several new
machine gun posts between the closest approach of the forces from the two beaches, and cut them off from each other for some
time. By noon the U.S. forces had brought up their own heavy machine guns, and the Japanese posts were put out of action. By the
early afternoon they had crossed the airstrip and had occupied abandoned defensive works on the south side.
A Marine from
1st Marine Division uses a flamethrower to clear a
path through what was once a thick jungle.
Around 13:00 a message arrived that some of the defenders were making their way across the sandbars from the extreme eastern
end of the islet to Bairiki, the next islet over. Portions of the 6th Marines were then ordered to land on Bairiki to seal off the retreat path. They
formed up, including tanks and pack artillery, and were able to start their landings at 16:55. They received machine gun fire, so
aircraft were sent in to try to locate the guns and suppress them. The force landed with no further fire, and it was later found
that only a single pillbox with 12 machine guns had been set up by the forces that had been assumed to be escaping. They had a
small tank of gasoline in their pillbox, and when it was hit with fire from the aircraft the entire force was burned. Meanwhile
other units of the 6th were sent onto Green north (near Red 1).
By the end of the day, the entire western end of the island was in U.S. control, as well as a fairly continual line between
Red 2 and 3 around the airfield aprons. A separate group had moved across the airfield and set up a perimeter on the southern
side, up against Black 2. The groups were not in contact with each other, with a gap of over 500 yards between the forces at Red
1/Green and Red 2, and the lines on the northern side inland from Red 2/Red 3 were not continuous. Nevertheless it is at this
point, as seen in retrospect, that the U.S. began to gain the advantage.
The atoll commander, Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki, was killed in his concrete command post, complicating Japanese command
issues.
November 22
The battle for the third day consisted primarily of the consolidation of existing lines and moving onshore of additional heavy
equipment and tanks. During the morning the forces originally landed on Red 1 made some progress towards Red 2 but at some cost.
Meanwhile the units of the 6th landed on Green to the south of Red 1 formed up while the remaining battalion of the 6th
landed.
By the afternoon the 1st Battalion 6th Marines was sufficiently organized
and equipped to start an offensive. At 12:30 they started and were soon pursuing the Japanese forces across the southern coast of
the island. By the late afternoon they had reached the eastern end of the airfield and formed a continuous line with the forces
that had landed on Red 3 two days earlier.
By the evening the U.S. clearly had the upper hand. The remaining Japanese forces were either squeezed into the tiny amount of
land to the east of the airstrip, or located in several pockets near Red 1/Red 2 or near the eastern edge of the airstrip.
Realizing this, the Japanese forces formed up for a counterattack, which started at about 19:30. Small units were sent in to
infiltrate the U.S. lines in preparation for a full-scale assault but were beaten off by concentrated artillery fire, and the
assault never took place. Another attempt was made at 23:00 and made some progress.
November 23
At 04:00 the expected assault finally took place, in the location of the earlier probe at 23:00 the night before. After the
battle ended about 1 hour later, 200 of the 300 men involved were found dead in front of the U.S. lines, the vast majority killed
by artillery fire. The Japanese had little left with which to defend the island.
Aftermath
Sign on Tarawa illustrates Marine humor and possible lack of optimism as to duration of war.
For the next several days the 2nd Battalion 6th Marines landed on Bairiki,
moved up the remaining islands in the atoll to clean up, completing this on November 28.
Portions of the 2nd Marine Division started leaving soon after and
were completely withdrawn by early 1944.
Only one Japanese officer, 16 enlisted and 129 Koreans were alive at the end of the battle. Total Japanese and Korean
casualties are about 4,713 killed in action. For the U.S. Marine Corps, 1,001 were killed and a further 2,296 wounded. Although
The United States's forces were seven times larger than the defending garrison, the Japanese were able to inflict substantial
damage upon the U.S. force. These heavy casualties sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the high losses
could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island in the middle of nowhere. The losses at Tarawa can be
explained by the difficulty of coordinating combined amphibious operations, one of the most demanding military missions. At the
time, Tarawa was the most heavily defended atoll invaded by Allied forces in the Pacific. Later the lessons learned at Tarawa
would pay off for the Marines in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
See also
References
Books
- Wukovitz, John (2007). One Square Mile of Hell:
The Battle for Tarawa. NAL Trade. ISBN 0451221389.
Web
- "Defense of
Betio Island," Intelligence Bulletin, U.S. War Department, March 1944.
- - The Assault of the Second Marine Division on Betio
Island, Tarawa Atoll, 20-23 November, 1943
- Timeline of the
Battle
- Eyewitnesstohistory.com - The
Bloody Battle of Tarawa
- Marines in World War II
Historical Monograph: The Battle for Tarawa
- Animated History of The Battle of
Tarawa
- Heinl, Robert D., and John A. Crown (1954). The Marshalls: Increasing the Tempo. USMC Historical Monograph. Historical Division,
Division of Public Information, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps. Retrieved on 2006-12-04.
- United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific), Naval Analysis Division (1946). Chapter IX:
Central Pacific Operations From 1 June 1943 to 1 March 1944, Including the Gilbert-Marshall Islands Campaign. The
Campaigns of the Pacific War. United States Government Printing Office. Retrieved on 2007-06-11.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Coordinates:
1°25′37.00″N, 172°58′32.00″E
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
