Betio is an island at the extreme southwest of South Tarawa in Kiribati. The main port of Tarawa Atoll is located there.
The island is most well known as the scene of the Battle of Tarawa during World War II.[1] Relics of the Japanese invasion, and the subsequent American assault on the islet in 1943, remain there. The Japanese airstrip no longer exists, but its effect can be seen in the stunted growth of palms along its length. Many bunkers remain, as well as the wrecks of military equipment.
It was also the scene of a massacre by beheading of New Zealand and Fijian civilians by Japanese forces prior to the US landings.[2] The massacre may have been in retaliation for assistance given to the escape of seamen from the captured merchant ship Nimanoa (also sometimes written as Niminoa).[3] These seamen had been captured by the Japanese at the start of the Pacific War when their ship was scuttled in Betio harbour to prevent its use by the invading Japanese forces.[4] The partly submerged hulk of the Nimanoa would later be used as a machine gun post by the Japanese against the US forces that re-took Tarawa.[5]
The seamen escaped in a small, open boat[5] that they sailed to Fiji. News of the massacre was covered up by British authorities at the time to the extent that New Zealand and Fijian governments were prevented from informing the families of the men killed of their deaths. However, persistent rumours eventually reached the families and it has been proposed that the shooting of Japanese prisoners held in a New Zealand POW camp was done in retaliation for this massacre. The New Zealand camp guard who fired on the Japanese prisoners during the prison riot was the brother of one of the civilians massacred on Betio.[6][1]
Since the 1970s, the islet has become increasingly more crowded, being the main centre of economic activity in Kiribati, and the construction of the causeway to Bairiki in the early 1980s exacerbated this. Betio has a similar population density to Hong Kong and is the densest urban settlement in the Pacific Islands.[7]
Unexploded artillery shells, mortar rounds, anti-aircraft shells and live machine gun bullets are found all over the island and surrounding reef. There are also remains of several hundred U.S. and Japanese soldiers still buried on the island.
References in Popular Culture
One of the American missions on Battlestations: Pacific sees you supporting the Marines who are going to take over the island.
The last mission set of Medal of Honor:Pacific Assault is set during the Battle of Tarawa, where the player plays the role of a U.S. marine.
Both games feature the merchant ship and the pier.
Betio is depicted in the Franco-Belgian comics named after the Battle of Tarawa by Jean-Michel Charlier and Victor Hubinon.
References
- ^ a b "Betio (Tarawa)". Pacific Wrecks.
- ^ Source: Australian National Archives; Report on Japanese atrocities at Tarawa, Gilbert and Ellice Islands (execution of European prisoners at Betio, Tarawa on or about 15 October 1942), compiled by Major DCI Wernham, District Officer, Gilbert Islands, supplied to Australian government by High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, February 1944
- ^ Resture, Jane. "War in the Pacific"
- ^ "Niminoa". Pacific Wrecks.
- ^ a b "Scuttled Ship "Niminoa"". Tarawa on the Web: The Assault of the Second Marine Division on Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, 20-23 November, 1943.
- ^ Source: NZ National Archives
- ^ Nadkarni, Dev. "An ailing island in the sun". NZ Herald. October 25, 2008.
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