The Deadly Spider Holes
Later accounts explained what the Marines ran into at Engebi—and what they did to keep their advance moving forward.
Those defenses were of the “spider web” type to which there were many entrances. They were constructed by knocking out the heads of empty gasoline drums and making an impromptu pipeline of them, sunk into the ground and covered with earth and palm fronds. The tunnels thus constructed branched off in several directions from a central pit and the whole emplacement was usually concealed with great skill and ingenuity. If the main position was spotted and attacked the riflemen within could crawl off fifty feet or so down one of the corridors and emerge at an entirely different and unexpected spot from which they could get off a shot and dive down to concealment before it was possible to determine whence the fire proceeded. Every foot of ground had to be gone over with the greatest precaution and alertness before these honeycombs of death could be silenced by the literal process of elimination.
The attacking Marines soon hit upon a method of destroying completely these underground defenses. When the bunker at the center of the web had been located, a member of the assault team would hurl a smoke grenade inside. Although this type of missile did no harm to the Japanese within, it released a cloud of vapor which rolled through the tunnels and escaped around the loosefitting covers of the foxholes.
Once the outline of the web was known, the bunker and all its satellite positions could be shattered with demolitions.
[Sidebar ([page 28]):]
The Secretary of the Navy
Washington
The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in commending the
Twenty-Second Marines, Reinforced, Tactical Group One,
Fifth Amphibious Corps
consisting of
Twenty-second Marines; Second Separate Pack Howitzer Company; Second Separate Tank Company; Second Separate Engineer Company; Second Separate Medical Company; Second Separate Motor Transport Company; Fifth Amphibious Corps Reconnaissance Company; Company D, Fourth Tank Battalion, Fourth Marine Division; 104th Field Artillery Battalion, U.S. Army; Company C, 766th Tank Battalion, U.S. Army; Company A, 708th Amphibian Tank Battalion, U.S. Army; Company D, 708th Provisional Amphibian Tractor Battalion, U.S. Army; and the Provisional DUKW Battery, Seventh Infantry Division, U.S. Army.
for service as follows:
“For outstanding heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces during the assault and capture of Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, from February 17 to 22, 1944. As a unit of a Task Force, assembled only two days prior to departure for Eniwetok Atoll, the Twenty-second Marines, Reinforced, landed in whole or in part on Engebi, Eniwetok and Parry Islands in rapid succession and launched aggressive attacks in the face of heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from well camouflaged enemy dugouts and foxholes. With simultaneous landings and reconnaissance missions on numerous other small islands, they overcame all resistance within six days, destroying a known 2,665 of the Japanese and capturing 66 prisoners. By their courage and determination, despite the difficulties and hardships involved in repeated reembarkations and landing from day to day, these gallant officers and men made available to our forces in the Pacific Area an advanced base with large anchorage facilities and an established airfield, thereby contributing materially to the successful conduct of the war. Their sustained endurance, fortitude and fighting spirit throughout this operation reflect the highest credit on the Twenty-second Marines, Reinforced, and on the United States Naval Service.”
All personnel attached to and serving with any of the above units during the period February 17 to 22, 1944, are authorized to wear the Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon.
Sources
All of the basic Marine histories for World War II contain detailed accounts of the Marshalls operation. This monograph represents a summary, supplemented by individual experiences drawn from the Personal Papers and Oral Histories Collections in the Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C.
Among the most useful were: 1stLt John C. Chapin, USMCR, The 4th Marine Division in World War II (Washington: Historical Division, HQMC, 1945); LtCol Robert D. Heinl, Jr., USMC, and LtCol John A. Crown, USMC, The Marshalls: Increasing the Tempo (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1954); Historical Division, HQMC. “The Marshall Islands Operations.” Unpublished draft, n.d. World War II—Marshall Islands Records File. Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C.; LtCol S. L. A. Marshall, AUS, Island Victory (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1944); Carl W. Proehl, ed., The Fourth Marine Division in World War II (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1946); Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive—History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, vol 3 (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1966).
In the Personal Papers Collection Unit, Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C., the following files have been useful: First Lieutenant John C. Chapin (PC 671); Master Sergeant Roger M. Emmons (PC 304); Private First Class Robert F. Graf (PC 1946); Princeton University Collection (PC 2216).
Transcripts of interviews in Oral History Collection, Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C.: BGen William W. Buchanan; BGen Melvin L. Krulewitch; Col William P. McCahill; MajGen William W. Rogers; LtGen James L. Underhill.
Other Titles
The following pamphlets in the Marines in World War II Commemorative Series are now in print: Opening Moves: Marines Gear Up For War; Infamous Day: Marines at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941; First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal; Outpost in the North Atlantic: Marines in the Defense of Iceland; A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island; Across the Reef: The Marine Assault of Tarawa; Up the Slot: Marines in the Central Solomons; Time of the Aces: Marine Pilots in the Solomons, 1942–1944.
About the Author
Captain John C. Chapin earned a bachelor of arts degree with honors in history from Yale University in 1942 and was commissioned later that year. He served as a rifle-platoon leader in the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division, and was wounded in action during assault landings on Roi-Namur and Saipan.
Transferred to duty at the Historical Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, he wrote the first official histories of the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions. Moving to Reserve status at the end of World War II, he earned a master’s degree in history at George Washington University with a thesis on “The Marine Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1922.”
Now a captain in retired status, he has been a volunteer at the Marine Corps Historical Center for 10 years. During that time, he wrote History of Marine Fighter-Attack (VMFA) Squadron 115. With support from the Historical Center and the Marine Corps Historical Foundation, he then spent some years researching and interviewing for the writing of a new book. Uncommon Men—The Sergeants Major of the Marine Corps. This was published in 1992 by the White Mane Publishing Company.
THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.
Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by a bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband, Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple Heart.
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
DIRECTOR Of MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Brigadier General Edwin K. Simmons, USMC (Ret)
GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
Benis M. Frank
CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
George C. MacGillivray
EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information
Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician
Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040
1994
PCN 190 003124 00
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
To make this eBook easier to read, particularly on handheld devices, most images have been made relatively larger than in the original pamphlet, and centered, rather than offset to one side or the other; and some were placed a little earlier or later than in the original. Sidebars in the original have been repositioned between chapters and identified as “[Sidebar (page nn):”, where the page reference is to the original location in the source book. In the Plain Text version, the matching closing right bracket follows the last line of the Sidebar’s text and is on a separate line to make it more noticeable. In the HTML versions, that bracket follows the colon, and each Sidebar is displayed within a box.
Page [11]: “infantry went into investigate” was printed that way; probably should be “in to”.
Page [13] (Sidebar “[Naval Support]”, originally on page [7]): “BB 13” is a misprint for “BB 43”.