Tarawa Today
Tarawa is one of the few Pacific battlefields that remained essentially unchanged for the half century that followed World War II. Visitors to Betio Island can readily see wrecked American tanks and LVTs along the beaches, as well as the ruins of Japanese gun emplacements and pill boxes. Admiral Shibasaki’s imposing concrete bunker still stands, seemingly as impervious to time as it was to the battleship guns of Task Force 53. The “Singapore Guns” still rest in their turrets overlooking the approaches to the island. A few years ago, natives unearthed a buried LVT containing the skeletons of its Marine Corps crew, one still wearing dog tags.
General David M. Shoup was recalled from retirement to active duty for nine days in 1968 to represent the United States at the dedication of a large monument on Betio, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the battle. As Shoup later told The National Observer, “My first reaction was that Betio had shrunk a great deal. It seems smaller in peace than in war.” As he toured the ruined fortifications, Shoup recalled the savage, desperate fighting and wondered “why two nations would spend so much for so little.” Nearly 6,000 Japanese and Americans died on the tiny island in 76 hours of fighting.
Twenty years after Shoup’s dedication ceremony, the American memorial had fallen into disrepair; indeed, it was in danger of being torn down to make room for a cold-storage plant for Japanese fishermen. A lengthy campaign by the 2d Marine Division Association and Long Beach-journalist Tom Hennessy raised enough funds to obtain a new, more durable monument, a nine-ton block of Georgia granite inscribed “To our fellow Marines who gave their all.” The memorial was dedicated on 20 November 1988.
Betio is now part of the new Republic of Kiribati. Tourist facilities are being developed to accommodate the large number of veterans who wish to return. For now, the small island probably resembles the way it appeared on D-Day, 50 years ago. American author James Ramsey Ullman visited Tarawa earlier and wrote a fitting eulogy: “It is a familiar irony that old battlefields are often the quietest and gentlest of places. It is true of Gettysburg. It is true of Cannae, Chalons, Austerlitz, Verdun. And it is true of Tarawa.”
Sources
Much of this history is based on first-hand accounts as recorded by the surviving participants. One rich source is contained in the USMC archives maintained by the Washington National Records Group in Suitland, Maryland. Of special value are the 2d Marine Division’s Operations Order 14 (25Oct43) and Special Action Report (6Jan44). Other useful documents in the archives include the combat reports of 2d Tank Battalion and 2d Amphibian Tractor Battalion; the Division D-3 Journal for 20–24Nov43; the D-2 POW Interrogation Reports; “comments on equipment and procedures” by the battalion commanders; and the exhaustive intelligence report, “Study of Japanese Defenses on Betio Island” (20Dec43). The Marine Corps Historical Center’s Personal Papers Collection contains Colonel Shoup’s combat notebook, as well as his after-action report, comments during the Pearl Harbor conference on LVTs, comments on draft histories in 1947 and 1963, and his remarks for the record at various anniversaries of the battle. A lengthy account of the Betio assault is found in the transcript of Colonel Merritt Edson’s briefing to the staff officers of the Marine Corps Schools after the battle (6Jan44). The Personal Papers Collection also includes worthwhile Tarawa accounts by General Julian C. Smith, 2dLt George D. Lillibridge, 1stLt Frank Plant, and LtCol Russell Lloyd, used herein.
Other useful Tarawa information can be gleaned from the MCHC’s Oral History Collection, which contains recollections by such participants as General Smith; Eugene Boardman; Major Henry P. Crowe; Staff Sergeant Norman Hatch; Brigadier General Leo Hermle; Admiral Harry Hill, USN; Captain Carl Hoffman; Major Wood Kyle; Major William K. Jones; and Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L. Murray. Other contemporary accounts include newspaper essays written by war correspondents on the scene, such as Robert Sherrod, Richard Johnston, Keith Wheeler, and Earl Wilson.
The author also benefitted from direct correspondence with four retired Marines who served with valor at Tarawa: Lieutenant General William K. Jones; Major General Michael P. Ryan; Sergeant Major Lewis J. Michelony, Jr.; and Master Sergeant Edward J. Moore. Further, the author gratefully acknowledges the donation of two rare photographs of the Japanese garrison on Betio by the 2d Marine Division Association.
Errata
Please make the following changes in the World War II 50th anniversary commemorative monograph noted:
Opening Moves: Marines Gear Up For War
Page 16, the correct armament for the Grumann F4F Wildcat is two .50-caliber machine guns mounted in each wing instead of four.
First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal
Page 43, the correct hull number for the cruiser Atlanta should be CL(AA) 51 instead of CL 104.
Outpost in the Atlantic: Marines in the Defense of Iceland
Photographs accredited to the Col Chester M. Craig Collection should be accredited instead to the Col Clifton M. Craig Collection.
Page 5, sidebar on “Uniforms and Equipment”—the enlisted Marine wore an almost black cow-skin belt called a “fair leather belt” instead of “... a wide cordovan leather ‘Peter Bain’” belt.
Page 8 and passim, the British division based on Iceland was the 49th Division, not the 79th Division.
About the Author
Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam. He earned an undergraduate degree in history from the University of North Carolina and masters’ degrees in history and government from Georgetown and Jacksonville. He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College, a member of the Society for Military History, and a life member of the Marine Corps Historical Foundation.
Colonel Alexander, an independent historian, is the author of military essays published in Marine Corps Gazette, Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, Leatherneck, Amphibious Warfare Review, and Florida Historical Quarterly. He is co-author (with Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of “Sea Soldiers in the Cold War” (Naval Institute Press, accepted).
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.
Printing costs for this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by the Defense Department World War II Commemoration Committee. 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 H. 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. 20374-0580
1993
PCN 190 003120 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, some 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 [13]: “ran of gas” is a misprint for “ran out of gas”.
Page [14]: “executive office, Major Howard Rice” is a misprint for “officer”.
Page [48]: Opening quotation mark added before “The sight of”.
Page [49]: “before the lines become too” probably is a misprint for “became”.
Page [50]: “100 of Hays men” probably is missing a possessive apostrophe.