National Archives Photo 127-N-72407
Two more tasks remained for the 4th Division; the first was mopping up the rest of the islets in the northern two-thirds of the atoll. The 25th Marines, which had supported the attacks of the 23d and 24th, took off on a series of island-hopping trips on board their LVTs. The regiment checked out more of the exotically named islets such as Boggerlapp, Marsugalt, Gegibu, Oniotto, and Eru. The 25th found no resistance and by D plus 7 it had covered all 50 of the islets that were its objectives. This assignment was a total change from what the regiment had experienced around Roi-Namur. One writer, Carl W. Proehl, described the expedition this way:
It was on this junket that the men of the 25th got to know the Marshall Island natives, for it was these Marines who freed them from Japanese domination. On many islets, bivouacking overnight, the natives and Marines got together and sang hymns; the Marshall Islanders had been Christianized many years before, and missionaries had taught them such songs as “Onward Christian Soldiers.” K rations and cigarettes also made a big hit with them. And more than one Marine sentry, walking post in front of a native camp, took up the islander’s dress and wore only a loin cloth—usually a towel from a Los Angeles hotel.
The final task that remained for the division was a miserable one. Roi and Namur were littered with dead Japanese; the stench was overpowering as their bodies putrefied in the blazing tropical sun. All hands, officers and enlisted, were put to work day and night on burial details. “Hey, I just finished two days of brutal combat! We don’t have any gloves or equipment for this!”—“Too bad, just start doing it anyway!” Health conditions were so bad that 1,500 men in the division were suffering from dysentery when the troops finally reboarded transports for the journey back to their rear base at Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.
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Naval Support
The infantry assault units in the Marshalls operations were carried by an incredible array of ships designed to perform very specialized functions. Also included were converted destroyers. The amphibian tractors carried the invading Marines in to the beaches, supplemented by the older ramped landing craft. Added to these were a jumble of acronyms: LCI, LST, LSM, etc., for infantry, rockets, tanks, and trucks.
No landings would have been successful, however, without the crucial support of naval gunfire and aerial bombardment. The fast task force that roamed the Pacific and the support groups which stood off the island objectives were visual proof of the deadly striking power that had been reborn in the U.S. Navy in the two years since the debacle at Pearl Harbor. Nearly all the old, slow battleships which had lain shattered in the mud were back in action, and now were joined by brand new, fast counterparts, and the familiar old peacetime carriers were now supplemented by a steady flow of new fleet carriers and the innovation of smaller escort carriers.
This is the roll call of the ships which poured in their fire before and during the landings: