By contrast, a sense of despair seemed to spread among the defenders. They had shot down the Marines at every turn, but with every fallen Marine, another would appear, rifle blazing, well supported by artillery and naval guns. The great Yogaki plan seemed a bust. Only a few aircraft attacked the island each night; the transports were never seriously threatened. The Japanese fleet never materialized. Increasingly, Japanese troops began committing suicide rather than risk capture.
Shoup sensed this shift in momentum. Despite his frustration over the day’s delays and miscommunications, he was buoyed enough to send a 1600 situation report to Julian Smith, which closed with these terse words that became a classic: “Casualties: many. Percentage dead: unknown. Combat efficiency: We are winning.”
At 1655, Murray’s 2/6 landed against light opposition on Bairiki. During the night and early morning hours, Lieutenant Colonel George Shell’s 2d Battalion, 10th Marines, landed on the same island and began registering its howitzers. Rixey’s fire direction center on Betio helped this process, while the artillery forward observer attached to Crowe’s LT 2/8 on Red Beach One had the unusual experience of adjusting the fire of the Bairiki guns “while looking into their muzzles.” The Marines had practiced this earlier on New Zealand. Smith finally had artillery in place on Bairiki.
Meanwhile, Major Jones and LT 1/6 were finally on the move. It had been a day of many false starts. At one point, Jones and his men had been debarking over the sides in preparation for an assault on the eastern end of the Betio when “The Word” changed their mission to Green Beach. When Feland finally returned to within reasonable range from the island, the Marines of LT 1/6 disembarked for real. Using tactics developed with the Navy during the Efate rehearsal, the Marines loaded on board LCVPs which towed their rubber rafts to the reef. There the Marines embarked on board their rafts, six to 10 troops per craft, and began the 1,000-yard paddle towards Green Beach.
LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection
Light tanks debark at the reef from LCMs launched by Harris (APA 2) and Virgo (AKA 20) to begin the 1,000-yard trek towards Green Beach the evening of D+1.
Major Jones remarked that he did not feel like “The Admiral of the Condom Fleet” as he helped paddle his raft shoreward. “Control was nebulous at best ... the battalion was spread out over the ocean from horizon to horizon. We must have had 150 boats.” Jones was alarmed at the frequent appearance of antiboat mines moored to coralheads beneath the surface. The rubber rafts passed over the mines without incident, but Jones also had two LVTs accompanying his ship-to-shore movement, each preloaded with ammo, rations, water, medical supplies, and spare radio equipment. Guided by the rafts, one of the LVTs made it ashore, but the second drifted into a mine which blew the heavy vehicle 10 feet into the air, killing most of the crew and destroying the supplies. It was a serious loss, but not critical. Well covered by Ryan’s men, the landing force suffered no other casualties coming ashore. Jones’ battalion became the first to land on Betio essentially intact.
It was after dark by the time Jones’ troops assumed defensive positions behind Ryan’s lines. The light tanks of Company B continued their attempt to come ashore on Green Beach, but the high surf and great distance between the reef and the beach greatly hindered landing efforts. Eventually, a platoon of six tanks managed to reach the beach; the remainder of the company moved its boats toward the pier and worked all night to get ashore on Red Beach Two. McLeod’s LT 3/6 remained afloat in LCVPs beyond the reef, facing an uncomfortable night.
That evening Shoup turned to Robert Sherrod and stated, “Well, I think we’re winning, but the bastards have got a lot of bullets left. I think we’ll clean up tomorrow.”