Time correspondent Robert Sherrod recorded his first impression of Shoup enroute to Betio: “He was an interesting character, this Colonel Shoup. A squat, red-faced man with a bull neck, a hard-boiled, profane shouter of orders, he would carry the biggest burden on Tarawa.” Another contemporary described Shoup as “a Marine’s Marine,” a leader the troops “could go to the well with.” First Sergeant Edward G. Doughman, who served with Shoup in China and in the Division Operations section, described him as “the brainiest, nerviest, best soldiering Marine I ever met.” It is no coincidence that Shoup also was considered the most formidable poker player in the division, a man with eyes “like two burn holes in a blanket.”
Part of Colonel Shoup’s Medal of Honor citation reflects his strength of character:
Upon arrival at the shore, he assumed command of all landed troops and, working without rest under constant withering enemy fire during the next two days, conducted smashing attacks against unbelievably strong and fanatically defended Japanese positions despite innumerable obstacles and heavy casualties.
Shoup was modest about his achievements. Another entry in his 1943 notebook contains this introspection, “I realize that I am but a bit of chaff from the threshings of life blown into the pages of history by the unknown winds of chance.”
David Shoup died on 13 January 1983 at age 78 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. “In his private life,” noted the Washington Post obituary, “General Shoup was a poet.”
The Third Day:
D+2 at Betio,
22 November 1943
On D+2, Chicago Daily News war correspondent Keith Wheeler released this dispatch from Tarawa: “It looks as though the Marines are winning on this blood-soaked, bomb-hammered, stinking little abattoir of an island.”
Colonel Edson issued his attack orders at 0400. As recorded in the division’s D-3 journal, Edson’s plan for D+2 was this: “1/6 attacks at 0800 to the east along south beach to establish contact with 1/2 and 2/2. 1/8 attached to 2dMar attacks at daylight to the west along north beach to eliminate Jap pockets of resistance between Beaches Red 1 and 2. 8th Mar (-LT 1/8) continues attack to east.” Edson also arranged for naval gunfire and air support to strike the eastern end of the island at 20-minute interludes throughout the morning, beginning at 0700. McLeod’s LT 3/6, still embarked at the line of departure, would land at Shoup’s call on Green Beach.
The key to the entire plan was the eastward attack by the fresh troops of Major Jones’ landing team, but Edson was unable for hours to raise the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, on any radio net. The enterprising Major Tompkins, assistant division operations officer, volunteered to deliver the attack order personally to Major Jones. Tompkins’ hair-raising odyssey from Edson’s CP to Green Beach took nearly three hours, during which time he was nearly shot on several occasions by nervous Japanese and American sentries. By quirk, the radio nets started working again just before Tompkins reached LT 1/6. Jones had the good grace not to admit to Tompkins that he already had the attack order when the exhausted messenger arrived.