"I had to step on bodies to keep my head above water."
MARINES LAND ON TARAWA
by Tom Hennessy
It is to be another training exercise. Eighteen thousand men of the 2d Marine Division will sail from Wellington to another New Zealand locale called Hawkes Bay.
New Zealand's air force has been informed. Trucks have been rented to carry equipment. A thousand details have been attended to, as is always the case with training exercises.
But this is unique for one reason: It is a sham.
The training story was a cover; a security smoke screen to conceal the real event. Marines are not going to Hawkes Bay.
They are bound for an atoll, a chain of islands sitting virtually in the middle of the world; 90 miles north of the equator, about 400 miles west of the International Date Line.
They are bound for Tarawa.
The atoll's main island is Betio.
On it, the Japanese have built an airstrip. Barely. The island, a narrow, two-mile coral strand about as long as Belmont Shore is just large enough to accommodate the field.
Nearly 5,000 Japanese occupy Betio (pronounced BAY-shee-o). More than half are imperial Marines; tough, disciplined, well trained.
Every last defender on the island is committed to die for the emperor. All but 17 are about to do precisely that.
They have transformed tiny Betio into a fortress almost beyond description.
There are more than 100 pillboxes on the island's 291 acres.
There are bunkers of reinforced concrete, buried under coconut logs and sand.
There are machinegun posts with overlapping zones of fire. If one is attacked, it can be defended by another.
There are large guns protecting the approaches, including a quartet of eight-inch guns captured from the British at Singapore. 1
There are barbed wire fences in the lagoon, and concrete obstacles to steer invaders into the path of machine gun fire.
"A million men cannot take Tarawa in a thousand years," boasts the garrison commander, Rear Admiral Keijo Shibasaki.
But for all those defenses, the most fearful obstacle is not a product of Japanese ingenuity, but of nature. It is Tarawa's erratic tide.
A "dodging" tide. It is called, and it can remain in or out for an entire day; favoring invaders or defenders. Architects of the invasion know little about that tide.
It is low now. Getting lower. On any other day that might be worth no more than a notation in a mariner's log. But on this morning of November 20, 1943, the tide means a great deal.
It means a lot of Marines will die.
Bodies and wrecked amphibious tractors litter the beach on Betio Island. Of the first 500 Marines wading ashore, only one-third reached the island.
Long before dawn, landing craft move away from the larger transport ships, where Marines had breakfasted on steak and eggs. It is said to be a traditional pre-invasion menu, but it is one which soon will have battle surgeons shaking their heads in disbelief.
There are old-timers in this invasion force; men who fought at Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry, men who chased Sandino, the revolutionary, through the hills of Nicaragua.
But most of the invaders are kids or nearly kids. Some already have been to Guadalcanal. And whatever growing up they still have to do, they will do most of it in the next 76 hours.
Near the entrance to Tarawa's lagoon, the attack lines form. While it is still surprisingly cool, while a tropic breeze plays and a quarter moon peeks fretfully around passing clouds, guns begin to roar.
Japanese shore batteries open up first. Three battleships, Maryland, Colorado, and Tennessee, return the fire. Next U.S. warplanes, which have been bombing the island for days , take over. Then the ships resume.
The awesome bombardment lasts almost three hours. Later someone will measure it at nearly 10 tons of shells per Betio acre. The island is now a wall of smoke and flame.
Micheal Ryan, Marines, Los Angeles: (A major on Tarawa, he eventually rose to the rank of major-general.) "Most of us felt that five or six hours of very heavy bombardment would practically destroy the place and that we could walk across the beach.
"Not all of us felt that way, but I think in general, we underestimated the kind of punishment that a spongy, coconut-log defense covered with sand could take.
On the bridge of the troopship Ashland, an optimistic officer watches the bombardment, then says of his men, "They'll go in standing up. There aren't 50 Japanese left on that island."
He is about to be proven terribly wrong.
Billy Stockstill, Marines, Wilmington: "They had told us we'd have the island secured in about four hours....
"We got onto the reef and three of us in our amtrac got hit. I was about the first one. I got hit below the knee. The guy behind me got hit above the knee. Another guy got hit in the elbow.
"The amtrac backed off the reef and went out to the landing boats...They took us back to the troopship."
Stockstill's battle was over, but for the others it has hardly begun. Landing craft start in tentatively, but are driven back from the lagoon by shell fire. The invasion is falling behind schedule. And the tide is dropping lower, lower.
It is nearly 9 a.m. before the first of three initial assault waves (about 15,000 men) rumble toward the beach. The amtracs many of them are riding are revised descendants of vehicles designed for Florida's everglades.
Tarawa will be their testing ground. There are 125. At battle's end, there will be fifty.
A coral reef girds the lagoon. As the first amtracs cross it, the men inside them realize a terrible truth: the water is too shallow for the landing boats behind them.
Robert De Nully, Navy, Lakewood: "I thank God I was not one of those Marines sent ashore in that invasion.
We had 19 amtracs and crews of four men for each. All 19 went in that first day. That night, only one amtrac was left and only one member of that crew was left. They sent him back in after they repaired his amtrac. To this day, I wonder if that man survived."
In the lagoon, Marines begin to die.
There is nothing of Hollywood to this scene. Death in the warm lagoon water is neither dramatic nor, for the most part, slow. Men do not die with noble words on their lips.
An amtrac filled with Marines is there one second. And gone in the next. It is that simple, that terrible.
Rodger Williams, Marines, Las Vegas Nevada: "I was a flamethrower and went in on the first wave. Our amtrac went in and got hit on the seawall. The nose actually went right up the wall. We got put and went over it.
"I stopped 11 pieces of shrapnel the first day and on the second I got hit in the back of the leg with a .25 caliber slug. But I am no hero or anything like that. I was scared. Anybody who says he wasn't, is a liar."
Many Marines are not faring as well as Williams.
While some in the lagoon are killed in the raking fire of bullets, others are drowning under the weight of their equipment.
Before the invasion, the beach had been divided, on paper, into three sections, coded Red Beach 1,2, and 3.
Those trying desperately to get to those assigned beaches find that the island offers only two fragile sanctuaries. One is the four foot high, coconut log seawall that Williams' amtrac manages to mount. The other is a wooden pier extending 500 feet into the lagoon.
James P. Gardner, Navy, Lakewood: "I was landing Marines on Red Beach 2 in the first wave. By the time we hit that coral reef, the tide was about halfway out.
"I got up this so-called boat channel next to the pier...but I lost my LCVP and crew to mortar fire. I got out. I think some of the Marines were wounded but I don't remember how many. It was a mess.
"We got under that old pier and stayed there three or four hours. I finally got back out on another boat."
Some men reached the seawall, crouching behind it for cover. The wall becomes a psychological barrier. Men know they will have to go over it if the island is to be captured.
A few raise their rifles over it and are killed.
Others huddle under the pier, part of which is burning.
Of the men in the first wave, less than a third will set foot on Betio.
"We got up against that log wall. I looked at the men around me and it seemed like about 75 percent of them were wounded. I was lucky I didn't get a scratch." Herbert Reagan.
This Japanese soldier was one of the few who surrendered to Marines following the battle of Tarawa.Joseph W. Souza, Marine machine gunner, Salinas: "I was in the first wave...My assistant was hit. I had to have a rifleman feed me my ammo and keep my .50 caliber firing. It never stopped until every Marine was out of our amtrac. Then I jumped out. Before getting to the beach our last gunner was hit also.
"Tarawa atoll. Blood and death. Hell on earth."
Successive invasion waves start into the lagoon. On and on, one after another.
By now, the damnable tide has left only inches of water over the reef. Men look for amtracs to take them ashore. But few amtracs are getting through.
As if the fire from the beach is not murderous enough, Marines are also being shot by Japanese machine-gunners positioned on the wreckage of a ship.
Another horrible realization: they are caught in a cross fire.
John O'Conner, Marines, Long Beach: "I was in the forth wave reserve. We were supposed to go in...that afternoon. But then we were told they needed firepower in the morning. So I wound up in either the second or third wave, aboard an amtrac.
"When we ran into cross fire, we knew we were in trouble. I was looking for a spot where we could land. There were flames and smoke everywhere. You could feel the bottom drop out from the pit of your stomach. We knew we were in trouble."
Terrible trouble.
A moment later, O'Conner is wounded. He spends much of the day stretched out on the beach, waiting to die. Eventually, mercifully, he is taken out to a ship. For John O'Conner, the war has ended.
There are several hundred terrifying yards between the incoming Marines and the beach. Along the way, some lose helmets and weapons and vital gear. They arrive on the beach, if they arrive at all, empty-handed.
Gus Hughes, Marines, Riverside: "We came in alongside the pier. I had a radio on my back and I'm short so I was having trouble. They strung a rope along there so we could hold onto it, but it kept jumping up and down.
"We were running into the buddies of Marines who had been killed. I kind of hated to do it, but I had to step on the bodies to keep my head above the water.
"We got the radio in, but when we were on the beach I saw that there was a bullet hole in it."
U.S. Marines prepare to hoist the American flag over the battle-scarred island of Betio in the Gilbert Islands following the bloody battle for control of Tarawa.
There is two-way traffic in the lagoon now; invaders coming in, wounded and dead going out, lying on the few remaining amtracs or slung across rubber boats.
Some of the wounded are re-wounded by fire fro the island.
On the beach, there are Marines without rifles. And rifles without Marines. A few of the latter are rounded up and pushed, bayonet first, into the sand. From them, plasma bottles are strung, with rubber tubes leading to the arms of the wounded who can be reached by Navy corpsman.
Herbert Reagan, Marines, Norwalk: "Amtracs on both sides of me got knocked out. I jumped out of our amtrac. I started back to get another load and it got knocked out too.
"We got up against the log wall. I looked at the men around me and it seemed like about 75 percent of them were wounded. I was lucky I didn't get a scratch."
Reagan is worried about more tan his own safety. Somewhere in that hellfire beach is his older brother Louis.
A few tanks get ashore, but some are unable to thread their way past the human litter of dead and wounded. They back out into the water. And start in again.
Meanwhile, some Marines manage t get over the seawall. A few even get as far as the landing strip.
Albert L. Diensdorf, Marines, Bellflower: "You couldn't see anything. There was all this smoke and everything and you couldn't see what you were shooting at....
"This other guy and I took off across this fighter strip and we got hit with machine-gun bursts. It cut him in two just about and caught me in the shoulder.
"I was picked up by a couple of Marines who dragged me back. They got me back to the beach and later I was taken out to a combination troopship and hospital ship."
Before day ends, the lime colored lagoon is crimson.
Before day ends, a few dead are being buried on Betio. Hours earlier, when it was thought there would be little resistance, there had been a plan to evacuate the dead to a nearby island for burial.
But that plan has been abandoned. On Betio, they cannot even evacuate all the wounded.
Charles F. Galligan, Navy, Long Beach. (He was aboard the USS Washington, some distance from Tarawa.) "They had for want of better words a p.a. system. They would pipe the radio transmissions from the beach over the p.a. system. We could hear the situation as it was on the beach after the initial landing. We could hear the calls for more help.
"Everybody on board was saying we should have gone in their with our 16-inch guns instead of leaving the job to the older battleships with 14 inch guns."
There is an eerie backdrop to the carnage of battle, a postcard sunset.
Red sun. Red lagoon.
Night falls. The Marines have established a beachhead. But it is tenuous, measured in some places by feet.
Marines gather weapons, ammunition and canteens from comrades who no longer need them. The living hunker down among the dead.
And wait. Night counterattacks are a trademark of Japanese warfare.
Darrel Albers, Marines, Yorba Linda: "We very much expected a counterattack.... I don't think I got much sleep that first night. Nobody, in fact, slept or ate. We survived pretty much on cigarettes.
At one point, it was my turn to go get a light. We had no matches and there was an ice house burning near us. I started for it and came across this dead Japanese guy. It must have been the heat or something suddenly caused his arm to move. I was never so scared in my life."
The counterattack does not come. Japanese communications lines, strung above ground, have been shredded by the shelling.
Admiral Shibasaki will later be able to send a farewell message to the outside world. Right now he cannot communicate with enough of his men on Betio to mount a counterattack.
Through the night, there are cries of "Corpsman!" When the Navy medics answering these cries run out of supplies, they strip first-aid kits from the dead.
When those, too, are gone, there is nothing else to give the wounded. Except whispered words of comfort.
Tarawa's second morning is almost a carbon copy of the first.
There is one difference, however. It may even be worse.
Bill Crumpacker, Marines, Fresno: "We Spent 24 hours circling in our boats. When we got out on the reef the second morning, half the guys were seasick.
"They started firing at us. Dean Ladd, our lieutenant, got one in the stomach and a friend of mine got hit between the eyes. They were firing from an old ship and the pier and the island, from three sides....
"I figured the only way I could get in was underwater. I kept going underwater for the 30 or 40 seconds at a time. It probably took me two hours to get in. We had oilskin cloths to put our cigarettes in to keep them dry. I remember thinking, 'If my cigarettes are wet, I'm really going to be annoyed.' "
Of the first 200 men who enter the lagoon on the second morning, only 90 get to Betio.
Others press forward behind them. Wave after invasion wave. Hour after hour.
It is not enough. Col. David Shoup, commanding the forces on Betio, radios Gen. Julian Smith, commanding general of the 2nd Division: "The situation ashore doesn't look good."
Clarence Shanks, Marines, Phoenix, Az. "They dropped us off about 200 yards from the beach. Fire was hitting the boat and around the boat. My platoon sergeant was right next to me. I saw him disappear into the water.
"About half way in, I ducked down behind some coral, but immediately realized the Japanese were firing at us from behind, from the wreck of this old ship.
"I got up and kept going."
At last the battle is turning. More machine-gun posts are being destroyed. More men are coming ashore. Others edge toward the airstrip. Into it. Across it.
The Japanese forces on Betio have been cut in two.
Shoup radios a more hopeful message. "Casualties many; percentage dead unknown; combat efficiency; we are winning."
There is another certain, but macabre sign of impending victory: Japanese troops, for whom surrender means disgrace, are beginning to kill themselves.
By morning of the third day, Shibasaki has written his final message for Tokyo: "Our weapons have been destroyed and from now on everyone is attempting a final charge.... May Japan exist for 10,000 years."
But still Americans die. As they cross Betio, a doomed Japanese defender wriggles under a U.S. tank. He blows himself up and the vehicle with him.
The battle's last hours are a grim composite of clearing out bunkers (with gasoline and grenades) and chasing the few remaining and retreating Japanese through the chain of islands.
Leon Uris, Marines, Aspen Col.: "We went in on D plus 2 (the third day). We waded in. We had to pass the floating bodies of dead Marines. It was...well, how the hell can you describe it?
"Things had already swung around pretty heavily for the Marines. We had to chase the Japanese around the atoll. They were bottled up as a force....
"We had a sharp one day battle in which I think, we killed the entire force or what was left of it, and took moderate casualties compared to what the rest of the division had taken."
Around noon, Nov. 23, a radioman on the eastern tip of the island sends a message, "Betio has fallen."
Victory, when it finally comes, is tempered by a scene as horrifying as imagination can produce. It seemed almost scripted to fit Gen. William Sherman's time worn lecture on war. "There is a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell."
At the end of 76 hours, there is not much glory on Tarawa. And no boys.
There is an abundance of hell.
Ralph Smith, Navy, Lakewood. (He would remain on Betio almost until war's end.) "The island was just all beat up. Palm trees were down. The dead, Marines and Japanese, were everywhere. Equipment was demolished. There were landing craft on the beach that had been blown up.
"The whole island was just potted with bomb holes and mortar holes. They used the bomb craters to bury the dead."
Men who, 76 hours earlier, were green recruits had earned the right to call themselves combat veterans.
And those who thought themselves hardened veterans learned on Tarawa that they were vulnerable after all.
T. Roy Thaxton, Marines, Loganville, Ga. "During the battle, I can't honestly say I was afraid. But when I went out and climbed the net to our ship, I got about three quarters of the way up and froze. I had a fear all of a sudden that I was going to fall off the net and I had climbed that net a hundred times.
"I passed out on the net.
"That's what Tarawa was like. The emotional part came after the battle.
(Note: All of the veterans quoted in the above story will take part in the Tarawa Monument Dedication and or the 10 day Tarawa Monument Honor Guard.)
