On the first night...
"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 tht suddenly caused his arm to move. I was never so scared in my life."
Reprinted with permission.
Source: Tom Hennessey, "Remembering Tarawa," Press Telegram, 26 June 1988, p.5.
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