by Daniel Wrinn
Colonel Shoup noticed the shift in momentum. Despite his frustration over the miscommunications and delays, he was in good spirits. He sent a situation report to General Smith at 1600—with a famous last line: “Casualties: many. Percentage dead: unknown. Combat efficiency: We are winning.”
At 1655, the 2/6 landed on Bairiki against light opposition. During the night, the 2/10 landed on the same island and began firing its howitzers. Rixey’s fire direction center on Betio helped this process. The forward artillery observer, attached to Major Crowe’s 2/8 on Red Beach One, adjusted the fire of the Bairiki guns he’d practiced on in New Zealand. General Smith finally had artillery in place on Bairiki.
Meanwhile, the 1/6 were finally on the move. After a day of many false starts, the Marines prepared for their assault mission, which General Smith had changed from the east end to Green Beach. When the Feland returned to within a reasonable range, the 1/6 Marines disembarked. They used the tactics developed with the Navy during the rehearsal on Efate. The men loaded onboard the Higgins boat’s, which towed their rubber raft to the beach. The Marines embarked on board the rafts with up to ten troops per craft and began the 1,000-yard paddle toward Green Beach.
Major “Willie K.” Jones, commander of the 1/6 Marines, later remarked that he did not feel like the “admiral of the condom fleet,” as he helped paddle his raft shoreward. He noted that his battalion was spread out over the ocean from horizon to horizon. Major Jones was alarmed at the frequent appearance of anti-boat mines moored to the coral heads beneath the surface, endangering his 150 rubber rafts.
His rafts passed over the mines without incident. Jones also had two LVTs accompanying his ship to shore movement, each preloaded with rations, ammo, water, medical supplies, and spare radio equipment. While guided in by the rafts, one of the LVTs made it ashore, but the second drifted into a mine that blew the heavy vehicle ten feet in the air, killed most of the crew, and destroyed all of the supplies. It was a severe but not critical loss. The landing force suffered no other casualties coming ashore, thanks to Major Ryan’s men. Jones’ battalion was the first to land intact on Betio.
It was well after dark by the time Major Jones assumed his defensive positions behind Major Ryan’s lines. The light tanks of Company B continued their attempt to come ashore on Green Beach. Because of the high surf and the distance between the reef, the beach hindered the landing effort. While a platoon of six tanks eventually reached the beach, the rest of the company moved its boats toward the pier and worked all night to get ashore onto Red Beach Two. The 3/6 Marines remained afloat in Higgins boats beyond the reef for an uncomfortable night.
That evening Colonel Shoup turned to war correspondent Robert Sherrod and said: “We’re winning, but the bastards have a lot of bullets left. I think we should clean it all up tomorrow.”
After dark, General Smith sent Colonel Edson ashore to command all Betio and Bairiki forces. Colonel Shoup had done a magnificent job, but it was now time for the senior colonel to take command. Edson had two artillery battalions and eight reinforced infantry battalions deployed on the two islands. The 3/6 Marines were scheduled to land early on D +2. Virtually all combat and support elements of the 2nd Marine Division would now be deployed.
Edson found Shoup’s command post at 2030. He greeted the barrel-chested warrior still on his feet, haggard and grimy but full of fight. Colonel Edson took command and allowed Colonel Shoup to concentrate on his own reinforced combat team, and they began making plans for the next morning.
Years later, General Julian Smith looked back on the pivotal day of November 21, 1943, and wrote: “We were losing until we won. Many things went wrong, and the Japanese inflicted severe casualties on us, but from this point on, the issue was no longer in doubt at Tarawa.”
D +2 at Betio
War correspondent Keith Wheeler from the Chicago Daily News sent this dispatch from Tarawa on D +2: “It looks like the Marines are winning on this blood-soaked, bomb-hammered, stinking little island.”
Colonel Edson’s plan of attack on D +2 was to have the 1/6 Marines attack eastward along south beach and link up with the 1/2 and 2/2. He issued his attack orders at 0400 and attached the 1/8 to the 2nd Division Marines. They were to attack at daylight to the west along north beach and eliminate all Japanese resistance pockets between Red Beach One and Two. After that, the 1/8 would continue the attack east.
Edson arranged for air support and naval gunfire to strike the eastern end of the island at twenty-minute intervals throughout the morning. The 3/6 Marines were still embarked at the line of departure and would await Colonel Shoup’s call on Green Beach.
The key to the success of this plan was an eastward attack by fresh troops from Major Jones’ landing team. Colonel Edson could not raise the 1/6 on any radio net and sent his assistant division operations officer, Major Tompkins, to deliver the attack order in person to Jones. Major Tompkins’ odyssey from the command post to Green Beach took over three hours. He was almost shot, several times, by Japanese snipers and nervous American sentries. The radio net started to work again just before Tompkins reached the 1/6 Marines. Major Jones later wrote he never told Tompkins he already had the attack order when the exhausted messenger arrived.
Major Hays promptly launched his attack at 0700 on Red Beach Two. He attacked westward on a three company front. His engineers used Bangalore torpedoes and satchel charges to neutralize many inland Japanese positions. But the strongpoints along the re-entrant were a deadly and veritable hornet’s nest. Light Marine tanks made courageous frontal attacks against the Japanese fortifications. The tanks fired their 37mm guns point-blank at the Japanese fortifications, but were inadequate for the task. One tank was destroyed because of enemy fire, and the other two withdrew. Major Hays called for a section of 75mm half-tracks. One half-track was lost instantly, but the others used their more massive guns to considerable advantage.
The left flank and center companies curved around behind the main Japanese strongpoints, cutting the enemy off from the rest of the island. Along the beach, the progress was measured in yards. A small Japanese party tried a sortie from the strong points against the Marine lines. Now the Marines were finally given actual targets in the open—they cut the Japanese down in short order.
Major Jones made his final preparations for the assault to the east on Green Beach, with the 1/6 Marines. He had access to several light tanks available from the platoon that came ashore the prior evening. Major Jones preferred the medium tanks’ effectiveness and borrowed two medium battle-scarred Sherman’s from Ryan for the assault. Major Jones ordered the tanks to range no further than fifty yards ahead of his lead company. He personally kept in radio contact with the tank commander. Jones assigned a platoon of .30-caliber water-cooled machine guns to each rifle company and attached combat engineers with flamethrowers and demolition squads. Due to the nature of the terrain and the necessity for giving Major Hays’ battalion a wide berth, Jones constrained his attack to a zone of only one-hundred yards wide. In his words: “This was one of the most unusual tactics I’d ever heard of. As I moved to the east on one side of the airfield, Larry Hays moved to the west of me, exactly opposite.”
Major Jones’ plan was well executed. He had the advantage of a fresh tactical unit in place with integrated supporting arms. The 1/6 Marine landing team made rapid progress along the south coast, killing over two hundred Japanese defenders. American casualties were light at this point, and he reached the thin lines held by the 2/2 and the 1/2 in less than three hours.
Colonel Shoup called Major Jones to his command post at 1100 to brief him on the afternoon plan of action. Major Jones’ XO, Major Francis Beamer, was to take and replace the lead rifle company. Enemy resistance had stiffened, and the company commander had just been shot and killed by a sniper. The oppressive heat was taking its toll on the Marines. While Beamer made superhuman efforts to get more salt tablets and water for his men, several of his troops had fallen out and become victims of heatstroke. First
Sergeant Lewis Michelony later wrote: “Tarawa’s sands were as white as snow and as hot as red white ashes from a heated furnace.”
On Green Beach, only 800 yards behind the 1/6 Marines, the landing team of the 3/6 Marines streamed to shore. While the landing took several hours to execute, it was uncontested. Not until 1100 did Jones’ lead elements link up with the 2nd Marines before the 3/6 were fully established onshore.
The 8th Marines attack order was the same as the previous day: attack Japanese strong points to the east. These obstacles were just as difficult on D +2. Three of the Japanese fortifications were especially formidable:
A steel pillbox near the contested pier
A large bombproof shelter further inland
A coconut log emplacement with multiple machine guns
All three obstacles had been designed by the master engineer, Admiral Saichiro. These strongpoints, mutually supported by fire and observation, had effectively contained the combined Marine forces of the 3/8 and the 2/8 since the assault on D-Day.
Major Crowe reorganized his tired forces into another assault. The former marksmanship instructor got cans of lubricating oil out and made his troops field strip and clean their M1s before the attack. Crowe placed his Battalion XO, Major William Chamberlin, in the center of the three attacking. Chamberlin was a former college economics professor and was no less dynamic than his red mustached commander. Still nursing a painful wound in his shoulder received at D-Day, Chamberlin was a major player in the repetitive assaults against the three Japanese strong points. First Sergeant Michelony later wrote about Chamberlin: “He was a wild man, a guy anybody would be willing to follow.”
Chamberlin took his mortar crew and scored a direct hit on top of the coconut log emplacement at 0930. He penetrated the bunker and detonated the ammunition stocks. It was a stroke of great fortune for the Marines. At the same time, the medium tank Colorado penetrated the steel pillbox with its 75mm guns. Now, two of the three emplacements were overrun.
The massive bombproof shelter was still lethal. Flanking attacks were getting shot to pieces before they could gather any momentum. The solution was to get to the top of the sand-covered mound and drop thermite grenades or explosives down the air vents to force the Japanese outside. This formidable task went to Major Chamberlin, Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman, and a squad of combat engineers.
Machine gunners and riflemen opened up a sheet of fire against the strongpoint’s firing ports. Bonnyman led a small band and raced across the sands up the steep slope. The Japanese knew they were in mortal danger. Dozens of them poured out of the rear entrance, attacking the Marines on top. A Marine stepped forward and emptied his flamethrower into the onrushing Japanese—then charged them with an M1 carbine. The Marine was shot dead and his body rolled down the slope. But other Marines were inspired to overcome the Japanese counterattack.
The remaining combat engineers rushed to place explosives against the rear entrances. Hundreds of demoralized Japanese broke out in panic and fled eastward; the Marines shot them to pieces. The tank crew fired one “dream shot” canister round. It killed at least twenty Japanese.
Lieutenant Bonnyman’s bravery resulted in a posthumous Medal of Honor. The third to be awarded to the Marines on Betio. His single-handed sacrifice almost ended the stalemate on Red Beach Three. There’s no coincidence that two of these highest awards were received by combat engineers. The bravery and courage under fire represented hundreds of other engineers on only a slightly less spectacular basis. Almost an entire third of the combat engineers who landed in support of the 2/8 ended up as casualties. According to Second Lieutenant Beryl W. Rentel, the surviving combat engineers used: “Eight cases of TNT, eight cases of gelatin dynamite, and two 54-pound blocks of TNT to destroy Japanese fortifications. The engineers used an entire case of dynamite and both large blocks of TNT to destroy the large bombproof shelter alone.”
Strong Resistance
During the chaotic, murderous fighting in the 8th Marines’ zone, Admiral Shibasaki was killed in his blockhouse. The unyielding Japanese commander’s failure to provide any backup communications to the above-ground wires, which were destroyed during the preliminary D-Day bombardment, kept him from influencing the battle. The Imperial Japanese archives showed that Shibasaki transmitted one last message to Tokyo early in the morning on D +2: “Our weapons have been destroyed. From now on, everyone is attempting the final charge. May Japan exist for 10,000 years.”
General Julian Smith arrived on Green Beach just before noon. Smith conferred with Major Ryan and observed the deployment of the 3/6 Marines inland. General Smith realized he was far removed from the main action toward the center of the island. He returned to his landing craft and ordered the coxswain to make for the pier. It was here that the commanding general received his rude welcome to Betio.
Major Hays’ 1/8 Marines were besieging the Japanese strongpoints at the re-entrant. But the Japanese defenders still had control over the approaches to Red Beaches One and Two. The defenders’ well-aimed machine gun fire disabled Smith’s boat and killed his coxswain. The other occupants of his group leaped over the gunwale and into the water. Major Tompkins, the right man in the right place, waded through Japanese fire for a half-mile to find the general another LVT. This LVT drew fire and wounded the coxswain, further alarming the remaining occupants. General Smith did not reach Colonel Edson and Shoup’s combined command post until 1400.
In the meantime, Colonel Edson had assembled his commanders and issued orders to continue the attack to the east that afternoon. The 1/6 Marines would continue along the narrowing south coast, supported by the howitzers and all available tanks from the 1/10. Colonel Hall would lead two battalions of the 8th Marines and continue advancing along the north coast. Air support and naval gunfire would blast the areas for two hours in advance.
Colonel Hall spoke up about his exhausted and decimated Marine landing teams. They’d been in direct contact and ashore since D-Day morning. He told Edson the two landing teams had enough strength for only one more assault, and then they must get relieved.
Colonel Edson promised to exchange the exhausted 2/8 Marines with the fresh 2/6 Marines on Bairiki at the first opportunity after this assault.
The 1/6 Marines started their attack at 1330. They ran into heavy opposition. They took deadly fire from heavy Japanese weapons mounted in turret type emplacements near the south beach. While this took ninety minutes to overcome, the light tanks were brave but ineffective. It took sustained 75mm fire, from two Sherman medium tanks, to neutralize the Japanese emplacements. Resistance was fierce throughout the zone, and the 1/6 Marines’ casualties mounted. They’d taken eight-hundred-yards of enemy territory quickly in the morning, but by the long afternoon had attained half that distance.
The 8th Marines, after having destroyed their three bunker nemesis, made excellent progress at first, but then ran out of steam after they passed the eastern end of the airfield. Colonel Shoup was right in his estimation that the Japanese defenders, while leaderless, still had plenty of bullets and fight left.
Major Crowe reorganized his leading elements into defensive positions for the night. He placed one company north of the airfield. The end of the airstrip was covered by fire, but unmanned.
On nearby Bairiki Island, the 2/10 Marines fired artillery missions to support Major Crowe. Company B of the 2nd Medical Battalion established a field hospital, handling the overflow of casualties. The 2/6 Marines, eager to get into the fight, waited in vain for boats to move them onto Green Beach. Landing craft were mostly unavailable. They were crammed with miscellaneous supplies as the transports and cargo ships continued a general unloading—regardless of the troops’ needs ashore. Navy Seabees on Betio were already repairing the airstrip with bulldozers, under enemy fire. Occasionally, Marines would call in for help from the Seabees to seal up a bothersome bunker. A bulldozer would arrive and do the job nicely.
Shore party Marines and Navy beachmasters on the pier kept the supplies co
ming in and the wounded going out. Colonel Edson requested a working party at 1552 to clear bodies from around the pier that hindered shore party operations. Later that afternoon the first Jeep got ashore. A wild ride along the pier with every remaining Japanese sniper trying to shoot the driver. War correspondent Sherrod commented: “If a sign of certain victory was needed, this is it. The jeeps have arrived.”
One of Colonel Hall’s Navajo Indian code-talkers had been mistaken for a Japanese and was shot. This was because of the strain of the prolonged battle. A derelict, blackened LVT drifted onshore filled with dead Marines. At the bottom of the pile was one Marine who was still alive. Still breathing, after two-and-a-half days of an unrelenting hell. He looked up and gasped, “Water. Pour some water on my face, will you?”
Shoup, Edson, and Smith were near exhaustion. While the third day on Betio had been a day of spectacular gains, progress was excruciatingly slow. And the end was not in sight. General Smith sent this report to General Hermle, who had taken his place on the Maryland: “Situation not favorable for rapid cleanup on Betio. Heavy casualties among officers make leadership difficult. Still strong resistance. Many emplacements intact on eastern end of the island. Japanese strong points westward of our front lines within our position have not been reduced. Progress costly and slow. Complete occupation will take at least five days more. Air and naval bombardment a great help but does not take out emplacements.”
General Smith took command of operations at 1930. He had seven thousand Marines onshore fighting against one thousand Japanese defenders. Aerial photographs showed many defensive positions were still intact on Betio’s eastern tail. Smith believed he would need the entire 6th Marines to complete the job. At 2100 the 6th Marines landed. Smith called a meeting to assign orders for D +3.