by Daniel Wrinn
Headlines of “The Bloody Beaches of Tarawa” alarmed the American public. This was partially the Marines’ own doing. Many combat correspondents were invited along for Operation Galvanic. They had shared the worst of what Betio had to offer in the first thirty-six hours. They only reported what they had observed. Marine Sergeant James Lucas, whose account of the fighting received front-page coverage in both The New York Times and The Washington Post on December 4, 1943, read: “Grim Tarawa Defense a Surprise, Eyewitness of Battle Reveals; Marines Went in Chuckling, To Find Swift Death Instead of Easy Conquest.”
Remarks made by senior Marines involved in Operation Galvanic to the media did little to help soothe public concerns. General Holland Smith likened the assault on D-Day to Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. Colonel Edson said the assault force “paid the stiffest price in human life per square yard” at Tarawa than any other engagement in the Marine Corps’ history. War correspondent Robert Sherrod wrote of seeing one-hundred Marines gunned down in the water in five minutes on D +1. It did not help when the Marine Corps headquarters waited an additional ten days after the battle to release the casualty list.
The atmospheres at Pearl Harbor and Washington were tense during this period. General Douglas MacArthur was still bitter that the 2nd Marine Division had been taken from his Southwest Pacific Command. He wrote to the Secretary of War and complained that “these frontal attacks by the Navy, like Tarawa, were unnecessary and a tragic massacre of American lives.”
American mothers wrote letters by the hundreds, one accusing Admiral Nimitz of “murdering her son.”
Frank Knox, the secretary of the Navy, called a press conference in which he blamed a “sudden shift in the wind” for exposing the reef and preventing reinforcements from landing. Congress began a special investigation. Fortunately, the Marines had General Vandegrift in Washington as the newly appointed 18th Commandant. Vandegrift, a highly decorated and widely respected veteran of Guadalcanal, reassured Congress and pointed out that “Tarawa was an assault from beginning to end.”
The casualty reports were less extraordinary than the American public expected. In an editorial by The New York Times on December 27, 1943, the paper complemented the Marines for overcoming Tarawa’s sophisticated defenses and zealous garrisons. The editorial warned that any future assaults, in the Marshall Islands, could be even deadlier: “We must steel ourselves now to pay that price.”
After the war, the controversy continued when General Holland Smith publicly claimed that Tarawa was a mistake. Admiral Nimitz replied by saying that Tarawa’s capture knocked down the front door to the Japanese defenses in the Central Pacific.
Nimitz launched the Marshalls Campaign only ten weeks after the seizure of Tarawa. The photo-reconnaissance and attack aircraft from the captured airfields at Apamama and Betio proved vital.
The battle for Tarawa’s capture would become the textbook on amphibious assault to guide and influence all subsequent landings in the Central Pacific. Nimitz believed that the prompt and selfless analysis immediately following Tarawa were of great value. He wrote: “From analytical reports of the commanders and from their critical evaluations of what went wrong, of what needed improvement, and of what techniques and equipment proved out in combat, came a tremendous outpouring of lessons learned.”
Many senior officers later agreed that the conversion of the logistical LVTs to assault craft made the difference between victory and defeat on Betio. A further consensus was that the LVT-1s and LVT-2s used in the operation were only marginal against the heavily defensive fire. The LVT-1s (Alligators) needed heavier armament, more powerful engines, auxiliary bilge pumps, self-sealing gas tanks, and wooden plugs the size of 13mm bullets. More importantly, there needed to be more LVTs, at least 300 per division. Colonel Shoup wanted to keep the use of LVTs as reef-crossing assault vehicles a secret, but there were too many reporters on the scene.
Naval gunfire got mixed reviews. Marines were enthusiastic about the destroyers’ responses in the lagoon but critical about the preliminary bombardment’s extent and accuracy—especially when it was ended so prematurely on D-Day. Major Ryan later wrote that the significant shortcomings in Operation Galvanic were: “Overestimating the damage that could be inflicted on a heavily defended position by an intense but limited naval bombardment, and by not sending in its assault forces soon enough after the shelling.”
Major Schoettel later wrote that of the pounding his battalion received from emplacements within the seawall, he’d have recommended a direct fire against the beach by 40mm guns from close-in destroyers. The hasty saturation fires, considered adequate by planners because of strategic surprise, proved virtually useless. Any amphibious assaults against fortified atolls would need sustained, aimed, and deliberate fire.
No one could question the bravery of the aviators who supported the assault on Betio. But many questioned whether they were trained and armed adequately for such a difficult target. The need for closer integration of all supporting arms was clear.
Communications throughout the assault on Betio were terrible. Only the resourcefulness of a few radio operators and the bravery of individual runners kept the assault coherent. The Marines needed waterproof radios. The Navy needed a dedicated amphibious command ship, not on board a major combatant whose massive guns knocked out the radio nets with each salvo. These command ships, the AGC’s, would appear later during the Marshalls Campaign.
Other amphibious revisions to the doctrine were immediately enacted. The priority of unloading supplies would become the tactical commander’s call onshore, not the amphibious task force commander. Betio showed the critical need for underwater swimmers to stealthily assess and report the surf, beach, and reef conditions to the task force before the landing. This concept was first envisioned by amphibious warfare prophet Major Earl “Pete” Ellis in the 1920s, and quickly came to fruition. Admiral Turner created a fledgling UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) for the Marshall Islands assault.
The Marines also learned that the new medium tanks would become valuable assets with proper combined arms training. Future tank training would now emphasize integrated tank, engineer, infantry, and artillery operations. Tank and infantry communications would need immediate improvement. Most casualties among tank commanders on Betio resulted from individuals needing to dismount their vehicles to speak with the infantry in the open.
Backpack flamethrowers won universal approval from the Marines on Betio. Each commander recommended increases in range, quantity, and mobility for these assault weapons. Suggestions were that larger versions should be mounted on LVTs and tanks, predicting the appearance of “Zippo Tanks” in later Pacific campaigns.
General Julian Smith summed up the lessons he learned at Tarawa with this comment: “We made fewer mistakes than the Japs did.”
Military historian Philip A. Crowl wrote in his assessment of the battle for Tarawa: “The capture of Tarawa despite all defects in execution, conclusively demonstrated that the American amphibious doctrine was valid, that even the strongest island fortress could be seized.”
Future landings in the Marshall Islands would use this doctrine to achieve objectives against similar targets with fewer casualties and in less time. The benefits of Operation Galvanic quickly outweighed the steep initial costs. In time, Tarawa became a symbol of sacrifice and courage for Marine raiders and Japanese defenders alike.
Ten years after the battle, General Julian Smith saluted the heroism of the Japanese who chose to die almost to the last man. He then turned to his beloved 2nd Marine Division shipmates in Task Force 53 at Betio: “For the officers and men, Marines and sailors, who crossed that reef, either as assault troops, or carrying supplies, or evacuating wounded, I can only say that I shall forever think of them with the feeling of the greatest respect and reverence.”
Tarawa Today
Decades after World War II, Tarawa remains mostly unchanged. Visiting Betio Island, you can still see wrecked LVTs and American tanks along the be
aches as well as ruined Japanese pillboxes and gun emplacements. The imposing concrete bunkers created by Admiral Shibasaki still stand, as impervious to time as they were to the naval guns of Task Force 53. At the turn of the century, island natives found a buried LVT containing skeletons of its Marine crew inside—one Marine still wearing his dog tags.
In 1968, General David Shoup was recalled from retirement to active duty for nine days to dedicate a large monument on Betio. He commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the famous fight and later told The National Observer: “My first reaction was that Betio Island had shrunk a great deal. It seems smaller now in peace than in war.”
While Shoup toured the ruined fortifications, he recalled the desperate, savage fighting. He pondered why the two nations spent so much for so little. In seventy-six hours of fighting, nearly 6,000 Americans and Japanese died on the tiny island.
In the late 1980s, the American Memorial had fallen into disrepair. It was in danger of being dismantled for a cold storage plant to be used by Japanese fishermen. The 2nd Marine Division Association and Long Beach journalist, Tom Hennessey, began a lengthy campaign to raise enough funds to get a new, more stable monument. They brought a 9-ton block of Georgia granite with the inscription “To our fellow Marines, who gave their all.” They dedicated this Memorial on November 20, 1988.
Betio is now part of the Republic of Kiribati. Tourist facilities have been developed to accommodate the large number of veterans who return every year. In author James Ullman’s opinion, the small island still resembles what it probably looked like on D-Day almost 78 years ago. Ullman visited Tarawa several years ago and wrote a fitting eulogy: “A familiar irony that old battlefields are often the quietest and gentlest of places. It has been true of Gettysburg, Cannae, Austerlitz, Verdun—and is true of Tarawa.”
Major General Julian C. Smith
The pinnacle of General Smith’s life and career was the epic battle on Tarawa. At the time of Operation Galvanic, Smith was fifty-eight years old and had been a Marine Corps officer for thirty-four years. He was born in Elkton, Maryland, and was a graduate of the University of Delaware.
He’d served overseas in the expeditionary tours of Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Haiti, and Santo Domingo. A Naval War College graduate in 1917, he spent World War I in Quantico, Virginia, with many other frustrated Marine officers.
Smith was a rifle team coach and a distinguished marksman. He had limited experience in the FMF (Fleet Marine Force). He took command of the 5th Marines in 1938 and was ordered to the 2nd Marine Division in May 1943.
General Smith earned the respect of his contemporaries. While modest and humble, he had a fighting heart. Colonel Ray Murray described him as a “fine old gentleman of high moral fiber. You’d fight for him.”
Smith knew what to anticipate from the neap tides at Betio. In his memoirs, he wrote: “I’m an old railbird shooter up on the marshes of the Chesapeake Bay. You push over the marshes at high tide, and when you have a neap tide, you can’t get over the marshes.”
General Smith was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic acts in Nicaragua and the Distinguished Service Medal for his actions on Tarawa. While the balance of his career was unremarkable, he retired in 1946 as a lieutenant general and died at the age of 90 in 1975. He valued his experiences on Tarawa. In one of his last letters, he wrote: “It will always be a source of supreme satisfaction and pride to be able to say I was with the 2nd Marine Division at Tarawa.”
Colonel David M. Shoup
David Shoup carried a field notebook during the battle of Tarawa. This passage gives us a glimpse into his enigmatic personality: “If you are qualified, fate has a way of getting you to the right place at the right time—tho’ sometimes it appears to be a long, long wait.”
A farm boy from Battle Ground, Indiana, the combination of time and place benefited Shoup on two momentous occasions: at Tarawa 1943, and as Pres. Eisenhower’s selection to make him the 22nd Marine Corps Commandant in 1959.
Colonel Shoup had been a Marine officer since 1926 and was thirty-eight years old during the battle of Tarawa. Unlike his colorful contemporaries, Shoup had limited experience as a commander and only the briefest exposure to combat. When Tarawa came, Shoup was a junior colonel in the 2nd Marine Division. He commanded eight battalion landing teams during some of the most savage fighting of World War II.
War correspondent Robert Sherrod later wrote of his impressions of Colonel Shoup en route to Betio: “This Colonel Shoup was an interesting character. A squat, red-faced man with a bull neck. He was a hard-boiled, profane shouter of orders. He carried the biggest burden on Tarawa.”
Shoup was revered by his contemporaries as a “Marine’s Marine.” Sergeant Edward Doughman served with Shoup in China and on Tarawa. He described him as “the brainiest, nerviest, best soldiering Marine I ever met.” Shoup had a reputation for being the most formidable poker player in the entire division because of his eyes that looked like “two burnt holes in a blanket.”
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 worked with the rest under constant withering enemy fire. During the next two days, he conducted smashing attacks against incredibly strong and fanatically defended Japanese positions despite heavy casualties and innumerable obstacles.”
Shoup was a philosophical man. In his 1943 field notebook, he gave us some of his introspection: “I realize I am but a bit chaff from the threshings of life blown into the pages of history by the unknown winds of chance.”
David Shoup lived to the age of 78, dying on January 13, 1983. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Incident on D +3
The last day of fighting on Betio Island cost First Sergeant Lewis Michelony his sense of smell. Michelony was a combat veteran of Guadalcanal, a 1/6 Marines member, and a former Atlantic Fleet boxing champion. Later in the Pacific War, he received two Silver Stars for conspicuous bravery. But on D +3, he nearly died.
Michelony was with two other Marines on a routine patrol of the area east of Green Beach. They looked for positions to assign the battalion mortar platoon. Infantry companies had cleared the area the previous morning. Other Marines had passed through the complex of seemingly empty Japanese bunkers without incident. The clearing was littered with Japanese bodies and abandoned enemy equipment. The three Marines threw grenades into the first bunker and encountered no response. All was quiet.
Then—out of nowhere—all hell broke loose. The front bunker opened fire with a machine gun, grenades hailed. In an instant, one Marine died; the second escaped, leaving First Sergeant Michelony face down in the sand. Michelony dove into the nearest bunker, tumbled through a rear entrance, and landed into what he thought was a pool of water. The dim light of the bunker showed it was a combination of urine, blood, and water. It was a mixture from the dead Japanese bodies and from some live ones. He spat out the vile liquid in his mouth and realized there were still live Japanese among the dead and decaying. The taste, smell, and fear he experienced inside that bunker nearly overpowered him. In his own words: “Somehow I managed to get out. To this day, I don’t know how. I crawled out of that cesspool, dripping wet. The sun-dried my utilities as though they had been heavily starched. But they still stank. For months after, I could still taste, smell, and visualize that scene.”
Fifty years later, a retired Sergeant Major Michelony still had no sense of smell.
Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces
The first large-scale encounter between the US Marines and the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces was at Tarawa. Division staff had warned that the “naval units of this type were more highly trained and had a more remarkable tenacity and fighting spirit than the average Japanese army unit.” But even the Marines were surprised at the ferocity of the defenders on Betio.
The Japanese Imperial Marines earned the respect of their US Marine Corps counterparts for their discipline, marksmanship, a
nd proficiency with heavy weapons. The SNLF excelled in small unit leadership, bravery, and a willingness to die to the last man. Major Jones, who commanded the 1/6 Marines, had engaged more of the enemy in hand-to-hand combat on Betio than any unit. He later wrote: “These Japs were pretty tough, and they were big, all six feet, the biggest Japs I ever saw. Their equipment was excellent, and there was plenty of surplus found, including large amounts of ammo.”
In the early years of the war, the Japanese used their SNLF frequently. In 1941, a force of 5,000 landed on Guam, and another 450 were used to assault Wake Island. A small detachment of 113 were the first Japanese reinforcing unit to land on Guadalcanal, ten days after the American landing.
The Special Naval Landing Forces gave a fierce resistance to the 1st Marine Division landings on Tulagi early in the Guadalcanal Campaign. A typical unit comprised of three rifle companies, augmented by antiaircraft and anti-boat guns, coastal defense, field artillery units, and labor troops, and was commanded by a naval captain.
The Japanese defenders on Betio used 7.7mm light machine guns. They integrated these weapons into their fortified defense system of over 500 blockhouses, pillboxes, and other placements. Most Marines faced the Japanese M93 during their landings on the northern coast. It was a 13mm, anti-air, anti-boat heavy machine gun. On many seawall emplacements, these deadly weapons provided flanking fire along the boat obstacles and wire entanglements.
Admiral Shibasaki organized his resistance on Betio for “an overall decisive defense at the beach.” His troops fought with great bravery and valor. After seventy-six hours of savage fighting, 4,690 men lay dead. Out of 146 prisoners taken, most were conscripted Korean laborers.