Tarawa

by Robert Sherrod

  A bandy-legged little Korean who wears white cotton pants and golf stockings is trying to talk to the MJP.’s who are taking him to an interpreter. He is trying to tell the M.P.’s how many were on the island. He says “Nippon” and draws “6000” in the sand; then he says “Korean” and draws “1000.”

  Going westward up the beach, beyond the farthest point I had yet reached, we see on the beach the bodies of Marines who have not yet been reached by the burial parties. The first is a husky boy who must have been three inches over six feet tall. He was killed ten feet in front of the seawall pillbox which was his objective. He is still hunched forward, his rifle in his right hand. That is the picture of the Marine Corps I shall always, carry: charging forward. A bit further up the beach there are four dead Marines only a few feet apart; ten feet along, another; fifteen feet further another; then there are six bunched together. These men, we are told, are from I and K companies of the Third Battalion, Second Regiment.

  Fifty feet further up the beach, ten Marines were killed on the barbed wire on the coral flats. One of them was evidently shot as he placed his foot on the top rung of the wire—his trouser leg was caught on the barbs and the leg still hangs in the air. There are eighty more dead Marines scattered in a twenty-foot square of the beach just beyond. Six more … two more … four more. Here four got to the very mouth of the coconut-log pillbox, but none of them made it, because there are no dead Japs inside. But in the next pillbox there are two Japs sprawled over their machine gun, and in the next, five yards further along the seawall, there are three. All appear to have been killed by hand grenades.

  We detour inland a few yards. Here, perhaps thirty feet back of the seawall, four Marines lie dead outside a larger pillbox. There are six dead Japs inside. Still thirty feet further inland three dead Japs lie inside another pillbox, and there are three Marines lying around the pillbox. It is not difficult to see that the Marines were determined to keep on killing Japs while the breath of life remained in them, whether that last breath was drawn in the water, at the barricade, or at some undetermined point inland. What words can justify such bravery in the fece of almost certain death? They died, but they came on. Those machine guns were killing other Marines out in the water, and who ever heard of one Marine letting another down?

  Here Amphtrack Number 15—name: “Worried Mind”—is jammed against the seawall. Inside it are six dead Marines; next to it are three more. Two more lie impaled on the barbed wire next to the twenty-eight-seater Jap privy over the water. Their clothing ties them to the wire. They float at anchor. A half dozen Marines, members of the engineer regiment, are walking around the beach, examining the bodies. “Here’s Larson,” says one. “Here’s Montague,” says another. The bodies, as they are identified, are tenderly gathered up and taken fifteen or twenty yards inland, where other Marines are digging graves for them.

  This is unusual, because most of the Marines are being gathered up by burial parties, which have not progressed this far. But these men are looking for the dead from their own particular company. Since they are leaving by transport in a few hours, I suppose they think: “Here is the last thing we can do for these boys we have known so long. We’ll do it with our own hands.”

  When I passed that way again several hours later, the Eighteenth Marines had gone, had sailed away. But I noticed the fifteen graves this particular company had dug. A rude cross had been erected over each grave—undoubtedly replaced later by a neat white cross—and on the cross had been written the name of the Marine who lay underneath it, the designation that he was a Marine, and the date of his death, thus:

  A. R. Mitlick

  U.S.M.C.

  20-11-43

  In front of the fifteen graves, so that all would know which outfit they came from, and that they all came from D Company of the Eighteenth, the Marines had proudly erected a larger cross:

  3-2-18

  The names of these fifteen, right to left, were: R. C. McKinney, G. G. Seng,* R, C. Kountzman, R. L. Jarrett, Max J. Lynnton, C Montague,* S. P. Parsons, M. W. Waltz, H. H. Watkins, H. B, Lanning, J. S. Castle, A. B. Roads, A. R. Mitlick, W. A. Larson, and R. W. Vincent, First Lieutenant.

  Just behind the coconut-log wall where the men of D Company had died there is a pit containing a 77-mm. gun, whose ammunition supply had been half exhausted. A few yards further along the wall there is a 13-mm. machine gun. Inside the gun pit is a half-pint bottle of the only brand of whisky I have ever seen in Japanese possession. The label, like the labels of many Japanese commercial products, is in English:

  Rare Old Island Whisky

  SUNTORY

  First Born in Nippon

  Choicest Products

  Kotobukiya Ltd.

  Bottled at our own Yamazaki Distiller

  * Gene Seng and Charlie Montague, aged twenty-one, had been childhood friends. They had gone to school together in Texas. On February 3, 1942, they had volunteered for the Marines together. On November so, 1043, on Tarawa, they died together.

  A Marine near the gun pit had evidently been hit squarely by a 77-mm. shell (77 mm. is about three inches). There is a hole through his midsection, and he is badly burned—so badly that he could hardly be identified as a Marine but for the laced leggings under his trouser legs. A Marine who is standing nearby, Pfc. Glenn Gill of Oklahoma, explains that the remnants of the first and second waves of 3/2 rushed over the barricade, where they were pinned down as the third wave got all the machinegun attention.

  A hundred yards inland we find an air-raid sound detector, which is sandbagged all around, and a power plant, which was protected only by a tin roof that was smashed to a thousand pieces. There are wooden-compartmented boxes full of carpenter’s tools and some more delicate instruments. Next to the power plant there is a thirty-six-inch searchlight, and in the middle of a group of buildings and pillboxes a hole ten feet deep, twenty feet in diameter. The sixteen-inch shell or one-thousand-pound bomb which made that hole could not have fallen anywhere else within a hundred yards without destroying something. Near the shellhole there are two Japs blown completely in two. Only the lower extremities of either are anywhere in sight—one was cut in two at the waist, the other at the hips. In a smaller shellhole there are six dead Japs around a 77-mm. gun—this had once been a Jap gun pit. On the rim of the gun pit lies a dead Marine, who looks as if he might have been killed while diving in. Another 77-mm. gun—they are very thick along this northwest beach—has been knocked out by shellfire. The barrel is splintered and twisted. In a bomb crater there are fourteen Japs, evidently tossed in there by Marines cleaning out pillboxes before inhabiting them. Another 77-mm. gun has not been touched by shellfire, but the eight Japs in the pit were killed by rifle fire.

  Amphtrack Number 48 is jammed against the seawall barricade. Three waterlogged Marines lie beneath it. Four others are scattered nearby, and there is one hanging on the two-foot-high strand of barbed wire who does not touch the coral flat at all. Back of the 77-mm. guns there are many hundreds of rounds of 77-mm. ammunition.

  At the tip of the Betio bird’s beak, there is the first big Jap gun I have seen: 5.5 inches. It is set in a concrete cup, and the degrees of the compass are painted on the rim of the cup. Shells for the gun, which are about twenty inches long, are contained in six little compartments, six shells to a compartment, inside the walls of the cup. Outside the cup there are hundreds more shells. The gun turret has been hit by about fifty fifty-caliber strafing bullets which probably also killed the gun crew, who have been removed, but otherwise the gun is untouched.

  Turning southward up the Betio bird’s forehead, we find another 5.5-inch gun thirty yards away. Shells or bombs have nicked the inside of its cup at 170 degrees, 220 degrees, and 30 degrees. The four Japs inside the pit have been charred to sticks of carbon.

  Outside the gun emplacement a dog, suffering from severe shell shock, wanders drunkenly. When some Marines whistle and call him he trembles and tries to run, but falls. Not far away there is a placid cat with a
dirty red ribbon around his neck. A sergeant of an engineer platoon calls the roll of his outfit, which arrived late and had only one man wounded. But its flame throwers killed dozens of the reeling Japs.

  The pillboxes here along the west beach, spaced only ten feet apart, are connected by trenches. Near another 77-mm. gun there is another 36-inch searchlight. Like all seven searchlights on Betio, this one was a favorite target of strafing planes, and all were destroyed. Between this 77-mm. gun and another similar gun thirty yards up the beach the Japs have pointed a coconut log out to sea. To a pilot five hundred feet in the air it could very well be mistaken for a six-inch gun.

  About halfway up the west beach we turn inland and start back through the center of the island, past the body of a bloated Jap officer lying next to more dull-brown trucks. A bit further toward the center, the Marines have thrown a few shovelfuls of sand over the ghastly, mangled bodies of a dozen Japs. Dead Japs are strewn liberally along the road that leads through the center, eight here, two there, thirty over there where they were caught by a flamethrower. Two lie beside a Jap light tank, which is camouflaged in the navy fashion of World War I. On the other side of the tank lies a Marine, whose body’s site is marked for burial parties by the age-old method; his bayoneted rifle jabbed upright into the ground.

  Here was a Jap warehouse, which burned to the ground at least three days ago. It was filled apparently with foodstuffs, mostly canned: salmon, shrimp, rice. Whoever dreams of starving out Japs should know that they always have enough food to last many months, not counting fish that they can catch, birds that they can kill, and coconuts they can pick. Near the warehouse there are the mangled remains of a dozen bicycles, of which the Japs must have had a thousand on Betio, in addition to perhaps a hundred cars and trucks, and great quantities of miniature rail equipment. Further on there are bales of sacks labeled in English: “Stores Government—Stores Department.” Great stacks of cases of rifle ammunition have not been touched by the terrific bombardment. A Seabee walks out of a pillbox with a fencing costume that looks like a baseball catcher’s equipment: a steel face mask and a “belly protector” made of laced bamboo and heavy blue cloth. Scattered along the road are several one-man sniper pits: gasoline drums sunk into the ground, with a lid for cover.

  Between the road and the north beach, spaced some fifty yards apart, there are three big coconut-log bomb shelters, about twenty by fifty feet inside. Outside they are covered on the top and on the sides by three to ten feet of sand. None was touched either by aerial or naval bombardment. The occupants, cowering in their corners, had been killed by TNT and flamethrowers. A Marine intelligence officer tells his sergeant to tell his men to search the bodies for documents. “Sir, don’t ask them to,” pleads the sergeant. “They are puking already.”

  A tank trap has been constructed diagonally across the section of the island north of the runway that forms part of the air-strip triangle. It is a long, deep ditch whose sides are braced by up right coconut logs. Nearby there is another twenty-by-fifty bomb shelter, which is reinforced concrete inside, tiers of coconut logs in the middle and sand on the outside covered by palm fronds. I wonder: would the heaviest bomb ever made tear up this unbelievable fortification? Or if the bomb hit on the rounded sides of the blockhouse, would it not glance off and explode harmlessly alongside the blockhouse? Several bomb holes around the sides of the blockhouse indicate that “near misses” do no good.

  Another burned warehouse contains hundreds of bottles of sake, most of them broken. Also stacks of uniforms, hundreds of pots and pans, several gross of little blue enamelware cereal bowls and cups with the Navy anchor stenciled on them, about eighty bicycles, and a number of pressure cookers. Like other navies, the Japanese Navy apparently is far more luxuriously equipped than the Army.

  By 1030 the Seabees are working like a thousand beavers on the airfield, which must be prepared quickly in order that the Americans on Betio will have fighter protection. Actually, there is not a great deal for them to do before planes can land. The main runway, along the longitudinal center of the island, is concrete and it is in almost perfect condition. The shorter runways, of gravel, are almost as well preserved. The planes and ships had orders to lay off the runways. If their accuracy was such that they could lay off specified areas, then why could they not hit the targets assigned to them? The Seabees, many of them skilled workmen old enough to be the fathers of most of the Marines, are having a great time. Little, rubber-tired Jap carts provide much amusement for Seabees who wheel supplies up and down the runways with them. One Seabee boasts that his outfit has already killed two Jap snipers this morning.

  More evidence of the care the Japs had used in building up Betio: an unharmed gasoline truck sunk into an underground revetment, a twelve-by-thirty concrete water storage tank, still three-quarters filled with water, another big warehouse—the battleships and bombers really tore up the unprotected warehouses, two black automobiles, three more destroyed buildings.

  Two hundred yards west of the regimental command post there is an American graveyard which by now contains seventy Marines, and seven more bodies lie on the ground awaiting burial. The first grave is marked, on a crude piece of packing-case lumber, “Unidentified.” Other names I note at random: Lieutenant Colonel David K. Claude,* J. F. Svoboda, Duffy, Jenkins, P. L. Olano, W. R. Jay, W. A. Carpenter, M. D. Dinnis, C. E. McChee, W. C. Gulp, F. R. Erislip, W. H. Soeters, “Unknown,” L. N. Carney, Hicks, R. E. Bemis, E, R. Pero, C. J. Hubarski, H. Schempf.

  Before I returned to regimental (now division) headquarters, the corps commander of the Gilbert Islands assaults (Le., both Makin and Tarawa) had arrived: Major General Holland McTyeire Smith, one of the most colorful figures in the Marine Corps. Alabama-bprn Holland Smith is the father of amphibious training of U. S. armed forces. Many years ago he foresaw that one day it would be necessary for American soldiers and Marines to land on enemy beaches in the face of hostile fire. In awarding him the Distinguished Service Medal, Navy Secretary Frank Knox had said of him: “He laid the groundwork for amphibious training of practically all American units, including at various times the First and Third Marine Divisions, the First, Seventh, and Ninth Infantry Divisions of the Army and numerous other Marine Corps and Army personnel. His proficient leadership and tireless energy in the development of high combat efficiency among the forces under his supervision were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

  * Later that day someone remarked, “I wonder where Colonel Claude is. I haven’t seen him in two days.” Colonel Claude was an observer from another division, unattached to any particular outfit. He was killed up front with the Scout and Sniper Platoon.

  Nonetheless, Holland Smith, beloved by the Marine Corps, had assumed the aspects of a barnacle, so far as much of the regular Navy was concerned. He spoke his mind whenever he saw something wrong, even if that something were a brain child of his own. And in the regular Navy the first rule is to speak softly, particularly if the speech contains something that might not reflect credit on everybody else. Holland Smith at sixty-one was a military liberal, which few men in the U. S. Navy dare to be after fifty.

  I had known General Smith a long time, in San Diego where he was training amphibious forces, on Attu, on Kiska, aboard a transport, a battleship, and a couple of airplanes. Because he was an unusual major general, he was delightful, and I was glad to see him. Although his route over the western end of the island duplicated some of the territory I had covered in the morning, I looked forward to listening to his comments on an inspection during the afternoon, along with his Tarawa division commander, Julian Smith, his aide Major Clifton A. Woodrum, Jr., and two newsmen who had accompanied him by plane from Makin, Bernard McQuaid of the Chicago Daily News and Robert Trumbull of the New York Times. Said one of the newsmen —I forget which—"I guess we had a pretty tame show on Makin, compared to what the Marines had here.” On Makin the 165th New York Infantry—the onetime “Fighting Sixty-Ninth"—had found a
bout 250 Japs, plus some Korean laborers. In exterminating them, the 165th had had 65 killed, 121 wounded. “A lot of our casualties were caused by the wild firing of our men"—but that was not news; it always happens when green troops go into battle. The 165th had had the misfortune to lose its colonel, Gardiner Conroy, who was killed by a Jap sniper.

  Before the tour started there was, at Julian Smith’s suggestion, a double flag-raising near headquarters; U. S. and British flags went up on twin flagpoles. There had been a devil of a time finding a British flag. Finally, Major Frank Lewis George Holland, who had been schoolmaster of the Gilberts before he was forced to flee when the Japs came, produced a British flag about half the size of the Stars and Stripes. In the words of Henry Keys, the Australian correspondent representing the London Daily Express, “Major Holland looked in his bag. It contained one pair of drawers and the Union Jack.”

  The generals’ tour of the island started from headquarters southward, then west on the south shore, down the western end, then eastward along the northern shore:

  The first three dead men the generals see are Marines; one near a disabled Jap tank on the edge of the runway, two more in a shellhole not far away. Fifty yards before they reach the south shore, after crossing the runway, they find the hastily scooped graves of three more Marines. I note the casualty tag on one grave: “W. F. Blevins, Killed in Action, 11-35-43.” Nearby there is the lone grave of “Pvt. J. M. Redman, Killed in Action, 11-23-43.” His helmet hangs on the cross, a bullet hole through the center of it. A Marine near the south beach reports that some ‘of his buddies killed Japs in a machine-gun nest over there only three hours ago. And there are still snipers scattered throughout the island that the Marines just can’t find. “Uh-huh,” uh-huhs Holland Smith, who carries a carbine slung from his shoulder.