FREE ARTICLE: Tarawa, Heroes and Dogs

The Pacific, November 1943

In case you hadn’t noticed, I appear to have a new obsession. It started last year with giving a talk at We Have Ways Fest on the US Marine Corps assault at Tarawa. If you haven’t heard of the place, I’m not surprised, but here are a few thoughts about what happened on a tiny strip of sand, and what this meant for the rest of the war in this theatre.

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Why?

At the end of 1943, the United States was ready to begin progressively island hopping across the Central Pacific to bring themselves closer to Japan. 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii and Pearl Harbour, almost on the Equator in the vast expanse of the Pacific, lie the Gilbert Islands. Remote beaches covered in powdery sand and perched in turquoise waters, until recently the Gilberts had been paradise personified. Now, they had been bastardised by war, and it was here that Operation GALVANIC, a torrid experience for the United States Marine Corps took place.

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How?

The marines would be employing a radical new collection of vehicles to land at Tarawa. This was the first time that the USMC had attempted to land on a heavily defended beach, and so how they went about it interests me. Using a combination of Higgins boats, as well as landing craft for vehicles and for personnel, they had carried out several tests in conditions similar to the shallow water they expected in the Gilbert Islands. Notable was going to be the use of amphibious tractors. The commander of V Amphibious Force, General ‘Howlin Mad’ Smith, wrote:

‘A few tractors, abbreviated to ‘amtracks,’ were used to haul supplies at Guadalcanal, but for the deceptive reef at Tarawa we planned to send the first three waves of marines ashore in [them], using Higgins boats to complete the landing of supporting waves and supplies.’

An amtrac headed for shore at Tarawa (US National Archives)

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Why so bloody?

A couple of reasons. I’ve picked some out. Firstly, a concerted effort to bomb Tarawa from the air and by naval bombardment had not had the desired effect, despite fighting words from one admiral: ‘It is not our intention to wreck the island,’ he had said. ‘We do not intend to destroy it. Gentlemen, we will obliterate it.’ To the marines that saw it, it did seem that nothing could have survived. Henry Bird was impressed with the firepower on display. ‘I didn’t think there could be much left on the island… I thought it was great, that there would be nothing to it, that it would be a walk in.’ Yet 2,000 tons of naval shells and another 400 tons of explosives dropped out of the sky had not wiped out the 4,000 strong Japanese garrison and their Korean labour force.

‘Hardly had the transport fleet hove into sight, hardly had the assault force started embarking in amtracks and boats for the organisation of waves, when the shore batteries opened fire.’

H-hour, the moment at which the marines were to reach the shore, was postponed twice while transports manouevred to get out of the line of enemy fire from the shore. ‘Precious time was wasted in organising assault waves, because in the confusion boats were separated from their mother ships.’ Essentially, boats went around and around in circles waiting, making those aboard seasick.

Weather/ environment conditions can always throw any decent plan off track. Finally, H-Hour was set for 9:00 a.m. The amtracks turned and glided across the clear water towards the landing beaches, Higgins boats cruising behind with the following waves of men and with supplies. Immediately, things began to go wrong:

‘An attempt to lay down a smoke screen failed because the wind shifted… The reef was our undoing… an unaccountably low tide, which lasted for two days, lowered the water so that only amtracks were able to get ashore. The Higgins boats [were] stranded on the reef, half a mile from the beach. Marvellous as they were, [they] couldn't run over dry coral.’

Those in the Higgins boats would have to wade all that way, starting out in waist deep water. The heavy fire being laid down on the Japanese defenders appeared to those men to be having no effect at all:

‘There were dozens of smaller guns, from five inchers down to vicious 37-millimetre anti-boat guns and machine guns in concrete emplacements and pillboxes… They were still operating, raining murderous fire on that half mile from reef to shore, where the men of the later waves jumped out of their boats and waded through the blood-stained surf into the swirling red hell that was Tarawa.’

Lastly, give the Japanese defenders the credit they deserve. This remote spot was heavily fortified and fiercely held, mainly by men of the 7th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force. They were experienced veterans, and as hard as it was to even spot this place on a map, they were determined not to give it up.

Marines wait to assault a Japanese position at Tarawa (USMC Archives, Quantico)

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Situation in Doubt

In charge of the marine contingent that day, ‘Howlin-Mad’ Smith was in reality 450 miles away on the USS Pennsylvania with the man in overall command, Admiral Kelly, overseeing a simultaneous attack on the island of Makin by New York National Guard men borrowed from the army. He was therefore highly perturbed when in the afternoon, a message arrived from his namesake, Julian Smith, commanding operations on the ground at Tarawa, requesting the release of the Corps reserve. Surely it was far too early for things to be that bad? He thought. But the message was clear enough: ‘Situation in doubt,’ and so he complied with the request and released the 6th Marine Regiment.

‘I was extremely apprehensive. Julian Smith would not have asked me to commit our last reserve unless conditions demanded this desperate action. No news is good news in the ordinary pursuits of life but in war no news is bad news. I had had no sleep the night before and after committing our last reserve to the Battle of Tarawa, sleep again was out of question. No matter what happened to my marines at Tarawa I could not be with them because Turner insisted that I remain at Makin. He promised to send me south as soon as the situation was well in hand. Makin, an operation the Marines could have completed in a few hours, came first and he was in overall command. I stayed aboard the flagship, waiting.’

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Baptism of Fire

For the Marines who were going into battle for the first time, they seemed to have been genuinely shocked at the ferocity of the battle. But those who had fought at Guadalcanal were not immune, either. With L Company of the 6th Marine Regiment, Ira Schilling’s brain couldn’t process what he was looking at.

‘When I got on the beach one of the first things I saw was a marine body without a head. His whole head was gone. I just couldn’t understand it.’

He could not fathom the extent of such a battle occuring in such a tiny place. Contrast this with Guadacanal, where they felt guilty for leaving two men dead men behind:

‘We saw lots and lots of American bodies in the water, and laying on the beach. We’d never seen that because we were always careful to get our wounded and our dead out of there and take care of them. It kind of gives you an idea of how bad it was… you would never leave a buddy who was wounded, you would never leave a body unless you had to… I think that had about as much sobering effect on a lot of guys as anything. We’d see those bodies still floating, you know how the water would wash them up, and out, and in.’

General ‘Howlin-Mad’ Smith arrived at Tawara shortly after the tiny collection of islands finally fell:

‘No words of mine can reproduce the picture I saw when the plane landed after circling that wracked and battered island. The sight of our dead floating in the waters of the lagoon and lying along the blood-soaked beaches is one I will never forget. Over the pitted, blasted island hung a miasma of coral dust and death, nauseating and horrifying. Chaplains, corpsmen and troops were carrying away wounded and burying the dead. We had about a thousand killed and, added to this nightmare of mangled bodies, were the four to five thousand Japanese.’

He noted that the survivors hardly looked any better.

‘I passed boys who had lived yesterday a thousand times and looked older than their fathers. Dirty, unshaven, with gaunt, almost sightless eyes, they had survived the ordeal but it had chilled their souls. They found it hard to believe they were actually alive.’

Another thing that comes to mind with Tarawa is how far this realisation about the brutality of taking the atoll stretched. Uniquely at the time, a film crew went ashore and recorded the battle. Moving images of these marines dead in the water were shown in cinemas. In a world before instant news coverage, for the first time, Americans were invited into the midst of battle. There was no hiding from it.

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Lessons Learned

Despite their success, the US Marine Corps had been dealt harsh lessons on assaulting a heavily defended beach at Tarawa. The chaos that had ensued meant that it was arguably luck more than sufficient planning that led to the taking of the remote islands from their determined garrison. ‘It was a case where individuals had to take over. Your units were scattered, you had so many casualties you had to make do with what you had, and they did.’ The Marines had done well, under the circumstances, but those circumstances could be improved.

So what could they do better next time?

Supplies: Had the battle lasted any more than three days, then the men would have had no water to drink. Eric Dale’s tank had only remained in action by cadging ammunition from nearby infantry and artillery units. Supply lines were as crucial as the men themselves, and half baked attempts to hydrate troops and keep them firing did not cut it.

Comms: Coordination between navy, air elements, and marines had been lacking and had been detrimental to operations.

Preparation: Also, what had been considered a comprehensive attack on the islands by ships and aircraft prior to the battle, had been anything but.

Despite the fact that it was regarded as a stunning display of firepower, the naval bombardment had been ineffective. ‘Howlin-Mad’ Smith recalled the naval bragging about obliterating the islands. ‘Obliterate it?’ He later wrote bitterly. ‘I entered every pillbox and blockhouse on the western end of the island and found only one had even been hit by naval gunfire. Not one had been destroyed… Dead Japanese lay everywhere but they were killed by Marines, not by Naval gunfire.’ The bombardment had come too close to shore. In future, it needed to be placed further back to optimise the arc of fire and therefore the impact of their shells, so that they did not end up lying across the battlefield having failed to explode.

Know your landing beaches: Significantly, in the words of Smith: ‘We had no accurate information on actual beach conditions, since the Japanese emplaced underwater obstacles.’ More than anything else, Tarawa had shown the importance of getting to know your chosen beach intimately, and as well as having the measure of tides, eradicating any obstacles was clearly imperative before you attempted to send a single platoon ashore.

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As ever, if you’re interested in sources for anything in particular, drop me a line and I can point you in the right direction.