November 23, 1943

Blood on the Coral: Or the Most Expensive Square Mile in the Pacific.

We start the new week at Lies Agreed Upon with one of the more infamous battles in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The tiny atoll of Tarawa, in the Gilbert Island chain nearly 2,400 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, was seen by American commanders as a vital step in the island hopping campaign across the Central Pacific. Planners had their sights set on the Marianas Islands, another 2,000 miles further west, to establish the airbases needed to take the war to the Japanese home islands. Standing in the way was the heavily armed garrison on Tarawa's Betio Island, a spit of rock with an area less than a square mile.

Landing troops on a hostile shore, protecting them while they unload equipment and then keeping them supplied is often considered the most difficult operation a force can attempt. These challenges were compounded at Tarawa for several reasons. First, the beaches of the island are only accessible from the shallow lagoon the atoll surrounds. Approaching from the sea is impossible. Furthermore, the tides around the Gilberts are notoriously fickle, and at times hide jagged coral reefs that can rip the bottoms right out of landing craft.

Marines storm an enemy pillbox on Tarawa.

In addition, Tarawa was occupied by 5,000 men of a special naval detachment, essentially Japanese marines. These elite troops spent over a year creating an interwoven web of trenches, bunkers and pillboxes. The difficult task of assaulting Tarawa fell to the men of the 2nd Marine Division. During the inter-war period, the United States Marine Corps had pioneered the art of amphibious landings on beaches all over the Caribbean. The few offensive landings undertaken since the start of the war had not been contested on the beaches by the Japanese. The landings on Tarawa in late November, however, would put the Americans to the ultimate test.

The first wave of Marines was met at the water's edge by heavy machine gun and mortar fire. They would be forced to fight their way onto the island, but they were ashore and organizing at the base of a seawall on the beach. As the second wave approached, the predicted tides failed to change and landing craft had to dump their men and equipment nearly a hundred yards out to sea. Men laden with nearly half their body weight in gear were forced to wade through chest-high water under fire. By the time the third wave arrived, the distance was nearly five times that. The first wave was hit hard; the second decimated; the third nearly destroyed.

The problems did not end once the Marines got off the beach. The well planned defensive network proved its worth over the course of the next three days, exacting a bitter price for each yard the Americans advanced. Nevertheless, the typical marine bravado was evident throughout the battle. During the fighting, a report by Colonel David. M. Shoup, who would eventually become the Commandant of the Marine Corps, summed up both the combat and the attitude of the Marines: "Casualites: many; Percentage of dead: not known; Combat efficiency: we are winning."



Colonel David M. Shoup, shown here with his trademark cigar, won the Medal of Honor for his actions on Tarawa.



By November 23, 1943, through incredible bravery, overwhelming firepower and sheer grit, the Marines had cleared the island. Afterward, for one of the first times ever, the American public was allowed access to the gruesome details of the savage war in the Pacific. The "butcher's bill" at Tarawa would be shocking, as in just three days of fighting casualties in many units topped 50 percent. Up to that point, it was the costliest battle in the history of the Marine Corps. A short documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa, was released the next year, and Americans found themselves aghast at the deadly carnage their sons faced on a daily basis. Of the 5,000 Japanese on the island, only about 150 were taken alive.

After the battle, the huge casualty numbers caused many to question not only the necessity of the fight, but the conduct of the war as a whole. Marine General "Howlin' Mad" Holland Smith later wrote "Was Tarawa worth it? My answer: an unqualified No." Smith blamed the casualties on poor planning and a lack of understanding of tides in the Gilberts. He felt Tarawa could have been bypassed and the Japanese defenders left to "wither on the vine." Nevertheless, the Marines proved that any island could be taken by an amphibious assault, regardless of the number of defenders or the extent of their fortifications. The lessons learned at Tarawa would prove invaluable on the long road to Tokyo.

This grisly scene was repeated all along the shores of Tarawa in late November, 1943. It was the first time the Japanese had contested an American landing at the water's edge.