THE SECOND MARINE DIVISION IN WORLD WAR II "The Silent Second"

 

PART IVb. D+1 ON TARAWA

"This [the combat on Tarawa] was not only worse than Guadalcanal, it was the damnedest fight I've seen in thirty years of this business." LtCol Evans Carlson

 

As the night of November 20-21 1943 wore on, the Second Marine Division spent the restless hours of darkness preparing for the new day. Dug in tight in their holes, the front line Marines watched and waited silently. While it would never be certain how many casualties they had taken on D-Day, most estimates later put it at 35 to 40 percent. Navy Corpsmen and doctors worked valiantly to save and evacuate wounded men. Meanwhile, the divisional support units unloaded ammunition, supplies and water. Author Richard Johnston described the night in Follow Me! The Story of the Second Marine Division in World War II:

"Daybreak! No great miracle? Happens every day? True. But daybreak of 21 November 1943 seemed more like a resurrection to the Marines on Betio. In that long and forsaken night, each man had made his own peace with himself and with his God. There was no thought of retreat. When the Japs came, as they surely would, each man was prepared to sell his life dearly. But all sales would be final, and the dawn would never come for the Marines who invaded Tarawa. Now the dawn had come, like a glad shout of great news: The Japs had missed their epochal opportunity. They had not attacked."

Landing Team 1/8 had spent the long night floating in their landing craft at the lines of departure about six thousand yards offshore. Now they received the order to land on Red 2. At about 0615, the boats dropped off their human cargo at the edge of the coral reef about 500 yards from the shoreline. The Japanese opened up on the exposed Marines even before their boats reached the drop-off line. As units onshore kicked on a furious attack to the south and west, enemy machine gun fire tore through the exposed Marines wading ashore. 1stLt Dean Ladd served as a platoon leader in Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. He was one of the Marines who made this fateful trek, and lived to tell about it in Faithful Warriors: Memoirs of World War II in the Pacific:

"I helplessly watched machine gun bullets traversing back and forth, methodically striking among us. It was curtain of death!... During training we had practiced laying down machine gun fields of fire but never expected to have to advance helplessly into it like this. I turned to look over my right shoulder to see how my thirty-one men were doing. Some were still jumping off the ramp too slowly to suit me. I urged them on with a shout, "Let's go!" I walked a few more steps and heard cries of wounded men from the adjacent platoons intermixed with ours, yelling for corpsmen.... A sickening splat, like an inner tube snapped across my abdomen, shocking me. I realized a bullet had hit me dead center below the navel. I quickly removed my pack, small radio, carbine, helmet and web belt. I was too weak to maintain my balance, forgetting about everything but trying to keep my head above water."

Many of the Marines on shore could see their brothers in 1/8 being savaged in the water, and they made titanic sacrifices to stop the enemy. Into this breach stepped men such as Capt Kenneth L. Brown Bradford of New Hampshire. The commander of Battery A, 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, Brown took charge of a group of infantry Marines. His posthumous Navy Cross citation told a story of sacrificial courage:

"Conducting a reconnaissance in advance of his firing battery, Captain Brown discovered a group of infantrymen who had become separated from their regular units and, voluntarily assuming command, led them to a well-camouflaged enemy machine-gun pillbox emplacement which was delivering devastating cross-fire on our troops as they waded through the surf prior to gaining the beachhead. While maneuvering his group to the flank of the enemy weapon, several of his men were killed or wounded by a covering light machine gun and, in the face of almost certain death, he courageously exposed himself to the line of fire and was mortally wounded attempting to locate the hostile weapon."

Through this maelstrom of fire, Landing Team 1/8 came on. Somehow, the surviving Marines arrived at the beach, but their heavy equipment—flamethrowers, demolition charges, crew-served weapons—were lost in the water. Robert Sherrod witnessed the death march from the beach and counted at least two hundred bodies in the wake of this savaged unit. 1stLt Ladd's platoon alone suffered 24 casualties; 12 killed and 12 wounded. In total, Landing Team 1/8 endured 343 casualties in less than an hour; 108 dead and 235 wounded. By 0800, the skipper, Maj L. C. Hayes, Jr., reported to Col Shoup that about half of his unit was present. Shoup ordered Hayes and his Marines to take over the western sector of Red 2.

Boats laden with their cargo of Marines approach the edge of the coral reef. In the distance, the battered hulk of Betio Island is visible. Still image from USMC combat camera film

 

The long pier that split Red 2 and 3 was both a shelter of sorts for Marines attempting to land, and conversely a target for the Japanese defenders. Boats that could not get close to the beach due to the shallow water were able to pull up to the end of the pier for unloading of supplies. Also, as Marines struggled ashore, the pilings underneath offered a small amount of cover. 1stLt Jim Lucas, a combat correspondent attached to the Second Marine Division, wrote of his landing there early on D+1:

"Crouched, we sprinted down the pier, silhouetted against the coral. Snipers opened up, and six men fell, screaming in agony. We lay like logs.
"We can't stay here," someone said up the line. "They'll shell the hell out of us and we'll all be gone."
"Advance slowly. Five yards between each man. They won't get us all that way."
We started. Three more Marine fell, and we hit the ground. Inch by inches we moved up. Each ten yards cost us the lives of more Marines. Finally we were within fifteen yards of the beach.... On the beach the fire was still hot. We ducked behind the wreckage of a Japanese steam roller, which appeared to be between us and the enemy. I found a shovel and began to dig frantically. Within five minutes we had our first foxhole on Tarawa."

The situation that morning was an extension of D-Day, with Col Shoup and his staff striving to bring order to the fight. At 1140 he messaged divisional headquarters: "Situation ashore uncertain." Robert Sherrod described Shoup's activities:

"Colonel Shoup is nervous. The telephone shakes in his hand. "We are in a might tough spot," he is saying. Then he lays down the phone and turns to me. "Division has just asked me whether we've got enough troops to do the job. I told them no. They are sending the Sixth Marines. Says a nearby officer: That damned Sixth is cocky enough already. Now they'll come in and claim they won the battle."

Now the focus for the landing teams was to attack west and south, but they had precious little room to maneuver. Interlocked from every angle, each Japanese emplacement had to be neutralized one at a time. It was slow, costly work for the Marines who had to do the job. They derisively called this sort of combat: "High diddle diddle, straight up the middle."

WE ARE WINNING

Marines of Landing Team 2/8 take cover behind a Japanese pillbox during the fighting on Betio. US Marine Corps photo

Through the afternoon the situation improved as more and more enemy positions were knocked out. Even though communications were still snarled, the landing teams continued to push forward. On Red 1 Maj Mike Ryan and his troops secured Betio's western beaches. With naval gunfire support, and the help of two M4 tanks, Ryan's combined force of Marines from Landing Teams 2/2 and 3/2 reached the southern side of the island at noon.

Landing Team 1/2 on Red 2, long with the remnants of Landing Team 2/1, attacked across the airstrip and taxi ways, destroying numerous enemy machine guns. By early afternoon, they had crossed the island and occupied the southern shoreline. Among the many brave men in this action was Sgt Vincent H. Wiehardt, a weapons platoon section leader in 1/2. His posthumous Navy cross citation stated:

"Separated from his own company commander during the intense action, [Sgt] Wiehardt voluntarily assumed command of a group of twenty men and steadfastly continued operations against hostile lines. At one period of the bitter fighting, he rushed an enemy machine-gun emplacement armed only with grenades and, fearlessly remaining beside the concealed weapon, signaled one of our tanks to come and blast it. Boldly crawling to another pill box, he repeated his heroic tactics and succeeded in killing all the Japanese in the position. Subsequently while rushing toward a Japanese sniper, he was mortally wounded by enemy shellfire."

Over on Red 3 Maj Crowe and his Marines faced the core of the Japanese defenses around their blockhouse command post. Under heavy fire all day, the Marines continued to dig in and made local attacks to neutralize enemy emplacements. Crowe epitomized the leadership of the Marine officer, as outlined in his Navy Cross citation:

"Constantly exposing himself to hostile fire and working without rest, he effectively coordinated the efforts of his own hard-pressed Battalion, attached units and subsequent reinforcement, directing their combined attacks skillfully and with unwavering determination, and succeeded in overcoming one of the most heavily defended Japanese centers of resistance on Tarawa Atoll."

Now the tide was starting to turn against the Japanese. Supplies were coming ashore and out to the fighting troops. More pack howitzers of LtCol Preston Rixey's 1st Battalion, 10th Marines made it to the beach head to support the infantry. Light tanks of Company B, 2nd Tank Battalion were ordered ashore across the north part of Green Beach on Betio's western shore. Landing Team 2/6 assaulted and secured Bairiki Island at 1655. At 1706 Col Shoup sent the following message to divisional headquarters:

"Situation at 1600: Our lines run generally from the Burns-Philp pier across the east end of the triangle formed by the airfield to the south coast and along the coast intermittently to a place opposite the west end of the triangle; then from the revetments north of the west end of the main air strip on to the north; another line from west of the center of Red 1 across the end of the island to the south coast west of the end of the main strip. Some troops in 227 dishing out hell and catching hell. Pack howitzers in position and registered for shooting on tail. Casualties many; percentage dead not known; combat efficiency: We are winning. Shoup"

75mm pack howitzers of 1/10 firing during the battle for Betio. The packs, nicknamed "Little Dynamite" by their crews, fired thousands of rounds. US Marine Corps photo

Just after 1800, the first jeeps arrived on the beach head, some towing 37mm antitank guns. Robert Sherrod called this a good omen. In his diary, he wrote: "If a sign of certain victory were needed... this is it. The jeeps have arrived." Also around this time, 75mm halftracks of the 2nd Marines Regimental Weapons Company made it ashore, bringing much-needed firepower to knock out Japanese fortifications.

Late in the afternoon, Col Merritt Edson, Divisional Chief of Staff, landed ashore to take overall command of divisional troops. This relieved Col Shoup to take the reins of Combat Team 2 for the remainder of the fighting on Betio. Historian Jon Hoffman described Edson's assumption of command in the book Once A Legend: "Red Mike" Edson of the Marine Raiders:

"[B]ecause Red Mike volunteered for the mission, the general assigned Edson to take charge of setting up a forward command post. Shoup had done an admirable job, but he was exhausted after thirty-six hours of continual combat, and the number of units ashore was mushrooming far beyond the ability of a regimental headquarters to handle effectively. Red Mike depasrted the Maryland at 1750, the boat dropped him off at the end of the pier, and two and a half hours later he had covered the half mile to the 2nd Marines CP, still ocated in defilade behind a Japanese bunker on Red 2. Shoup briefed him on the situation and the two colonels made their plans for the night and the next day."

Col Shoup had led the Second Marine Division troops in combat during the critical phases of the battle. His leadership, tactical smarts, and drive were all critical to victory, and he was the only Marine in the battle who lived to wear his Medal of Honor. His citation stated in part:

"Upon arrival on shore, he assumed command of all landed troops and, working without rest under constant, withering enemy fire during the next 2 days, conducted smashing attacks against unbelievably strong and fanatically defended Japanese positions despite innumerable obstacles and heavy casualties. By his brilliant leadership daring tactics, and selfless devotion to duty, Col. Shoup was largely responsible for the final decisive defeat of the enemy, and his indomitable fighting spirit reflects great credit upon the U.S. Naval Service."

Col David Shoup (facing left without helmet cover) briefs Col Merritt Edson (facing right without helmet cover) at the 2nd Marines command post during the battle for Tarawa. Still image from USMC combat camera film

Throughout the day the battle raged across the island as a pall of dust and smoke filled the hot, humid air. Glaring relentlessly, the sun cooked men and equipment, making weapons almost too hot to touch, and sapping men's strength. Small arms fire and explosions rocked the ground, and artillery rounds landed frequently. The battlefield, congested as it was, now began to smell and look like a charnel house. The heat caused corpses to swell and burst, creating a stench that survivors could never forget. And the waste created by so many men in close quarters added a layer of filth to the scene.

And always there were the dead. As Marines came ashore, they were unavoidably greeted by the sight lifeless men floating in the water, crumpled in the shelter of the seawall, and everywhere that Marines units were fighting their way forward. Dead Japanese troops were also scattered everywhere; incinerated in bunkers and pillboxes, blown to pieces by high explosives, pierced by bullets.

Against the dug-in Japanese defenders, there was no choice for the Marines but to go forward. Their relentless assaults compressed the surviving Japanese into an ever-shrinking area of real estate. There could be no doubt to the enemy troops that relief would not come, not ever. Their commanders determined to sell the island for the highest cost possible. The Marines might win the day, but they would bleed in the winning.

On the evening of D+1, Landing Team 1/6 landed on Green Beach via rubber boats. Under their commander, Maj William K. Jones, the Marines of 1/6 had trained and rehearsed a landing in boats and they were known as "the condom fleet." This was the first battalion of the battle to reach the shoreline essentially intact and with their full complement of heavy weapons and specialized equipment. But even 1/6 did not escape their landing unscathed. Two LVTs laden with equipment and supplies accompanied the battalion, and one of these struck a submerged mine, killing all of its occupants but one. Jones and his Marines reached Betio's western beach at about 1830 on ground already secured by Maj Ryan and his ad hoc force.

In the lines from their foxholes, Marines heard many single shots or muffled explosions as Japanese defenders took their own lives in war's ultimate futility. As dusk fell, the tradewinds cooled off the oven-like temperatures of the day. During the night, an enemy bomber made its appearance in the skies above Tarawa. "Washing Machine Charlie" as the Japanese plane was known, had made an ineffectual appearance on the night of D-Day. Now he was back to drop two sticks of bombs, one in the Marine perimeter, and the other on Japanese positions. The Marines joked, "That bastard's absolutely impartial."

Hard Road to Triumph by Kerr Eby. He was a civilian artist who accompanied US forces in the Pacific from October 1943 to January 1944. Eby was an observer during the fighting on Tarawa. US Navy Art Collection

PART IVc , TARAWA SECURED

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