Battle of Tarawa (1943): The Bloody Assault on Betio Island

The Battle of Tarawa was fought from 20 to 23 November 1943 on Betio, a small island in Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Men of the 2nd Marine Division assaulted a heavily fortified Japanese garrison, and in 76 hours of fighting about 1,000 Americans and almost all of the roughly 4,500 defenders were killed.

Tarawa was the first major American amphibious assault against strong opposition on a defended coral atoll. Its shocking casualties made it a byword for the cost of the Pacific War and taught lessons used in every later landing.

Background

After Midway and Guadalcanal, the United States began a drive across the central Pacific towards Japan. The Gilbert Islands, seized by Japan from Britain in December 1941, were the first step. Airfields there could support attacks on the Marshall Islands further north.

Betio, at the south-western corner of Tarawa Atoll, held the main Japanese airfield. The island is less than 4 km long and only a few hundred metres wide, but it had been turned into a fortress. Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki commanded naval infantry and construction troops, including many Korean labourers, in a network of concrete and log bunkers, coastal guns, barbed wire and a log sea wall.

The reef and the landing

The operation, code-named Galvanic, was commanded by Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner, with Major General Holland M. Smith leading the landing forces. Major General Julian C. Smith commanded the 2nd Marine Division.

Planners knew a coral reef surrounded Betio but hoped the tide would give enough water for landing craft to cross it. On the morning of 20 November, after a heavy naval and air bombardment, the tide stayed low. The tracked amphibious vehicles called LVTs, or amtracs, could crawl over the reef, but there were too few of them. The Higgins boats carrying later waves grounded on the reef, hundreds of metres from the beach.

Marines waded ashore through chest-deep water under machine-gun and artillery fire, and many were killed before reaching land. By nightfall about 5,000 men were ashore, clinging to a narrow strip of beach behind the sea wall. Colonel David M. Shoup, commanding the troops ashore, held them together despite being wounded.

Capturing Betio

On 21 November the tide rose, reinforcements landed, and Marines pushed across the island to the southern shore, cutting the Japanese defence in two. Fighting was close and brutal, often against bunkers that had to be cleared with flamethrowers, explosives and tanks.

Shibasaki was killed early in the battle, possibly on the first day, which disrupted Japanese command. On the night of 22–23 November, surviving defenders launched desperate counter-attacks that were beaten off. Betio was declared secure on the afternoon of 23 November.

Four Americans received the Medal of Honor for their actions on Betio, three of them posthumously: William Deane Hawkins, Alexander Bonnyman Jr. and William J. Bordelon, as well as David Shoup. Within days, Navy construction battalions, the Seabees, had repaired the airstrip for American aircraft.

Elsewhere in Operation Galvanic, US Army troops took Makin Atoll, and on 24 November the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay was sunk by a Japanese submarine off Makin with the loss of more than 600 sailors.

Key people

• Julian C. Smith (1885–1975), commander of the 2nd Marine Division.
• David M. Shoup (1904–1983), commander ashore, awarded the Medal of Honor and later Commandant of the Marine Corps.
• Keiji Shibasaki (1894–1943), Japanese commander of Betio.
• William Deane Hawkins (1914–1943), Marine scout-sniper officer killed in the battle and awarded the Medal of Honor; the island’s airfield was renamed after him.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1941, December: Japan occupies the Gilbert Islands.
• 1943, 20 November: Marines land on Betio; landing craft are stranded on the reef.
• 1943, 21 November: Marines reach the southern shore and split the defences.
• 1943, 22–23 November: Japanese counter-attacks fail at night.
• 1943, 23 November: Betio is declared secure.
• 1943, 24 November: USS Liscome Bay is sunk off Makin.
• 1944, January–February: Lessons from Tarawa are applied in the Marshall Islands.

Consequences and legacy

Photographs and newsreels of dead Marines on Betio’s beaches shocked the American public. The documentary With the Marines at Tarawa won an Academy Award in 1945.

The military drew quick lessons: more and better-armoured amtracs, longer bombardments, improved communications and underwater demolition teams to scout reefs. These made later assaults more effective, though battles such as Iwo Jima would prove even costlier. The search for missing Marines buried on Betio has continued into the 21st century.

Why it matters

Tarawa opened the central Pacific campaign and showed the price of storming fortified islands. Its hard lessons shaped American amphibious warfare for the rest of the war against Japan, which had begun with the attack on Pearl Harbor.