Chapter 9 Seventy-six hours destined for life and death

In order to facilitate the attack of the 3rd Battalion on the morning of the 23rd, the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Regiment was scheduled to land on Bedio Island late at night.However, the operation was virtually delayed due to a shortage of landing craft.As a result, the support task fell on the shoulders of the tired Jones Battalion, but the US thought it was inappropriate and finally replaced it with aviation support. Within 30 minutes from 7:00 am on the 23rd, carrier-based aircraft fiercely attacked the 2,000-meter portion of the east end of the island (the Marine Corps has not yet secured it).Then, the howitzers of the 1st Battalion of the 10th Regiment fired for 15 minutes, and the destroyers followed suit, firing for 15 minutes.The 3rd Battalion of the 6th Regiment crossed the airfield, crossed the position of the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Regiment, and advanced to the front secured by Company C of the 1st Battalion of the 6th Regiment the night before.At the same time, Company L also advanced to the area where the Japanese army launched a counterattack.

Japanese soldiers who would rather die than surrender At eight o'clock in the morning, the US Marines launched their scheduled attack.Two Sherman chariots, seven light tanks, leading the infantry.Demolition and flame emission squads are at the forefront of the marines that are traversing the entire island.They advanced two hundred meters without encountering any resistance. The corpses of Japanese soldiers were scattered everywhere.They were the victims of shelling for three consecutive days.There are also a large number of Japanese war dead crammed in bunker positions, trenches, bunkers and other places.They were all suicides who refused to surrender.They either step on the trigger with their feet, or go to death with grenades.

The remaining Japanese soldiers stared blankly at the approaching American soldiers. When the Sherman tanks and flame throwers destroyed their hiding places or burned their bunkers, they did not resist, but silently died. The only resistance to the U.S. attack early in the morning was on the island's eastern coast.The commander of Macleo's 3rd Battalion left I Company behind in order to mop them up, while L Company made a detour. Company K followed closely behind for support. Today, the resistance of the Japanese army is limited to the part of the island's tail at the eastern end of the island. Relying on the bombardment of the destroyer, the Marine Corps broke into the tail of the island at 1:10 in the afternoon.

During the rapid attack in the morning, Macleo's team killed and wounded nearly 500 Japanese soldiers and captured 14 of them.Most of them are South Korean soldiers.The losses of the 3rd Battalion were five killed and twenty-five wounded. In his report on the battle, Marco Leo said: The Japanese army had lost its organized resistance.I didn't use artillery, I just asked the ship's guns to fire for five minutes. That's all the support we get.We used to use flamethrowers.As for light tanks, they never engaged in shooting. Red Beach No. 1 and No. 2 cleared Except for the Japanese army at the eastern end of Betio Island, on the morning of November 23, the only remaining Japanese troops on the island were the garrison troops at Red Beach No. 1 and No. 2 strongholds.

Relying on well-placed and cleverly constructed bunkers, the Japanese army endured a three-day onslaught.They had smashed the landing of four battalions of marines, defending the position extremely effectively.As a result, the corals off the coast of Red Beach No. 1 and No. 2 were scattered with the wreckage of crawler-type amphibious landing vehicles and landing boats. Xiaopu's attack plan on the fourth day of the battle was to make the 1st Battalion of the 8th Regiment focus on the right flank and launch an attack, and advance throughout the entire line in sequence.Meanwhile, Major Scheidel's 2nd Battalion, 3rd Battalion, would traverse across the west of the airfield and encircle and attack the previously marked Japanese positions from inland.Since all the tanks were dispatched to the Eastern Front, two battalions of self-propelled guns had to be used as support operations.Two self-propelled guns and a platoon of infantry moved up to the coral reef for a flank attack.The assault companies of the 1st Battalion of the 8th Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment used flamethrowers and explosives one after another to destroy the Japanese stronghold while advancing.Finally destroyed a huge steel bunker near the coast, laying the foundation for their victory.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Hayes' vanguard and the 3rd Battalion of Scheider's 2nd Regiment met at the defense line of the airport and attacked all the way north to the coast. After advancing for three hours, the two battalions occupied the silent ruins.Many Japanese soldiers had committed suicide and only a few became captives.The Japanese positions were captured one after another. At 1:05 in the afternoon, Xiao Pu had cleared the center of the island. The organized resistance of the Japanese army came to an end Due to the successful attack in the morning, the atmosphere in the division command post became clearer.At 11:50 in the morning, Commander Smith told General Scheer of the Tarawa Landing Support Force: Due to the complete failure of the counterattack on the night of the 22nd, the Japanese army has completely lost its resistance.I expect to completely annihilate the Japanese army on Betio Island within today. When your Excellency and the Chief of Staff land today, I hope to bring information about the resistance of the Japanese army for reference.

In less than an hour, several staff members and Scheer had arrived at Bedio Island.Just caught up with Commander Smith officially issued a declaration, saying that the Japanese army had given up organizational resistance. At 1:30 p.m. on November 20, after seventy-six hours of bloody fighting from the arrival of the first echelon of the attack on Betio Island, the island was finally captured by the US Marines. However, when the cruiser USS Indianapolis General Spoor Ans (Commander of the Central Pacific), the battleship Pennsylvania General Tyner (Landing Operations Commander), and the Fifth Amphibious Army's Hollander.General Smith, when he received the news of the victory, did not know that the Japanese garrison had been wiped out or taken prisoner.

After that, the Marine Corps launched a few days of clearing work on Betio Island, and at the same time, tried its best to sweep and secure the remaining islands of Tarawa.At this time, the scouts discovered about a hundred Japanese soldiers hiding on Buotah Island (a long and thin island forming the southeastern corner of the atoll). A non-stop sweeping and mopping-up battle was launched on Betio Island.During the Battle of Tarawa, a total of 146 Japanese soldiers (129 of whom were Koreans) were captured.Eighty-one were taken prisoner in position near Green Beach.The remaining 500 were not killed in battle or committed suicide with guns.Because for them, surrender means a kind of humiliation.

In the final stages of the battle on Petio Island, two more reinforcements were brought in, but it was too late. November 23rd, Kenneth.The first squad of the 4th Battalion of Qiao Gensheng's 10th Regiment arrived at Green Beach.The battalion helped move the howitzer into firing position.However, the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment (capturing the tip of the island) did not need artillery support. Lieutenant Colonel Marley's 2nd Battalion of the 6th Regiment also reached Petio Island, but there was no need to use it.The 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment took over the task of mopping up the rest of Tarawa Atoll.The mission started on November 24th.

The division suffered 3,404 casualties Colonel Hull's 8th Battalion, using the boats used by Lieutenant Colonel Marley, moved the survivors of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 8th Regiment to Peliki Island.Once the Marines landed, the final roll call took place.When the Second Division drew up the list of casualties, eighty-eight officers and soldiers were found with unknown whereabouts.They were undoubtedly killed in battle, but they died without anyone noticing, because even the corpses had not been identified. The final roll call was also held on Betio Island.The deputy chiefs, chiefs, and non-commissioned officers of each unit tried to report the detailed whereabouts of the soldiers according to the roster, but they did not complete it until after the divisions withdrew from Tarawa.Because the number of battle dead increased with the death of the seriously wounded, the wounded did not care about their injuries during the battle. However, as soon as the battle ended, they appeared in the hospital and the wards of the cabin one after another, and the number increased. Reason.

According to the division's combat report, fifty-seven marine officers, two naval officers, and nine hundred and twenty-three non-commissioned officers and soldiers (27 of whom were medical soldiers) died in battle.The wounded included: ninety officers (two in the Navy), and 2,072 (including forty-nine in the Navy) non-commissioned officers and enlisted men. 1,105 officers and soldiers of the Second Division died when Tarawa was occupied, and 2,292 were injured, for a total of 3,407 casualties. A total of 16,692 marines and 1,396 naval officers and soldiers participated in the attack and occupation of the atoll. Therefore, the ratio of casualties was as high as 18.eight%.Like the 2nd Amphibious Landing Vehicle Battalion, troops assigned many combat missions had a higher casualty rate.The total landing force of these troops was 661, but the casualties were as many as 323. At the end of the Battle of Betio Island, Lieutenant Colonel Tal's Seabee Unit (belonging to the 18th Naval Engineering Battalion) started the work of unloading important materials.The main job of the Naval Corps of Engineers is to restore the airfield so it can be quickly used by the US military.At the same time, the engineering battalion also participated in the ground battle.In order to eliminate the Japanese soldiers in the bunker, the road breaker worked endlessly.On November 22, while the bullets from the Japanese small arms were still raining down, road cutters, tractors, and trucks were engaged in the construction of the main runway. Preparing for the Japanese landing At noon on the 23rd, when Commander Smith announced that Betio Island had been completely occupied, a mothership plane descended on the island in a hurry.The marines immediately surrounded the pilots, impatiently asking whether the motherland had heard the news of their arduous battle. The night defense order on the 23rd informed the infantry battalions to dig trenches along the entire coastline in order to prevent the landing of Japanese troops.Naval ships are on alert around the atoll from time to time.At this stage, the Japanese fleet still cannot be ignored. At the same time, there is no guarantee that the Japanese army will not attack from Turk Island. Since landing, the marines have been thinking about the situation of the Japanese air raid on the island from time to time, thinking that since they have survived all kinds of disasters and survived, they must not become victims of the Japanese bombing, so they accelerated the digging work. Before dusk, a marine threw a grenade into an underground bunker in order to clean up the Japanese soldiers who were still stubbornly resisting.This is twelve.The underground ammunition depot for the five-centimeter gun.Then there was an earth-shattering explosion, and the shells detonated one after another, and the fragments kept flying away endlessly. Because of this astonishing explosion, the few Japanese soldiers who were preparing for the final assault rushed out of their hiding places.As a result, an officer of the 1st Battalion of the 6th Regiment was brutally killed, and two marines were bayoneted. Flag Raising Ceremony of the American and British Flags It was broad daylight, and the Marines, looking through the lagoon, finally saw the sight they had dreamed of.The transport ship floated in the open sea, and there were long lines leaving from every corner of the island. After passing through the fiercely fought trestle bridge, it has now become the only way to withdraw from Betio Island.The cheers of the marines seemed to symbolize the end of the war, but thousands of Japanese corpses were emitting a stench, and the marines who couldn't stand the smell left the queue one after another, giving up their breakfast.The members of the Eighth Regiment, who had escaped the stench on Piliki Island, stepped into the boat first, preparing for the transport ship to the open sea. It so happened that Hedlan, the commander-in-chief of the landing force.General Smith, for the purpose of inspecting the island, came to Tarawa from Makin.He and Julian, commander of the Second Marine Division.Major General Smith roamed the battlefield, inspecting bunkers that had not been damaged much (although they were repeatedly baptized by flamethrowers and explosives).They also saw the sweeping squad searching for Japanese soldiers.In order to destroy all the Japanese defense facilities on the island, the US soldiers stuffed explosives into the underground fortifications and bunkers and blasted them apart. At noon on November 24, the two generals participated in a formal flag-raising ceremony near the command post.Two bald coconut trees were used as flagpoles.The American flag is hoisted on it.Admiral Turner borrowed another Union Jack from the transport ship Monrovia, and hung it over the other coconut trees. When the Marine Corps played the American national anthem in front of the Stars and Stripes, every Marine stood still, and soldiers wearing helmets or helmets followed the Navy's practice and held a salute.Two streams of tears flowed from the faces of the dusty soldiers, dripping on the hot yellow sand of Betio Island.For these soldiers who have fought so hard for the United States of America, there is nothing but pure respect for the Stars and Stripes, a respect that comes from the bottom of their hearts. The fall of Bedio Island meant that the battle had come to an end.Now, it is imperative to secure the entire atoll.As for the islands other than Betio Island, are there still Japanese soldiers?How many of them?It is impossible to guess.Under such circumstances, the Second Battalion of the Sixth Regiment was ordered to find the remnants of the Japanese garrison. Sweepstakes of the Atoll While the battle for Bedio was in progress, the other islands of Tarawa were under attack from Company C, 2nd Tank Battalion.This company is not a tank company, but the division's reconnaissance unit.On November 21, the reconnaissance platoon landed on Ada Island to the east of Piliki Island.No one was found, but bombs, mines, and makeshift fuel dumps were found. On this day, other platoons landed on Buoda Island, the longest and largest of the atolls.The scouts of this team found the Japanese troops (about one hundred) and the radio communication station in the curved part of the island.Due to the considerable strength of the Japanese army, the scouts did not leave until night. On the 22nd, a reconnaissance platoon landed on an unnamed island about six kilometers north of Buoda Island, found several natives, and captured Japanese military officers.The next night, Japanese soldiers from Buoda sneaked past the positions of a few marines and marched north from the atoll.Perhaps the Japanese commander, after seeing Buoda's situation, thought it was time to take action. On the 23rd, Lieutenant Colonel Cali of the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Regiment landed on Ada Island.The howitzers of the Artillery Corps were originally intended to participate in the firing on Betio Island, but since the fighting on the island had come to an end, they took on a new role to support the 6th Regiment in the atoll sweep operation. At five o'clock in the morning on November 24, the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Regiment mounted the western end of Buoda.Immediately after arriving on land, swift action was launched to the east.They first reached the flexure, which is connected to the easternmost point of Tarawa, and then turned north. After stationing here overnight, the second battalion continued on foot through the sandbars and coral reefs connecting countless islands.Due to the speed at which they were advancing, the 3rd Battalion, 10th Artillery Regiment, found it difficult to launch artillery support from Ida Island, or lead its infantry in action. Company G with trucks and guns was dispatched to join the column of the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Regiment. On the 24th and 25th, the Second Battalion did not make contact with the Japanese army.However, the U.S. Marine Corps found several friendly and wonderful indigenous groups near the Dapolio Mission Headquarters. Those priests who were with the soldiers in the Gilbert Islands claimed that the Japanese troops had passed through the area and were advancing north.Towards dusk on the afternoon of the 26th, the commander of the 2nd Mali Battalion arrived at the southern tip of Bujaliki Island (the last large island west of Tarawa).Due to the low nightfall, the battalion was unable to advance, so Company E had to be sent to the front to look for Japanese troops. Complete occupation a week after landing When the surrounding area was already dark, the marine scouts who were advancing through the jungle finally encountered the Japanese scouts.After a gust of shooting, two marines were wounded and several Japanese soldiers fell dead, but since then, the two armies have never made contact.In the darkness, the marines retreated steadily to the position of Company E, waiting for the dawn to come. As soon as the East appeared white, Lieutenant Colonel Marley immediately used the two companies E and F as attacking troops to move them towards the Japanese position. The Japanese army was hidden deep in the jungle, surrounded by rifle bunkers made of coconut trees and logs, which was very difficult to find. Moreover, they would never open fire easily until the US troops entered the vicinity.Due to the initial Japanese machine gun attack, many soldiers in front of the formation fell down.Lieutenant Colonel Marley immediately ordered Company F to move forward without worrying about Company E.At the same time, let G Company launch concentrated shooting in order to support the advance of F Company.However, the salvo is limited to one shot only.Because the visibility in the jungle is very bad, since the two armies are close, it seems that there is no other way but to start hand-to-hand combat. The three companies engaged in a brutal hand-to-hand combat, just like the desperate battle on Katar Kanal Island.The two armies used bayonets, grenades, and rifles as weapons to compete with each other.After several hours of fierce fighting, the US Marine Corps finally occupied all the positions of the Japanese army.By sunset, there were as many as 175 dead Japanese soldiers, and two South Korean soldiers were captured.The sacrifice of the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Regiment was also considerable.There are: thirty-two officers and soldiers died in battle, and fifty-nine were wounded. On the morning of November 28, Lieutenant Colonel Malley sent scouts to Naya Island (about 100 meters from Bujaliki Island, the northernmost island in Tarawa).The scouts returned to report immediately after confirming that Naya Island had not been occupied by the Japanese army.The second battalion successfully completed the task with an attack of more than 50 kilometers and a fierce battle at the end.Afterwards, they sailed to Ida Island for recuperation and rearrangement. A week after the 2nd Marine Division landed on Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll was fully under American control.