Betio Beachhead by Capt. Earl J. Wilson

Author:Capt. Earl J. Wilson [Wilson, Capt. Earl J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, United States, Europe, General, Germany, Asia, Japan
ISBN: 9781787202474
Google: UDFkDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-10-27T03:03:24+00:00

During this initial stage of the second day of the battle, Jap mortars got the range of some revetments which had been captured and in which many of the Sherman tanks had been parked for the night. Previous experience on New Georgia and Guadalcanal had shown the deadliness of this mortar fire against tanks.

While shells were exploding around the lumbering giants their crews manned them and began a desperate zigzag to escape the blasts. The Japs would in turn shift their range. The tanks won out. They escaped the concentration and were shortly back in the fight.

One Jap broke from his hiding place and tried to plant a grenade in Colorado’s treads. A Marine shot him down as he trotted alongside the big Sherman.

8:23 A.M.: Colonel Shoup sent General Julian Smith this message:

“Urgently request rations and small arms ammunition landed on the beach.”

The great majority of the men ashore had been fighting for over twenty-four hours without rest and with only the canteens of hot medicated water and the one ration they had brought ashore with them. The equatorial sun was brutal. At some points, working parties were sent out to search the bodies of Marine dead along the beach, to strip them of their ammunition, their first-aid packs, and their water. Rations lay off the shore, out there on the water beyond the reefs, and the men on the beach were hungry.

Next Thursday would be Thanksgiving back home.

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