Tanks in Hell: A Marine Corps Tank Company on Tarawa by Oscar Gilbert

Author:Oscar Gilbert [Oscar Gilbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub

RED BEACH THREE: THE MASSACRE OF THE THIRD PLATOON

All four tanks of the third Platoon landed without mishap, and by noon the platoon was functioning as one of the few intact units on the island. John marn said that once over the seawall “There were no Japanese movements in that area at the time, weren’t any of them standing around there when we came in. A lot of gunfire.”

In common with the infantry, the company’s original orders were to rapidly push across and sever the island into two parts. After moving through the densely built-up but wrecked area north of the northwest-southeast taxi-way, the tanks spread out into a rough line-abreast formation.

Largey’s CANNONBALL ran down the south side of the taxiway, turned right and overran a line of foxholes along the edge of the taxi-way, and moved into the triangle formed by the runway and the two taxi-ways. According to Woolum, CONDOR was on the extreme right of the line, with CHARLIE to its left. This formation was ragged; there were fewer obstacles but the tanks still had to dodge raised sand berms and other obstacles, and CHARLIE eventually followed behind CANNONBALL.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.