Tarawa: The Incredible Story of One of World War II's Bloodiest Battles by Robert Sherrod

Author:Robert Sherrod [Sherrod, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Military, World War II, Asia, Japan, Modern, 20th Century
ISBN: 9781626361836
Google: HzolpUHoBxkC
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2013-02-22T23:38:26.900521+00:00

THE THIRD DAY

THIS WAS THE DAY the Japs fell apart. There were many factors in this rout. Another company of light tanks and a few thirty-two-tan tanks had a field day with the Japs, who cowered in their pillboxes and waited for death. Armored half-tracks, mounting 75-mm. guns, paraded up and down Betio all day, pouring high explosives Into pillboxes, carrying Marine riflemen who killed Japs whenever they dared stick their heads up. The men with the flamethrowers killed many hundreds in their fortifications, or outside their fortifications. Our line across the island had held during the night, preventing any fresh Japs from filtering toward the scenes of the toughest fighting. On the third day the question was not, “How long will it take to kill them all?” but, “How few men can we expect to lose before killing the rest of the Japs?”

But probably the biggest factor on the third day was Major William Jones’ first battalion of the Sixth Marines, who jumped off at dawn from their landing point on the southwestern tip of the island and marched straight up the beach that is the Betio bird’s back. The Sixth took heavy casualties—the fortifications on this south beach were even stronger than those on the lagoon side of the island—but they swung ahead quickly and violently, like men who were anxious to get it over with. Lieutenant Colonel McLeod’s third battalion of the Sixth landed on the western beach in the early morning and marched through Major Ryan’s depleted forces, cleaning out huge fortifications as they went along, walking beside medium tanks which boxed into the fading Japs.

Commented Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson in mid-morning, “These Marines are in the groove today.” Lieutenant Colonel Jordan, who had been distressed earlier because some of the Marines hung back on the beaches, was proud of these same men today. “Tell you something interesting. Once we got those men off the beaches and up front, they were good. They waded into the Japs and proved they could fight just as well as anybody.”

During the day I saw the first five of many Japs I saw who committed suicide rather than fight to the end. In one hole, under a pile of rubble, supported by a tin roof, four of them had removed the split-toed, rubber-soled jungle shoes from their right feet, had placed the barrels of their .303 rifles against their foreheads, then had pulled the triggers with their big toes. The other had chosen the same method some five hundred Japs chose on Attu: holding a hand grenade against his chest, thus blowing out the chest and blowing off the right hand. From the time he was a baby the Jap had been told that he was superior to the white man, and all he had to do to win was to fight aggressively. When he found that this was not true, and the white man could fight aggressively, too, he became frustrated. He had never been taught to improvise and

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