Chapter 10

Getting ashore on D-Day took great courage and determination. Attacking inland beyond the relative safety of the seawall on D-Day required an even greater measure.Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 63457

Getting ashore on D-Day took great courage and determination. Attacking inland beyond the relative safety of the seawall on D-Day required an even greater measure.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 63457

At this point, Julian Smith’s communications failed him again. At 1740, he received a faint message that Hermle had finally reached the pier and was under fire. Ten minutes later, Smith ordered Hermle to take command of all forces ashore. To his subsequent chagrin, Hermle never received this word. Nor did Smith know his message failed to get through. Hermle stayed at the pier, sending runners to Shoup (who unceremoniously told him to “get the hell out from under that pier!”) and trying with partial success to unscrew the two-way movement of casualties out to sea and supplies to shore.

Marine Corps Historical Center Combat Art Collection“Tarawa, H-Hour, D-Day, Beach Red.” Detail from a painting in acrylic colors by Col Charles H. Waterhouse, USMCR.

Marine Corps Historical Center Combat Art Collection

“Tarawa, H-Hour, D-Day, Beach Red.” Detail from a painting in acrylic colors by Col Charles H. Waterhouse, USMCR.

This aerial photograph, taken at 1406 on D-Day, shows the long pier on the north side of the island which divided Red Beach Three, left, from Red Beach Two, where “a man could lift his hand and get it shot off” in the intense fire. Barbed wire entanglements are visible off both beaches. A grounded Japanese landing craft is tied to the west side of the pier. Faintly visible in the right foreground, a few Marines wade from a disabled LVT towards the pier’s limited safety and shelter.Marine Corps Personal Papers

Marine Corps Personal Papers

Throughout the long day Colonel Hall and his regimental staff had languished in their LCVPs adjacent to Hays’ LT 1/8 at the line of departure, “cramped, wet, hungry, tired and a large number ... seasick.” In late afternoon, Smith abruptly ordered Hall to land his remaining units on a new beach on the northeast tip of the island at 1745 and work west towards Shoup’s ragged lines. Thiswas a tremendous risk. Smith’s overriding concern that evening was a Japanese counterattack from the eastern tail of the island against his left flank (Crowe and Ruud). Once he had been given the 6th Marines, Smith admitted he was “willing to sacrifice a battalion landing team” if it meant saving the landing force from being overrun during darkness.

LtGen Julian C. Smith CollectionMarines try to drag a wounded comrade to safety and medical treatment on D-Day.

LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection

Marines try to drag a wounded comrade to safety and medical treatment on D-Day.

Fortunately, as it turned out, Hall never received this message from Smith. Later in the afternoon, a float plane reported to Smith that a unit was crossing the line of departure and heading for the left flank of Red Beach Two. Smith and Edson assumed it was Hall and Hays going in on the wrong beach. The fog of war: the movement reported was the beginning of Rixey’s artillerymen moving ashore. The 8th Marines spent the night in its boats, waiting for orders. Smith did not discover this fact until early the next morning.

Col Michael P. Ryan, USMC, wears the Navy Cross awarded to him at Tarawa. Ryan, the junior major in the Division, was instrumental in securing the western end of Betio, thereby enabling the first substantial reinforcements to land intact.Marine Corps Historical Collection

Marine Corps Historical Collection

On Betio, Shoup was pleased to receive at 1415 an unexpected report from Major Ryan that several hundred Marines and a pair of tanks had penetrated 500 yards beyond Red Beach One on the western end of the island. This was by far the most successful progress of the day, and the news was doubly welcome because Shoup, fearing the worst, had assumed Schoettel’s companies and the other strays who had veered in that direction had been wiped out. Shoup, however, was unable to convey the news to Smith.

Ryan’s composite troops had indeed been successful on the western end. Learning quickly how best to operate with the medium tanks, the Marines carved out a substantial beachhead, overrunning many Japanese turrets and pillboxes. But aside from the tanks, Ryan’s men had nothing but infantry weapons. Critically, they had no flamethrowers or demolitions. Ryan had learned from earlier experience in the Solomons that “positions reduced only with grenades could come alive again.” By late afternoon, he decided to pull back his thin lines and consolidate. “I was convinced that without flamethrowers or explosives to clean them out we had to pull back ... to a perimeter that could be defended against counterattack by Japanese troops still hidden in the bunkers.”

The fundamental choice faced by most other Marines on Betio that day was whether to stay put along the beach or crawl over the seawall and carry the fight inland. For much of the day the fire coming across the top of those coconut logs was so intense it seemed “a man could lift his hand and get it shot off.” Late on D-Day, there were many too demoralized to advance. When Major Rathvon McC. Tompkins, bearing messages from General Hermle to Colonel Shoup, first arrived on Red Beach Two at the foot of the pier at dusk on D-Day, he was appalled at the sight of so many stragglers. Tompkins wondered why the Japanese “didn’t use mortars on the first night. People were lying on the beach so thick you couldn’t walk.”

Conditions were congested on Red Beach One, as well, but there was a difference. Major Crowe was everywhere, “as cool as ice box lettuce.” There were no stragglers. Crowe constantly fed small groups of Marines into the lines to reinforce his precarious hold on the left flank. Captain Hoffman of 3/8 was not displeased to find his unit suddenly integrated within Crowe’s 2/8. And Crowe certainly needed help as darkness began to fall. “There we were,” Hoffman recalled, “toes in the water, casualties everywhere, dead andwounded all around us. But finally a few Marines started inching forward, a yard here, a yard there.” It was enough. Hoffman was soon able to see well enough to call in naval gunfire support 50 yards ahead. His Marines dug in for the night.

West of Crowe’s lines, and just inland from Shoup’s command post, Captain William T. Bray’s Company B, 1/2, settled in for the expected counterattacks. The company had been scattered in Kyle’s bloody landing at mid-day. Bray reported to Kyle that he had men from 12 to 14 different units in his company, including several sailors who swam ashore from sinking boats. The men were well armed and no longer strangers to each other, and Kyle was reassured.

U.S. Navy Combat Art Collection“The Hard Road to Triumph,” a sketch by Kerr Eby. The action shows Maj Crowe’s LT 2/8 trying to expand its beachhead near the contested Burns-Philp pier.

U.S. Navy Combat Art Collection

“The Hard Road to Triumph,” a sketch by Kerr Eby. The action shows Maj Crowe’s LT 2/8 trying to expand its beachhead near the contested Burns-Philp pier.

Altogether, some 5,000 Marines had stormed the beaches of Betio on D-Day. Fifteen hundred of these were dead, wounded, or missing by nightfall. The survivors held less than a quarter of a square mile of sand and coral. Shoup later described the location of his beachhead lines the night of D-Day as “a stock market graph.” His Marines went to ground in the best fighting positions they could secure, whether in shellholes inland or along the splintered seawall. Despite the crazy-quilt defensive positions and scrambled units, the Marines’ fire discipline was superb. The troops seemed to share a certain grim confidence; they had faced the worst in getting ashore. They were quietly ready for any suddenbanzaicharges in the dark.

Offshore, the level of confidence diminished. General Julian Smith onMarylandwas gravely concerned. “This was the crisis of the battle,” he recalled. “Three-fourths of the Island was in the enemy’s hands, and even allowing for his losses he should have had as many troops left as we had ashore.” A concerted Japanese counterattack, Smith believed, would have driven most of his forces into the sea. Smith and Hill reported up the chain of command to Turner, Spruance, and Nimitz: “Issue remains in doubt.” Spruance’s staff began drafting plans for emergency evacuation of the landing force.

The expected Japanese counterattack did not materialize. The principal dividend of all the bombardment turned out to be the destruction of Admiral Shibasaki’s wire communications. The Japanese commander could not muster his men to take the offensive. A few individuals infiltrated through the Marine lines to swim out to disabled tanks and LVTs in the lagoon, where they waited for the morning. Otherwise, all was quiet.

Marines of Landing Teams 2/8 and 3/8 advance forward beyond the beach.LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection

Marines of Landing Teams 2/8 and 3/8 advance forward beyond the beach.

LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection

The main struggle throughout the night of D-Day was the attempt by Shoup and Hermle to advise Julian Smith of the best place to land thereserves on D+1. Smith was amazed to learn at 0200 that Hall and Hays were in fact not ashore but still afloat at the line of departure, awaiting orders. Again, he ordered Combat Team Eight (-) to land on the eastern tip of the island, this time at 0900 on D+1. Hermle finally caught a boat to one of the destroyers in the lagoon to relay Shoup’s request to the commanding general to land reinforcements on Red Beach Two. Smith altered Hall’s orders accordingly, but he ordered Hermle back to the flagship, miffed at his assistant for not getting ashore and taking command. But Hermle had done Smith a good service in relaying the advice from Shoup. As much as the 8th Marines were going to bleed in the morning’s assault, a landing on the eastern end of the island would have been an unmitigated catastrophe. Reconnaissance after the battle discovered those beaches to be the most intensely mined on the island.

INTELLIGENCE MAP BITITU (BETIO) ISLANDTARAWA ATOLL, GILBERT ISLANDSSITUATION 1800 D-DAYNOTE: LINES ARE GENERAL INDICATION ONLY. GAPS WERE COVERED BY SMALL GROUPS AND BY FIRE. SECONDARY LINES WERE ESTABLISHED WHERE POSSIBLE BEHIND FRONT LINES.TAKEN FROM 2D MAR DIV SPECIAL ACTION REPORT

INTELLIGENCE MAP BITITU (BETIO) ISLANDTARAWA ATOLL, GILBERT ISLANDS

SITUATION 1800 D-DAY

NOTE: LINES ARE GENERAL INDICATION ONLY. GAPS WERE COVERED BY SMALL GROUPS AND BY FIRE. SECONDARY LINES WERE ESTABLISHED WHERE POSSIBLE BEHIND FRONT LINES.

TAKEN FROM 2D MAR DIV SPECIAL ACTION REPORT

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