Speeding Up the Attack: The Marshalls
Another in the Crusade in the Pacific series.
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The video starts out by noting how the battle for Tarawa gave people an idea just how harsh the fighting against Japan would be.
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An amphibious force heads towards the Marshalls.
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January 29th, warships open fire. They intend to use the lesson learned from the Tarawa campaign, that the bombardment has to be long enough to have some effect.
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Bombers had spent weeks bombing the islands.
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The 4th Marines will be used to invade the atoll, most of the men fresh to the battlefront.
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A few prisoners were taken.
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The battle was a fierce one.
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An airfield on Roi is seized.
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It's obvious that the bombing and the shelling had taken its toll of Japanese defenses.
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Sometimes combat artists were embedded with the troops. (Then a couple rather gruesome scenes of dead Japanese bodies follows.)
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The Marines inspect the souvenirs they had collected.
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One guy has gotten hold of a samurai sword. (Then it shows a scene of a medic taken fingerprints from a dead Marine's hand.)
A combat camerman during the invasion of the southern portion of the atoll. This particular portion of the overall battle took five days.
The video then talks about how tanks were used to accompany the men on foot, but coordination of the two wasn't yet fully worked out.
Flame-throwers were also used.
Around 170 Japanese prisoners were taken out of an original force of about 4,000, meaning the rest of them had been killed.
February, 1944, another area is attacked.
Then it talks about the Navy's construction group, the Seebees.
Sometimes they even made use of seized enemy equipment.
Yet another airstrip is built.
Sections of metal plates are put down and put together to make up a runway.
Windmill-powered washing machines.
Once the airfield was done, the Seebees then went to work putting together buildings for the occupying forces.
Bombers could be launched from the Marshall Islands to attack Truk.
Truk is bombed.
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