Lost Evidence: Tarawa (You Tube)

There were five videos in this section.

2

D-Day for Tarawa

Tarawa has a valuable airstrip.v

There are 5000 Japanese on the island.

Some companies lose 50% of the men in the first few hours. The Japanese artillery makes mincemeat of the craft trying to get over the reef.

The Japanese make two mistakes. First, they don't do a night-time counterattack. The second is for the commander of the forces to walk with a few other men to another place. They were seen, and a destroyer laid shells right in among the group and killed them all.

Since things were stalled, the Marines changed their tactics and attacked a different beach and managed to take it.

Flamethrowers were used extensively.

The Japanese started using banzai attacks.

The 5000 man Japanese garrison is basically obliterated. 1000 Marines had been killed.

A movie was made about the battle.

Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page