Tarawa 1943: The Turning of the Tide by Derrick Wright, Illustrated by Howard Gerrard is the history of the Battle at the Tarawa Atoll during World War II .  Tarawa was the first attempt using Admiral Nimitz’s island hopping strategy.  When looking at a map of the South Pacific, Tarawa is in the far southeastern corner of Japan’s area of control.  It contained landing strips that were used for patrolling the South Pacific and it was an important interdiction point for U.S. ships heading to Australia.  Betio is the main island of the atoll were there were Japanese forces.  After taking Betio, the remaining Japanese forces were mopped up under less costly actions.

One of the new things I learned is that a Marine regiment includes combat engineers, Seabees and pioneers.  I’ve of course heard of combat engineers and Seabees, but had not heard of pioneers.  Pioneers are trained as combat troops, but their primary job is loading and unloading supplies.  This is critically important with a beach landing when each combat soldier is limited to no more than 100 pounds.  One of the critical supplies is water.  The Marines used old oil drums to carry water.  Unfortunately, the drums were not cleaned properly and many Marines ended up with stomach problems from the water.  One would think that the Marines would have learned their lesson; however, this is one of the things that E. B. Sledge also complains about in With the Old Breed.

There was a huge break at Tarawa.  The Japanese commander, Admiral Shibasaki and his entire staff were killed on the first day of the battle by a naval barrage that was called in by a pilot flying over the battlefield.  It is estimated that if Admiral Shibasaki had been alive on D-Day, there would have been a counterattack that quite possible would have annihilated the marines on their limited beachhead.

Four Medals of Honor were awarded at the battle of Tarawa, three posthumously: Staff Sargaent William J. Bordelon, Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman, 1st Lieutenant William Deane Hawkins, and Colonel David M. Shoup.  Colonel Shoup was the only one that was not posthumously.  It is also interesting that 50% of the Marine dead occurred in the water attempting to reach the beaches.