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I have always been an Army guy, probably because both of my grandfathers fought in WWII in the Army in Europe and my dad fought in Vietnam in the Army. It isn’t like I did not care for the other branches of the military; it is just that I grew up being very familiar with the battles that the Army fought in.

Tonight I was watching a show on the History Channel about the invasion of Tarawa in the Pacific. The 2nd Marine Division attacked this “island” on November 20, 1943. Three bloody days later, it was over. Watching what those men had to endure and how hard they fought has given me a new appreciation for the Marines. Tree Hugging Sister and her husband will be happy to hear that, but I am serious. The obstacles they had to overcome to win that and all the other battles of the Pacific that they fought in were immense.

Tarawa is an atoll out in the Pacific Ocean. It is all of three miles long and at its widest, only 800 yards wide. A large reef also rings Tarawa. But it was important because it was large enough to have an airfield. We needed that airfield to further our operations against the Japanese.

Everything went wrong that first day. The naval bombardment did very little to disrupt the Japanese defenses. The first wave of the attack, the Marines rode in Amtracs (LVT-1 and LVT-2). They were able to navigate over the reef even during low tide. This first group made it to shore relatively unscathed. However, subsequent waves of attacks got hung up on the reef and the Marines had to wade several hundred yards to shore, all the while under artillery and small arms fire.

Once ashore they lacked direction as many of their officers had been killed. They were pinned behind a sea wall and the casualties began to mount. Finally, towards the end of the first day order was restored and a battle plan was formulated. Three days later, after vicious fighting and after many attacks and counter attacks, Tarawa was taken.

The Marines had taken almost 3,000 casualties in three days of fighting, 1,500 on the first day alone. All for 3 miles of sand. The attack plan suffered from bad intelligence. No one was sure how deep the water was over the reef. Not enough of the specialized Amtracs were available. Most of the landing craft had inadequate armor. The troops were pinned down on the beach. The radios failed. Several Japanese counter attacks broke our lines only for our boys to restore them. There were advances and retreats. There were to many deaths.

BUT.

The Marines prevailed and the U.S. press hailed them as heroes and said that the victory was a great victory over the Japanese.

Can you imagine Tarawa happening today? There would be Congressional hearings. The New York Times would wonder out loud if the Japanese were beatable. Was the cost worth it? Our men would be spending the Holidays away from home. Why wasn’t there enough equipment on hand? Why didn’t the battle plan work flawlessly? Why did so many die?

Update Added 12-3-05: I finished this post in a hurry because the baby woke up and then the middle son. Then it was late. So I posted. I read more into the aftermath of Tarawa and I was wrong, the press even back then had stinging criticism of our actions against Tarawa. To be fair the correspondents who wrote the most damaging articles were imbedded with the Marines and witnessed first hand the blunders and blood bath of the invasion.

In many ways, the aftermath of Tarawa is eerily similar to what is happening now in Iraq. Several prominent commanders had very disparaging things to say about the invasion. The press ate it up and while there was not a Congressional hearing, several high level commanders were grilled about the battle. In the end the press and the American people came to understand that it was going to take a high price to beat the Japanese. Let’s just hope that the press and the American people of today will understand the same thing regarding Iraq.

Below are a few of disparaging things said after the battle.

Headline from the New York Times:

Grim Tarawa Defense a Surprise, Eyewitness of Battle Reveals; Marines Went in Chuckling, To Find Swift Death Instead of Easy Conquest

Wow! This is so eerie. Sounds just like Iraq:

Nor did extemporaneous remarks to the media by some of the senior Marines involved in Operation Galvanic help soothe public concerns. Holland Smith likened the D-Day assault to Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. “Red Mike” Edson said the assault force “paid the stiffest price in human life per square yard” at Tarawa than any other engagement in Marine Corps history. Evans Carlson talked graphically of seeing 100 of Hays men gunned down in the water in five minutes on D+1, a considerable exaggeration. It did not help matters when Headquarters Marine Corps waited until 10 days after the battle to release casualty lists.

The atmosphere in both Washington and Pearl Harbor was particularly tense during this period. General MacArthur, still bitter that the 2d Marine Division had been taken from his Southwest Pacific Command, wrote the Secretary of War complaining that “these frontal attacks by the Navy, as at Tarawa, are a tragic and unnecessary massacre of American lives.” A woman wrote Admiral Nimitz accusing him of “murdering my son.” Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called a press conference in which he blamed “a sudden shift in the wind” for exposing the reef and preventing reinforcements from landing. Congress proposed a special investigation. The Marines were fortunate to have General Alexander A. Vandegrift in Washington as the newly appointed 18th Commandant. Vandegrift, the widely respected and highly decorated veteran of Guadalcanal, quietly reassured Congress, pointing out that “Tarawa was an assault from beginning to end.” The casualty reports proved to be less dramatic than expected. A thoughtful editorial in the 27 December 1943 issue of The New York Times complimented the Marines for overcoming Tarawa’s sophisticated defenses and fanatical garrison, warning that future assaults in the Marshalls might result in heavier losses. “We must steel ourselves now to pay that price.”

Let’s hope that our press sees the silver lining and begins to say, “We must steel ourselves now to pay that price” about Iraq.

I found all the aftershock of Tarawa in the link I give at the end of this post, but more specifically here.

Original post continued below:

To be sure, the Marines and the U.S. High Command learned MANY valuable lessons from Tarawa that would serve them well during other island invasions. But the important thing is that we won. It may not have been pretty, but we beat the Japanese and it spoke volumes about how tough our men were. The press rightfully hailed them as heroes.

I am deeply moved by the courage of the Marines who took Tarawa and the other islands in the Pacific. You guys were true heroes. I feel the same way about the Marines today who fought and took Fallujah from the enemy in Iraq. They fought professionally against tremendous odds and carried the day.

Thank you.

Semper Fi.

For a much more comprehensive look at the Battle of Tarawa, see here.