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008 - D1 at Betio 21 November 1943 · Across the Reef- The Marine Assault of Tarawa

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five of Across the Reef the Marine Assault of
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  Speaker 1: Tarawa by Joseph H. Alexander. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Deep plus one at Batio twenty one
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  Speaker 1: November nineteen forty three. The tactical situation on Beatio remained
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  Speaker 1: precarious for much of the second day. Throughout the morning,
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  Speaker 1: the Marines paid dearly for every attempt to land reserves
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  Speaker 1: or advance their ragged beachheads. The reef and beaches of
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  Speaker 1: Tarawa already looked like a charnel house. Lieutenant Lillibridge surveyed
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  Speaker 1: what he could see of the beach at first light
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  Speaker 1: and was appalled a dreadful sight. Bodies drifting slowly in
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  Speaker 1: the water just off the beach junked am tracks. The
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  Speaker 1: stench of dead bodies covered the embattled island like a cloud.
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  Speaker 1: The smell drifted out to the line of departure, a
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  Speaker 1: bad omen for the troops of first Battalion, eighth Marines
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  Speaker 1: getting ready to start their run to the beach. Colonel Schup,
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  Speaker 1: making the most of faulty communications and imperfect knowledge of
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  Speaker 1: his scattered forces, ordered each landing team commander to attack
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  Speaker 1: Kyle and Jordan to seize the south coast, Crow and
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  Speaker 1: Rudd to reduce Japanese strongholds to their left and front,
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  Speaker 1: Ryan to seize al of Green Beach shops. Breda, on
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  Speaker 1: request to General Smith, relayed through Major Tompkins and General Hermalley,
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  Speaker 1: specified the landing of Hayes's LT. One eight on Red
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  Speaker 1: Beach two, close to the pier. That key component of
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  Speaker 1: Shop's request did not survive the tenuous communications route to Smith.
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  Speaker 1: The commanding General simply ordered Colonel Hall and Major Hayes
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  Speaker 1: to land on Red Beach two at zero six point fifteen.
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  Speaker 1: Hall and Hayes, oblivious of the situation Ashore, assumed One
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  Speaker 1: eight would be making a covered landing. The marines of Lt.
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  Speaker 1: One eight had spent the past eighteen hours embarked on LCVPs.
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  Speaker 1: During one of the endless circles that night, Uplin w
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  Speaker 1: Wyeth Willard past Colonel Hall's boat and yelled, what are
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  Speaker 1: they saving us? For? The junior prom The troops cheered.
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  Speaker 1: When the boats finally turned for the beach, things quickly
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  Speaker 1: went awry. The dodging tides again failed to provide sufficient
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  Speaker 1: water for the boats to cross the reef. Hayes's men
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  Speaker 1: surprised at the obstacle, began the five hundred yard trek
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  Speaker 1: to shore, many of them dangerously far to the right flank,
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  Speaker 1: fully within the beaten zone of the multiple guns firing
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  Speaker 1: from the re enter at strong point. It was the
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  Speaker 1: worst possible place they could have picked, said Red Mike Etzen.
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  Speaker 1: Japanese gunners opened an unrelenting fire. Enfalad fire came from
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  Speaker 1: snipers who had infiltrated to the disabled LVT's offshore during
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  Speaker 1: the night. At least one machine gun opened up on
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  Speaker 1: the waiting troops from the beached Inner Island schooner NIMONOAH
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  Speaker 1: at the reef's edge. Hayes's men began to fall at
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  Speaker 1: every hand. The Marines on the beach did everything they
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  Speaker 1: could to stop the slaughter shoot called for naval gunfire support.
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  Speaker 1: Two of Lieutenant Colonel Rixey's seventy five millimeters packawitzers, protected
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  Speaker 1: by a sandburm erected during the night by a Seabee bulldozer,
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  Speaker 1: began firing at the blockhouses at the red one red
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  Speaker 1: tube border one hundred twenty five yards away with delayed
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  Speaker 1: fuses and high explosive shells. A flight of F four
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  Speaker 1: to F Wildcats attacked the hulk of the Niminoah with
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  Speaker 1: bombs and machine guns. These measures helped, but for the
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  Speaker 1: large part, the Japanese caught Hayes's lead waves in a
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  Speaker 1: withering crossfire. Correspondent Robert Sharrod watched the blood bath in horror.
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  Speaker 1: One boat blows up, then another. The survivors starts swimming
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  Speaker 1: for shore, but machine gun bullets dot the water all
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  Speaker 1: around them. This is worse, far worse than it was yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: Within an hour, Sharrod could count at least two hundred
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  Speaker 1: bodies which do not move at all on the dry flats.
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  Speaker 1: First Lieutenant Dean Ladd was shot in the stomach shortly
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  Speaker 1: after jumping into the water from his boat. Recalling the
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  Speaker 1: strict orders to the troops not to stop for the wounded,
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  Speaker 1: Lad expected to die on the spot. One of his riflemen,
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  Speaker 1: Private first Class T. F. Sullivan, ignored the orders and
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  Speaker 1: saved his lieutenant's life. Lad's rifle platoons suffered twelve killed
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  Speaker 1: and twelve wounded during the ship to shore assault. First
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Frank Plant, the battalion air liaison officer, accompanied Major
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  Speaker 1: Hayes in the command LCVP as the craft slammed into
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  Speaker 1: the reef. Plant recalled Hayes, shouting, men debark as he
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  Speaker 1: jumped into the water. The troops that followed were greeted
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  Speaker 1: by a murderous fire. Plant helped pull the wounded back
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  Speaker 1: into the boat, noting that the water all around was
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  Speaker 1: colored purple with blood. As Plant hurried to catch up
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  Speaker 1: with Major Hayes, he was terrified at the sudden appearance
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  Speaker 1: of what he took to be Japanese fighters roaring right
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  Speaker 1: towards him. These were the Navy Wildcats, aiming for the
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  Speaker 1: nearby nimin Noah. The pilots were exuberant but inconsistent. One
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  Speaker 1: bomb hit the hulk squarely, others missed by two hundred yards,
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  Speaker 1: and angry David Shup came up on the radio, stopped strafing,
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  Speaker 1: bombing ship, hitting known troops. At the end, it was
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  Speaker 1: the sheer courage of the survivors that got them ashore
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  Speaker 1: under such a hellish crossfire. Hayes reported to Shoop at
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  Speaker 1: zero eight hundred, with about half his landing team, he
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  Speaker 1: had suffered more than three hundred casualties. Others were scattered
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  Speaker 1: all along the beach and the pier worse. The unit
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  Speaker 1: had lost all its flamethrowers, demolitions, and heavy weapons. Shop
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  Speaker 1: directed Hayes to attack westward, but both men knew that
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  Speaker 1: small arms and courage alone would not prevail against fortified positions.
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  Speaker 1: Shop tried not to let his discouragement show, but admitted
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  Speaker 1: in a message to General Smith, the situation does not
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  Speaker 1: look good ashore. The combined forces of Major's Crow and
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  Speaker 1: Rudd on Red Beach three were full of fight and
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  Speaker 1: had plenty of weapons, but their left flank was flush
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  Speaker 1: against three large Japanese bunkers, each mutually supporting and seemingly unassailable.
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  Speaker 1: The stubby Burns filp commercial Peer, slightly to the east
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  Speaker 1: of the main pier, became a bloody no man's land
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  Speaker 1: as the forces fought for its possession. Learning from the
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  Speaker 1: mistakes of D Day, Crow ensured that his one surviving
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  Speaker 1: Sherman tank was always accompanied by infantry. Crow and Rudd
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  Speaker 1: benefited from intensive air support and naval gunfire along their
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  Speaker 1: left flank. Crow was unimpressed with the accuracy and effectiveness
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  Speaker 1: of the aviators. Our aircraft never did as much good,
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  Speaker 1: but he was enthusiastic about the naval guns. I had
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  Speaker 1: the Ringgold, the Dashiel and the Anderson in support of me.
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  Speaker 1: Anything I asked for I got from them. They were great.
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  Speaker 1: On one occasion, on Deep Plus one, Crow authorized direct
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  Speaker 1: fire from a destroyer in the lagoon at a large
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  Speaker 1: command bunker only fifty yards ahead of the Marines. They
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  Speaker 1: slammed them in there, and you could see arms and
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  Speaker 1: legs and everything just go up like that. Inland from
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  Speaker 1: Red Beach two, Kyle and Jordan managed to get some
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  Speaker 1: of their troops across. The fire swept airstrip and all
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  Speaker 1: the way to the south coast. A significant penetration. The
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  Speaker 1: toe hold was precarious, however, and the marine sustained heavy casualties.
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  Speaker 1: You could not see the Japanese recalled Lieutenant Lillibridge, but
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  Speaker 1: fire seemed to come from every direction. When Jordan lost
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  Speaker 1: contact with his lead elements, Shupe ordered him across the
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  Speaker 1: island to re establish command. Jordan did so at great hazard.
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  Speaker 1: By the time Kyle arrived, Jordan realized his own presence
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  Speaker 1: was superfluous. Only fifty men could be accounted for of Lt.
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  Speaker 1: Two two's rifle companies. Jordan organized and supplied these survivors
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  Speaker 1: to the best of his abilities. Then, at Shupe's direction,
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  Speaker 1: merged them with Kyle's force, and stepped back into his
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  Speaker 1: original role as an observer. The second Marine Scout Sniper
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  Speaker 1: Platoon had been spectacularly heroic from the very start when
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  Speaker 1: they led the assault on the pier just before h hour.
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Hawkins continuously set an example of cool disdain for
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  Speaker 1: danger in every tactical situation. His bravery was superhuman, but
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  Speaker 1: it could not last in the maelstrom. He was wounded
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  Speaker 1: by a Japanese mortor shell on D Day, but shook
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  Speaker 1: off attempts to treat his injuries. At dawn on D
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  Speaker 1: plus one, he led his men in attacking a series
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  Speaker 1: of strong points, firing on LT One eight. In the water,
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  Speaker 1: Hawkins crawled directly up to a major pill box, fired
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  Speaker 1: his weapon point blank through the gun ports, then threw
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  Speaker 1: grenades inside to complete the job. He was shot in
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  Speaker 1: the check but continued the attack personally, taking out three
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  Speaker 1: more pill boxes. Then a Japanese shell nearly tore him apart.
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  Speaker 1: It was a mortal wound. The division mourned his death.
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  Speaker 1: Hawkins was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. Said Colonel Schute,
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  Speaker 1: it's not often that you can credit a first lieutenant
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  Speaker 1: with winning a battle, but Hawkins came as near to
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  Speaker 1: it as any man could. It was up to Major
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  Speaker 1: Mike Ryan and his makeshift battalion on the western end
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  Speaker 1: of Batio to make the biggest contribution to winning the battle.
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  Speaker 1: On D plus one, Ryan's fortunes had been greatly enhanced
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  Speaker 1: by three developments during the night, the absence of a
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  Speaker 1: Japanese spoiling attack against his thin lines, the repair of
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  Speaker 1: the medium tanks Cecilia, and the arrival of Lieutenant Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Green US Navy, a naval gunfire spotter with a fully
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  Speaker 1: functional radio. Ryan took his time organizing a coordinated attack
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  Speaker 1: against the nest of gun emplacements, pill boxes and rifle
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  Speaker 1: pits concentrate on the southwest corner of the island. He
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  Speaker 1: was slowed by another failure in communications. Ryan could talk
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  Speaker 1: to the fire support ships, but not to shoot. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed to Ryan that it took hours for his runners
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  Speaker 1: to negotiate the gauntlet of fire back to the beach, radio,
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  Speaker 1: shoot CP, and return with answers. Ryan's first message to shoot,
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  Speaker 1: announcing his attack plans received the eventual response, hold up,
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  Speaker 1: we are calling an air strike. It took two more
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  Speaker 1: runners to get the air strike canceled. Ryan then ordered
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Green to call in naval gunfire on the southwest
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  Speaker 1: targets two destroyers and the lagoon responded quickly and accurately.
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  Speaker 1: At eleven twenty Ryan launched a coordinated tank infantry assault.
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  Speaker 1: Within the hour, his patch workforce had seized Olive Green
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  Speaker 1: Beach and was ready to attack eastward toward the airfield.
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  Speaker 1: Communications were still terrible. For example, Ryan twice reported the
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  Speaker 1: south end of Green Beach to be heavily mined, a
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  Speaker 1: message that never reached any higher headquarters. But General Smith,
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  Speaker 1: on board Maryland, did receive direct word of Ryan's success
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  Speaker 1: and was overjoyed. For the first time, Smith had the
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to land reinforcements on a covered beach with their
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  Speaker 1: unit integrity intact. General Smith and Red mike Etson had
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  Speaker 1: been conferring that morning with Colonel Maurice G. Holmes, commanding
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  Speaker 1: the six Marines as to the best means of getting
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  Speaker 1: the fresh combat team ashore. In view of the heavy
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  Speaker 1: casualties sustained by Hayes's battalion on Red Beach two, Smith
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  Speaker 1: was reconsidering a landing on the unknown eastern end of
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  Speaker 1: the island. The good news from Ryan quickly solved the problem.
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  Speaker 1: Smith ordered Homes to land one battalion by rubber rafts
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  Speaker 1: on Green Beach, with a second landing team boted in
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  Speaker 1: LCVPs prepared to wade ashore in support. At this time,
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  Speaker 1: Smith received reports that Japanese troops were a scaped ing
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  Speaker 1: from the eastern end of Batio by waiting across to Bayriki,
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  Speaker 1: the next island. The Marines did not want to fight
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  Speaker 1: the same tenacious enemy twice. Smith then ordered Holmes to
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  Speaker 1: land one battalion on Bayriki to seal the back door.
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  Speaker 1: Holmes assigned Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L. Murray to land two
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  Speaker 1: six on Byriki, Major Willie K. Jones to land one
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  Speaker 1: six by rubber boat on Green Beach, and Lieutenant Colonel
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  Speaker 1: Kenneth F. McLeod to be prepared to land three six
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  Speaker 1: at any assigned spot, probably Green Beach. Smith also ordered
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  Speaker 1: the light tanks of Company B, second Tank Battalion to
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  Speaker 1: land on Green Beach in support of the six Marines.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: These tactical plans took much longer to execute than envisioned.
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  Speaker 1: Jones was ready to debark from felond Apa eleven when
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  Speaker 1: the ship was suddenly ordered under way to avoid a
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  Speaker 1: perceived submarine threat. Hours passed before the ship could return
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  Speaker 1: and close enough to Batio to launch the rubber boats
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  Speaker 1: and their LCVP towcraft. The light tanks were among the
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  Speaker 1: few critical items not truly combat loaded in their transports,
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  Speaker 1: being carried in the very bottom of the cargo holds.
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  Speaker 1: Indiscriminate unloading during the first thirty hours of the landing
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  Speaker 1: had further scrambled supplies and equipment in intervening decks. It
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  Speaker 1: took hours to get the tanks clear and loaded on
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  Speaker 1: board lighters. Shop was bewildered by the long delays. At
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  Speaker 1: thirteen forty five he sent Jones a message, bring in
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  Speaker 1: flamethrowers if possible, doing our best. At fifteen twenty five
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  Speaker 1: he queried Division about the estimated landing time of LT
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  Speaker 1: one six. He wanted Jones ashore and on the attack
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  Speaker 1: before dark. Meanwhile, Shoop and his small staff were beset
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  Speaker 1: by logistics support problems. Already there were teams organized to
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  Speaker 1: strip the debt of their ammunition, canteens, and first aid pouches.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Carlson helped organize a false beachhead at the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: end of the pier. Most progress came from the combined
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Chester J. Salazar, commanding the shore party,
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  Speaker 1: Captain John B. McGovern U. S. Navy acting as primary
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  Speaker 1: control officer on board the mind sweeper pursuit AM ONEH eight,
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  Speaker 1: Major Ben K. Weatherwax, Assistant Division D four, and Major
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  Speaker 1: George L. H. Cooper Operations Officer of second Battalion, eighteenth
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  Speaker 1: Marines among them. These officers gradually brought some order out
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  Speaker 1: of chaos. They assumed strict control of supplies unloaded and
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  Speaker 1: used the surviving LVTs judiciously to keep the shuttle of
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  Speaker 1: casualties moving seaward and critical items from the pier head
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  Speaker 1: to the beach. All of this was performed by sleepless
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: men under constant fire. Casualty handling was the most pressing
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: logistic problem on D plus one. The second Marine Division
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  Speaker 1: was heroically served at Tarawa by its organic Navy doctors
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and hospital corpsmen. Nearly ninety of these medical specialists were
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: themselves casualties in the fighting ashore. Lieutenant Hermann R. Bruckhardt
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Medical Corps, U. S. Navy established an emergency room in
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  Speaker 1: a freshly captured Japanese bunker, some of whose former occupants
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  Speaker 1: came to life with blazing rifles more than once. In
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: thirty six hours under brutal conditions, Bruckhart treated one hundred
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  Speaker 1: twenty six casualties. Only four died. At first, casualties were
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: evacuated to troop ships far out in the transport area.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The long journey was dangerous to the wounded troops and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: wasteful of the few available LVTs or LCVPs. The Marines
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: then began delivering casualties to the destroyer Ringold in the lagoon,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: even though her sick bay had been wrecked by a
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Japanese five inch shell on D Day. The ship, still
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: actively firing support missions, accepted dozens of casualties and did
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: her best. Admiral Hill then took the risk of dispatching
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the troop ship Douyan eight PA one into the lagoon
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  Speaker 1: early on D plus one for service as primary receiving
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: ship for critical cases. Lieutenant Commander James Oliver Medical Corps, U. S.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Navy led a five man surgical team with recent combat
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: experience in the Aleutians. In the next three days, Oliver's
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: team treated more than five hundred and fifty severely wounded Marines.
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  Speaker 1: We ran out of sodium pentethal and had to use ether,
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  Speaker 1: said Oliver, although a bomb hit would have blown Douyan
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: off the face of the planet. Navy chaplains were also
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: hard at work wherever Marines were fighting ashore. Theirs was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: particularly heartbreaking work, consoling the wounded, administering last rites to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the dying, praying for the souls of the dead. Before
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the bulldozer came to cover the bodies from the unforgiving
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: tropical scars. The tide of the battle began to shift
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: perceptibly toward the Americans. By mid afternoon on d plus one,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the fighting was still intense, the Japanese fire still murderous,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: but the surviving Marines were on the move, no longer
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: gridlocked in precarious toll holds on the beach. Rixey's pack
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: howitzers were adding a new definition for close fire support.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: The supply of ammunition in fresh water was greatly improved.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Morale was up too. The troops knew the six Marines
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  Speaker 1: was coming in soon. I thought, up until thirteen hundred
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: today it was touch and go, said Rixey. Then I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: knew we would win. By contrast, a sense of despair
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: seemed to spread among the defenders. They had shot down
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the Marines at every turn, but with every fallen Marine,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: another would appear rifle blazing. Well supported by artillery and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: naval guns, the Great Yogaki plan seemed to bust. Only
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a few aircraft attacked the island each night. The transports
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: were never seriously threatened, the Japanese fleet never materialized. Increasingly,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Japanese troops began committing suicide rather than risk capture. Shupe
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: sensed this shift in momentum. Despite his frustration over the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: day's delays and miscommunications, he was booed enough to send
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a sixteen hundred situation report to Julian Smith, which closed
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: with these terse words that became a classic casualties many
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: percentage dead unknown combat efficiency, we are winning. At sixteen
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: fifty five, Murray's two six landed against light opposition on
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Bairiki during the night and early morning hours. Lieutenant Colonel
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: George Schell's second Battalion, tenth Marines landed on the same
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: island and began registering its howarzers. Rixy's Fire Directions Center
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: on Baesho helped this process, while the artillery ford observers
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: attached to Crow's LT To two ter on Red Beach.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: One had the unusual experience of adjusting the fire of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the bariki guns while looking into their muzzles. The Marines
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: had practiced this earlier on New Zealand. Smith finally had
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: artillery in place on Bairiki. Meanwhile, Major Jones and LT
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: One six were finally on the move. It had been
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a day of many false starts. At one point, Jones
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and his men had been debarking over the sides in
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: preparation for an assault on the eastern end of Batio
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: when the word changed their mission to Green Beach. When
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Felon finally returned to within reasonable range from the island,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the Marines of LT. One six disembarked for real. Using
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: tactics developed with the Navy during the Afate rehearsal, The
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Marines loaded on board LCVPs, which towed their rubber rafts
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to the reef. There, the Marines embarked on board their
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: rafts six to ten troops per craft, and began the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: one thousand yard paddle towards Green Beach. Major Jones remarked
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: that he did not feel like the Admiral of the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Condom Fleet as he helped paddle his raft. Shoreward control
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: was nebulous at best. The battalion was spread out over
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the ocean from horizon to horizon. We must have had
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty boats. Jones was alarmed at the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: frequent appearance of anti boat mines moored to coral heads
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: beneath the surface. The rubber rafts passed over the mines
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: without incident, but Jones also had two LVTs accompanying his
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: ship to shore movement, each pre loaded with AMMO rations, water,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: medical supplies, and spare radio equipment. Guided by the rafts.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: One of the LVTs made it ashore, but the second
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: drifted into a mine, which blew the heavy vehicle ten
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: feet into the air, killing most of the crew and
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: destroying the supplies. It was a serious loss, but not critical.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Well covered by Ryan's men, the landing force suffered no
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: other casualties. Coming ashore, Jones's battalion became the first to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: land on ba Show, essentially intact. It was after dark
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: by the time Jones's troops assumed defensive positions behind Ryan's lines.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: The light tanks of Company B continued their attempt to
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: come ashore on Green Beach, but the high surf and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: great distance between the reef and the beach greatly hindered
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: landing efforts. Eventually, a platoon of six tanks managed to
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: reach the beach. The remainder of the company moved its
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: boats toward the pier and worked all night to get
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: ashore on Red Beach. Two McLeod's Lt. Three to six
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: remained afloat in LCVPs beyond the reef. Facing an uncomfortable night.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: That evening, Shope turned to Robert Sharrad and stated, well,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I think we're winning, but the bastards have got a
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: lot of bullets left. I think we'll clean up tomorrow
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: after dark. General Smith sent his Chief of Staff, Red
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: mike etson Ashore to take command of all forces on
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Batio and Bairiki. Shupe had done magnificent job, but it
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: was time for the senior colonel to take charge. There
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: were now eight reinforced infantry battalions and two artillery battalions
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: deployed on the two islands. With Lt three to six
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: scheduled to land early on d plus two, virtually all
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of the combat and combat support elements of the second
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Marine Division would be deployed. Edson reached Shoop's CP by
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty and found the barrel chested warriors still on
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: his feet, grimy and haggard, but full of fight. Edson
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: assumed command, allowing Shoop to concentrate on his own reinforced
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: combat team and began making plans for the morning. Years later,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: General Julian Smith looked back on the pivotal day of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: twenty one November nineteen forty three at bat Show and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: admitted we were losing until we won. Many things had
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: gone wrong and the Japanese had inflicted severe casualties on
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the attackers, but from this point on the issue was
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: no longer endowed. At Tarawa end of chapter five read
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: by Aaron Bennett