By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA
What was the Battle of Tarawa in World War II? Why was it important then,…and today?
The morning of November 20, 1943, dawned over a small coral atoll in the Central Pacific that few Americans had ever heard of. Within seventy-six hours, Tarawa would become seared into the American consciousness as one of the most savage battles of World War II. The ferocious fighting on this tiny strip of land, barely twelve square miles in total area, would claim over 6,000 lives and fundamentally transform how the United States Navy and Marine Corps conducted amphibious operations for the remainder of the war.
The Road to Tarawa
World War II had begun when Adolf Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. For the United States, the war commenced on December 7, 1941, when Emperor Hirohito’s Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. By the fall of 1943, the European Theater remained the primary focus of Allied resources, receiving approximately 70% of American military production and manpower. The Pacific received 30%.
The Japanese Empire had reached its maximum territorial extent by June 1942, controlling vast swaths of Asia and the Pacific. Japanese forces had conquered the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Singapore, Indochina, Indonesia, Korea, Hong Kong, and much of northeastern China. The attack on Pearl Harbor had crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying 8 battleships, 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 188 aircraft, and 2400 men. However, a series of engagements in 1942 and early 1943 began to reverse Japanese momentum. The audacious Doolittle Raid in April 1942 had struck a psychological blow against Japanese morale, demonstrating that the homeland was not invulnerable. The Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 halted Japanese expansion toward Australia.
The turning point came at Midway in June 1942, where American naval aviators sank four Japanese carriers, one heavy cruiser, and destroyed 275 aircraft at the cost of one carrier and 150 planes. Japan lost 4,800 men compared to 307 Americans killed. This decisive victory permanently shifted the naval balance in the Pacific. On land, brutal fighting at Guadalcanal from August 1942 to February 1943, along with victories at Milne Bay and Buna-Gona, demonstrated that Japanese ground forces could be defeated in jungle warfare.
Strategic Imperatives
By the fall of 1943, Allied strategists had to decide how to bring the war to Japan itself. The distance from major American bases to Tokyo was vast. Honolulu lay 3,900 miles from the Japanese capital, far beyond the range of any bomber in the American arsenal. Heavy bombers used in the Pacific in late 1943 were the B25B Mitchell (1350 miles) and B24 Liberator (2850 miles). The B-29 Superfortress, with its 3,000-mile range, was not used until 1944. Midway was 2,550 miles distant and had no intermediate islands leading to Tokyo. The mathematics of aerial warfare demanded that American forces push closer to Japan through a series of island bases, each one bringing heavy bombers within range of Japanese cities and industrial centers.
Three competing strategies emerged for the Pacific campaign. In the Southwest Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur pursued a heavily land-based approach aimed at defending New Guinea and recapturing the Philippines. In India and Indochina, British forces maintained pressure on Japanese positions in Southeast Asia. The third strategy, championed by Admiral Chester Nimitz, called for a Central Pacific drive through a series of amphibious assaults, progressively seizing islands that could serve as staging bases for the next advance. This “island hopping” approach required the ability to land large forces on heavily defended beaches, establish beachheads under fire, and rapidly build up combat power faster than the enemy could reinforce.
Tarawa, a coral atoll in the Gilbert Islands, became a crucial objective in this Central Pacific strategy. The Japanese had fortified Tarawa after capturing it in December 1941, imprisoning European residents and transforming the southern islet of Betio into a fortress. If left in Japanese hands, Tarawa could threaten the vital shipping lanes between the United States and Australia, potentially disrupting MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific operations. More importantly, Tarawa was a necessary stepping stone to the Marshall Islands, scheduled for invasion in January 1944. Without securing Tarawa first, the Marshalls campaign could not proceed safely.
The timing of the Tarawa operation reflected both opportunity and urgency. The Japanese had begun fortifying the Gilbert Islands in September 1942, giving them over a year to prepare defenses. Imperial Japanese Navy marines, supported by Korean and Japanese construction laborers, built an airfield on Betio and surrounded it with an elaborate network of bunkers, pillboxes, artillery positions, and obstacles. The commander of the 2nd Marine Division requested delays to allow for deception landings, the establishment of artillery positions on neighboring islets (Bairiki, 5000 yds away), and higher tides that would ease the approach to the beaches. All of these requests were denied. The Marshalls campaign was scheduled to begin in January 1944, and Tarawa had to fall first.
The shadow of World War 1 lay heavily on US planners. Since Japan fought against Germany, the victorious Allies at Versailles rewarded Japan with the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands in what was called the Japanese Mandate (1920). This mandate allowed Japan over 20 years to develop and fortify these islands against foreign attack. Furthermore, the Allied disaster at Gallipoli cost 250,000 casualties and failed in its goal to knock Turkey out of the war. Some analysts believed that it was impossible to invade a heavily fortified island. Tarawa had to prove them wrong.
The Fortress of Betio
Tarawa Atoll encompasses a central lagoon of 193 square miles surrounded by a series of islets totaling just twelve square miles of land. In pre-war peacetime, the atoll supported about 400 people living in scattered villages, sustained by breadfruit, papaya, bananas, coconuts, pandanus, and abundant fish and shellfish. The atoll’s good anchorage had attracted European attention as early as 1788, when Captain Thomas Gilbert of the British East India Company first described it. The United States Exploring Expedition mapped Tarawa in 1841. Captain Edward Davis on the HMS Royalist stopped a brutal civil war in which the Teabike tribe nearly annihilated the Auatubu tribe. Britain then claimed Tarawa as a British protectorate (1892). American intelligence gathering had benefited from information provided by British teachers, merchant ship captains, and other Europeans familiar with Tarawa and its tides and currents before the war.
By November 1943, the Japanese had transformed Betio into a killing ground. Admiral Keiji Shibasaki commanded a garrison of 2,636 combat troops supported by 2,200 construction workers. His forces deployed fourteen tanks, forty artillery pieces, and fourteen naval guns, all protected by an intricate system of fortifications built from coconut logs, coral, concrete, and, when available, steel. Machine gun nests covered every approach to the beach. Anti-boat obstacles lined the reef and shoreline. Minefields waited beneath the surf. Most ominously, a coral reef protected the northern shore where the Americans planned to land, creating a barrier that would prove nearly impassable at low tide.
The Assault Begins
Before dawn on November 20, 1943, a massive American armada assembled off Tarawa. The invasion force included 17,000 soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division assigned to capture Makin Island, 105 miles north, and 18,000 Marines of the 2nd Marine Division targeted Betio. Supporting them were five escort carriers, three battleships, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, twenty-two destroyers, two minesweepers, and eighteen transports and landing ships. Against this overwhelming force, Admiral Shibasaki’s garrison seemed hopelessly outnumbered.
At 5:07 AM, Japanese coastal batteries opened fire on the approaching fleet, initiating a gunnery duel that pitted eight-inch coastal guns against naval rifles up to sixteen inches in caliber. The American warships won this contest decisively. At 6:00 AM, the preliminary naval bombardment began in earnest, hurling thousands of shells at the tiny island. War correspondent Robert Sherrod, watching from a transport ship, later wrote: “Surely, I thought, if there were actually any Japs left on the island (which I doubted strongly), they would all be dead by now.” Carrier-based aircraft joined the bombardment at 6:10 AM, with F6F Hellcat fighters and SB2C Helldiver bombers adding their ordnance to the maelstrom of fire and steel.
The bombardment lifted at 9:00 AM, and the first wave of marines began their approach to the beaches. The plan called for Higgins Boats (LCVP) and Landing Vehicles, Tracked (LVTs) to carry the assault troops across the reef and directly onto the beach. These amphibious vehicles could transport eighteen fully equipped men and were armored against .50 caliber machine gun fire.
Almost immediately, the assault plan began to unravel. The tide, which had been expected to rise sufficiently to allow the Higgins boats to cross the reef, remained stubbornly low. The exact cause remains debated, but the result was catastrophic. Higgins boats and LCMs, lacking the amphibious capability of the LVTs, grounded on the coral reef hundreds of yards from shore. Marines had to disembark into chest-deep water, carrying fifty to seventy pounds of equipment, and wade five hundred yards to the beach.
Japanese machine gunners, having survived the naval bombardment in their reinforced positions, opened fire on the exposed marines. Bullets churned the water white. Men fell by the dozen, then by the hundred, and the water grew red. Some men drowned, pulled under by the weight of their equipment. Others were hit multiple times before reaching the beach. Japanese machine gunners on the long pier jutting into the lagoon fired at the marines from the side and behind. Japanese snipers and machine gunners fired from a partially sunken boat, the Sadu Maru, that provided them additional cover. For marines on the beach, bullets were flying in from every direction.
Hell on the Beaches
Those marines who reached the shore found themselves pinned against a seawall, unable to advance against the intense fire from Japanese positions mere yards away. The beaches had been designated Red One, Red Two, and Red Three on the northern, lagoon side of Betio. The heavily mined and defended Green Beach was on the western end of the island. On the Red Beaches, conditions were apocalyptic. Vehicles were submerged and sometimes drowned in crater holes created by the naval bombardment. Others were stopped by mines and artificial obstacles. Tanks that made it ashore could not climb over the seawall. Behind the wall, Japanese machine guns and snipers picked off anyone who tried to advance.
The situation was dire, but not entirely desperate. A smaller landing on Green Beach in the west met lighter resistance, and by late afternoon, enough marines had accumulated behind the seawalls to begin organizing counterattacks. Japanese positions on the pier, the wharf, the heavily defended “Pocket” between them, and the Sadu Maru, could not attack Marines on Green Beach.
Meanwhile, the Japanese command structure was disintegrating. A five-inch shell from an American destroyer had struck Admiral Shibasaki’s command post during his attempt to relocate it, killing him and his staff. Japan’s communication network, buried too shallow due to the hard coral substrate and lack of heavy digging equipment, was quickly destroyed by the bombardment.
The loss of communications and command had profound consequences. More than a thousand rikusentai (Japanese naval infantry) occupied reserve positions with tanks, flamethrowers, and machine guns at the end of Day 1. Admiral Shibasaki’s standing orders called for an immediate counterattack on the first night of any landing attempt. A determined assault across just four hundred yards could have overrun the tenuous American footholds on Red Two and Red Three and recaptured the pier. However, without central coordination and with no senior officers remaining to give orders, the Japanese failed to launch their counterattack on the night of November 20. This failure would prove decisive.
The Tide Turns
The second day of battle, November 21, marked the turning point at Tarawa. Major Michael Ryan assembled scattered troops and two Sherman tanks from the far-right section of Red Beach One and Green Beach 1. He called for a naval bombardment on the southwestern tip of the Betio. Once the navy guns wreaked havoc, Ryan launched a counterattack, rolling up the Japanese right flank on the Green Beaches. By 11:00 AM, his force had seized the western end of Betio. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines landed unopposed on Green Beach in rubber boats, carefully avoiding the minefields that had been laid to defend the western approaches. Their commander, Major K Jones, earned the moniker “Admiral of the Condom Fleet” for the rubber boats they used.
With the western end of the island secure, marines began attacking eastward, rolling up Japanese defensive positions in brutal close-quarters fighting. The airfield in the center of Betio fell to American forces. Slowly, methodically, despite fierce resistance, the Marines advanced. Japanese defenders fought with suicidal determination, often waiting in concealed positions until Marines passed, then attacking from behind. The fighting was frequently hand-to-hand, with knives, rifle butts, and grenades employed at ranges measured in feet.
The third day brought continued American advances and scattered Japanese counterattacks that were quickly suppressed. The tide had finally risen to normal levels, allowing Higgins boats to cross the reef and deliver much-needed reinforcements, ammunition, and supplies. Water was especially important in the sweltering sun. On November 23, an F6F Hellcat fighter made the first landing on the captured airfield, symbolizing American control of the island. Realizing that no relief was coming, many Japanese soldiers chose suicide over surrender. Small pockets of resistance remained, but organized Japanese defense had collapsed.
The Butcher’s Bill
When the fighting finally ended, the cost was staggering. The U.S. Marine Corps suffered 1,009 killed and 2,101 wounded. The Navy lost 687 men and had one destroyer damaged by coastal guns. Of the approximately 5,000 Japanese and Korean personnel on Betio, 4,690 were killed. Only seventeen Japanese soldiers and 129 Korean laborers were captured alive. All fourteen Japanese tanks were destroyed. Among those directly engaged in combat, casualties exceeded nineteen percent, comparable to the later battle of Saipan.
The high casualty rate shocked the American public and triggered intense controversy over the wisdom of amphibious warfare and island-hopping strategies. Newspaper photographs of dead Marines floating in the surf or sprawled on the beaches brought the brutal reality of Pacific combat into American living rooms. Questions were raised about the planning and execution of the assault. Why had the Marines been sent across a reef at low tide? Why had naval bombardment failed to destroy Japanese fortifications? Could these casualties have been avoided?
Lessons Learned
Military planners recognized that Tarawa had provided invaluable lessons that would save countless lives in future operations. The Navy and Marine Corps conducted thorough after-action analyses and implemented sweeping changes to amphibious doctrine and equipment. Exact replicas of Betio’s formidable defenses were constructed on the Hawaiian island of Kahoolawe for realistic training. LVTs were improved with better armor and armament, and their numbers were dramatically increased.
A new organization, Underwater Demolition Teams, was created to clear obstacles from beaches before the main assault. These teams, predecessors to today’s Navy SEALs, would prove crucial in subsequent operations. Landing plans were revised to minimize the vulnerable period when troops transferred from transports to landing craft, and to reduce the time and distance of approach to hostile beaches.
The proof of these improvements came in June 1944, when the 2nd Marine Division assaulted Saipan. This operation employed fifty-three Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs), more than seven hundred LVTs, and a landing plan intentionally designed to be eight miles shorter and six hours faster than the one used at Betio. Each LST carried both a full load of LVTs and their assigned infantry, eliminating the treacherous cross-decking that had plagued Tarawa.
Strategic Success
Beyond its tactical lessons, Tarawa achieved its strategic objectives. American forces gained a strong base for attacks on the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, Wake, and Guam. The elimination of Japanese land-based aircraft at Tarawa removed a significant threat to the vital shipping route to Australia. By March 1944, long-range aircraft were operating from Hawkins Field on Betio, extending American air power deeper into the Japanese defensive perimeter.
The island-hopping strategy, validated despite its costs, continued across the Pacific. Each successive operation benefited from the hard lessons learned at Tarawa. The improved LVTs, better naval gunfire support procedures, more effective close air support, and enhanced reconnaissance all reflected the experience gained in three days of savage fighting on a tiny coral atoll. The mathematical logic of aerial warfare drove the American advance ever closer to Japan. From Tarawa at 3,200 miles, to the Marshalls, to Guam at 1,600 miles, to Iwo Jima at just 760 miles from Tokyo, each island brought American bombers within range of new Japanese targets.
Conclusion
The Battle of Tarawa remains one of the most controversial engagements in American military history. The high casualties incurred for such a small piece of real estate seemed, to many observers then and since, a terrible price to pay. Yet the strategic necessity of the operation and the vital lessons it provided cannot be denied. Tarawa was America’s brutal introduction to the realities of amphibious assault against determined, well-entrenched defenders. The men who died in the surf and on the beaches bought knowledge with their blood, knowledge that would save the lives of their fellow marines and sailors in future landings.
The Pacific War would continue for another twenty-one months after Tarawa, ending in Europe on May 9, 1945, and in the Pacific on September 2, 1945, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The path from Tarawa to Tokyo was paved with additional battles, each building on the foundation laid in the Gilbert Islands. The marines who struggled across that reef under withering fire, who fought hand-to-hand in the ruins of Japanese bunkers, who endured three days of hell on a strip of coral barely visible on a map, helped forge the doctrine and tactics that ultimately brought victory in the Pacific.
Today, Tarawa’s population has grown to 66,000 people living in two cities, and the scars of battle have largely healed. But the memory of those seventy-six hours in November 1943 endures as a testament to both the terrible cost of war and the courage of those who fight it. The battle demonstrated that American forces could overcome even the most formidable defenses, but at a price that demanded every possible effort to spare future casualties through better planning, better equipment, and better training. In that sense, the Marines who fell at Tarawa did not die in vain. Their sacrifice taught lessons that echoed through every subsequent amphibious landing of World War II and beyond, a legacy purchased in blood but paid forward in lives saved.
References
- Across the Reef: The Assault on Betio, https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2008/december/across-reef-assault-betio
- Battle of Tarawa: Lessons From the USMC’s First Atoll Assault, https://world-war-2-planes.com/battle-of-tarawa-lessons-from-usmc-first-atoll-assault/ZZZ.
- Battle of Tarawa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa.
- J David Rogers, Japanese Defenses and Fortifications, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, https://www.scribd.com/document/110598144/Japanese-Defense-Fortifications.
- Tarawa, By Lieutenant General Julian C. Smith, U. S. Marine Corps (Retired), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1953/november/tarawa.
- The Bloody Battle of Tarawa, 1943, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tarawa.htm.
