At the Battle of Tarawa, from 20 to 23 November 1943, US Marines captured the heavily fortified islet of Betio in the Gilbert Islands after 76 hours of ferocious fighting2. A misjudged tide left many landing craft grounded on the reef, forcing Marines to wade ashore under fire and suffer heavy losses. The near-total destruction of the Japanese garrison, and the shock of the American cost, taught crucial lessons for later Pacific landings.
Tarawa was barely two miles of sand, but the Japanese had turned it into one of the strongest small fortresses on earth. The Marines who waded ashore across its reef in November 1943 learned the price of an opposed landing the hard way.
Part of The greatest battles of the Pacific War · Before: The Guadalcanal Campaign · Next: The Battle of Peleliu
The island-hopping campaign
By late 1943 the Allies were driving across the central Pacific toward Japan, taking island bases one by one. The Gilbert Islands were the next step, and the key was Betio, a tiny islet of Tarawa Atoll with an airfield, held by a strong Japanese garrison.
The fortress of Betio
The defenders had packed the islet with bunkers, pillboxes and gun positions, and their commander reportedly boasted it could not be taken in a hundred years2. A heavy naval and air bombardment preceded the landing, but much of it failed to destroy the deep, well-built defences.
The reef and the tide
The assault went wrong at the water's edge. The tide was lower than expected, grounding many landing craft3 on the fringing reef far from shore. Marines had to wade hundreds of yards through the lagoon2 under withering fire, and casualties were terrible before they even reached the beach.
Seventy-six hours
Those who got ashore clung to a narrow strip behind a log sea wall3 and fought inland bunker by bunker over three days, often with flamethrowers and explosives at point-blank range. The Japanese fought nearly to the last man, and in 76 hours the islet was taken.
Why Tarawa mattered
Tarawa was an American victory, but its cost, so many lost on so small a place, stunned the public when the first combat footage was shown. The hard lessons, better reconnaissance of reefs and tides, more and better landing vehicles, heavier and more accurate bombardment, were applied to the far larger landings that followed2 across the Pacific. See also Iwo Jima and Okinawa.