![]() ![]() It is an impressive array for such a petite island: Betio is only two miles long and 800 yards wide. There is even an airstrip in the center of the island, the main reason Nimitz has chosen to assault it. Trenches link all the defensive strongpoints, allowing the defenders to communicate and move under cover. They have done their work well, placing 14 coastal defense guns dug in concrete firing positions, building 500 stockades from logs and sand, scattering 40 artillery pieces around the island in firing pits. ![]() Two units (the 3rd Special Base Defense Force and the 7th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force, about 3,000 men in all) anchor their defenses on Betio, the main island in the Tarawa Atoll. The Japanese have dug in as deeply as you can on a coral atoll. The Americans will attack Tarawa frontally, and a frontal assault, even if it works, is guaranteed to be bloody. Attacking a tiny island leaves no room to juke or dance around. They intend to kill as many Americans as possible, and then die. The focal point in the Gilberts is the tiny coral atoll of Tarawa. The Gilberts will be a stepping stone into the Marshall Islands, which will, in turn, open up the Mariana island chain and put Japan within US bomber range. Nimitz begins his great drive across the central Pacific by targeting the Japanese-held Gilbert Islands. As 1943 draws to an end, Admiral Chester W. The US military has recovered from Pearl Harbor, battered the Japanese fleet at Midway, and punched a hole in the enemy defense perimeter at Guadalcanal. It’s November 1943, the Pacific war has been raging for two years, and the writing is on the wall. You’ve heard the cliché: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” You can talk until you’re blue in the face, spouting every lurid descriptor you can summon, and still not get the point across to your listeners. Top image: View of the beach of Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands, after the US invasion in November 1943. ![]()
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