Battle of Tarawa

1°25′37″N 172°58′32″E / 1.42694°N 172.97556°E / 1.42694; 172.97556

Battle of Tarawa
Part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign of the Pacific Theater (World War II)

U.S. Marines advance on Japanese pill boxes, Tarawa, November 1943.
Date20–23 November 1943
Location
Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands (now part of Kiribati)
Result Allied victory
Belligerents
 United States
 Gilbert and Ellice Islands		  Japan
Commanders and leaders
U.S. Navy:
U.S. Marine Corps:
 Keiji Shibazaki †
Units involved

V Amphibious Corps

U.S. Fifth Fleet

Garrison Force:

  • 3rd Special Base Defense Force
  • 7th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force
Imperial Navy
Strength
35,000 troops
18,000 marines[1]
5 escort carriers
3 battleships
2 heavy cruisers
2 light cruisers
22 destroyers
2 minesweepers
18 transports & landing ships		 2,636 troops
2,200 construction laborers (1,200 Korean and 1,000 Japanese)
14 tanks
40 artillery pieces
14 naval guns
Casualties and losses
U.S. Marine Corps:
  • 1,009 killed[2]
  • 2,101 wounded[2]


U.S. Navy:
1 Destroyer damaged by coastal guns

4,690 killed (including both construction laborers and Japanese soldiers),

At least 40% of defenders were killed during the naval bombardment before H-hour.[3]
17 soldiers captured
129 Korean laborers captured
14 tanks destroyed

The Battle of Tarawa was fought on 20–23 November 1943 between the United States and Japan at the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, and was part of Operation Galvanic, the U.S. invasion of the Gilberts.[4] Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fight, mostly on and around the small island of Betio, in the extreme southwest of Tarawa Atoll.[5] At the time, Betio was only 118 hectares (290 acres).[6]

The Battle of Tarawa was the first American offensive in the critical Central Pacific region. It was also the first time in the Pacific War that the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing.[7] Previous landings had met little to no initial resistance,[8][a] but on Tarawa the 4,500 Japanese defenders were well supplied and well prepared, and they fought almost to the last man, exacting a heavy toll on the United States Marine Corps. The losses on Tarawa were incurred within 76 hours.

  1. ^ "Battle of Tarawa". History.com. 16 February 2016.
  2. ^ a b Wright 2004, p. 93.
  3. ^ Morison, Samuel (1952). Aleutians Gilberts And Marshalls June 1942 April 1944. Oxford University. p. 158.
  4. ^ "Battle of Tarawa". World War 2 Facts. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  5. ^ Alexander 1993, p. 50.
  6. ^ Crosby, Donald F. (1994). Battlefield Chaplains. University Press of Kansas. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-7006-0662-7.
  7. ^ Wheeler 1983, p. 170.
  8. ^ Morison 1951, p. 15.


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