were girdled by a sea wall made of coconut logs clamped and stapled together. It was from three to five feet in height and stood about 20 feet inland from the water. An American helmet reared above this sea wall would be as clear and helpless as a fly walking down a windowpane. And if the Americans crouched beneath it, Betio’s mortars would dye the sands with their blood. The mortars had the beaches registered—and they were behind a formidable array of machine guns and light artillery interlocked to sweep the lip of the sea wall, and after that the airfield.
There were 62 heavy machine guns and 44 light machine guns—many of them twin mounts-nine 37- millimeter antitank guns and the 37’s of 14 light tanks dug into the coral sand and camouflaged with palm fronds-to say nothing of the rifles, pistols, grenades and bayonets of the defending troops, to say nothing of the heavier artillery.
Of this there were six 70-millimeter battalion guns, eight more 75-millimeter dual-purpose guns, ten 75- millimeter mountain guns, four five-inch dual purpose guns, six 80-millimeter guns, four coast defense guns 5.5 inches in diameter and four eight-inch coastal guns brought to Betio from Singapore. Most of these guns were mounted to fire antiboat along preselected fields of fire. They were sighted from concrete-and-coral pillboxes. The five- and eight-inch guns could duel the invading ships. The eight-inchers were placed at each end of the island, two to an end, and served from enormous concrete ammunition rooms.
To either end of the airfield, east and west, there were tank traps. The field itself was protected by rifle pits and pillboxes, dug in deeply and covered with coconut logs and coral sand and sometimes also with concrete. These firing holes were also interlocked, often served by networks of trenches.
Only the water defenses needed improvement when, eleven months later, Admiral Shibasaki arrived on Betio to relieve Saichiro. The new commander completed these on the south or ocean side by erecting a wicked offshore maze of horned concrete tetrahedrons. They were wired together, mines were sprinkled among them, and they were so placed as to channel all incoming boats into the point-blank fire of the 70-, 75- and 8o-millimeter guns. This was done by mid-September, 1943. Admiral Shibasaki next set his men to placing the same sort of obstacles between the northern or lagoon beaches and the lagoon reef about 500 to 1,000 yards offshore. When this was done, the admiral would have fulfilled his assignment in the Imperial General Headquarters plan called
Long-range aircraft flew down from Rabaul and Kavieng to bomb the invaders, and then land on Gilberts- Marshalls fields;
Short-range aircraft flew down from Truk by stages to these same airfields to provide aerial defense;
Admiral Kondo’s powerful Second Fleet arrived to attack American shipping;
And a heavy force of submarines converged from all directions.
This was the plan, but on September 19 the Americans began hacking away at it.
On that night and the succeeding day the new American carriers
Still, Shibasaki was not dismayed. His gun emplacements had not been harmed. He had had time to make Betio’s ocean side impregnable and Tarawa was now on the neap, that seasonal tide when waters are lowest. Shibasaki doubted very much if the Americans would be able to cross the lagoon reef.
So did the Americans; so did a couple of generals named Smith.
The first was Holland M. Smith and he was a major general in command of the Fifth Amphibious Corps. He was six-one, graying, a man with a dandified white mustache and professorial eyeglasses juxtaposed against a big aggressive nose and a tongue that could be blistering and irreverent whenever Marines were being slighted. The Marines called him Howlin’ Mad. In legend it was because of what he had said to the men he led on a record- breaking hike through the Philippine jungle in 1906; in fact it was because it fitted his first name and middle initial as much as his temperament.
The second Smith was Major General Julian Smith, the commander of the Second Marine Division. He was soft-spoken, gentle-eyed, fatherly. He rarely lost his temper. But if Julian Smith was not angry on October 2, 1943, he was at least concerned.
General Julian Smith had come to Pearl Harbor with his chief of staff, Red Mike Edson of Guadalcanal, and had begun to confer with General Holland Smith on the Second Division’s assignment to capture Betio. He was worried about the reef and the tides. Even though his men would make their assault from the lagoon side, entering by boat from the western channel, there was a reef there, too. And with the attack occurring during the neap tide, Julian Smith could not be certain of much water over that reef. Tarawa was also visited by “dodging tides” which were sometimes irregularly high, sometimes irregularly low, but Julian Smith did not share Rear Admiral Richard Kelly Turner’s confidence that there would be a high-dodger on invasion day. There could be a low one. If there was, Julian Smith’s Marines would never get over the reef in their landing boats. They would have to wade inshore from 500 to 1,000 yards out—into a murderous fire. Julian Smith wanted amtracks. Amtracks could climb the reefs and churn ashore. But he had only 75 operable amtracks, which was not enough to get his first waves ashore. He needed at least 100 more.
“All right,” said Howlin’ Mad Smith. “I’ll get’em for you.”
So Julian Smith and Red Mike Edson flew back to Wellington, but when Howlin’ Mad Smith spoke to Kelly Turner, Kelly Turner said, “No.”
The admiral who commanded the Fifth Amphibious Force said he would not have the amtracks aboard his ships. There was going to be a high-dodging tide off Betio on November 20 and amtracks would not be needed. Howlin’ Mad said:
“Kelly, it’s like this: I’ve got to have those amtracks. We’ll take a helluva licking without them. No amtracks —no operation.”
It was not customary to hand Kelly Turner ultimatums, but this one had the virtue of suggesting Smith’s determination. It was finally arranged that of 100 amtracks then in California 50 would be rushed to Samoa where the Second could pick them up after they departed Wellington.
Meanwhile, what about Makin?
Makin would be taken by another general named Smith-the Army’s Major General Ralph Smith, who led the 27th Infantry Division. Intelligence estimated Makin’s garrison at a little better than 500 men, though there were actually 900. To take Makin, Ralph Smith was going to use but one of his three regiments, the 165th Infantry.
A third, much smaller operation was planned. This was the seizure of Apamama, a beautiful and historic atoll about .85 miles south of Tarawa. Apamama would not be attacked until November 26, but it would be scouted on November 21 by the Fifth Corps Reconnaissance Company of Captain Jim Jones. These Marines were to sail by submarine from Tarawa the night of November 20, going ashore by rubber boat in early morning to learn the extent of Apamama’s defenses. Intelligence believed the atoll to be defended in company strength or more, though actually it was much less.
Intelligence was more accurate in its estimate of 4,500 men on Betio. They had used a unique yardstick to measure it. An aerial photograph had shown numerous latrines built out over the lagoon. Intelligence officers carefully marked the number of holes, and then, knowing that Japanese doctrine was also inflexible in such matters as the ratio of holes to occupants, they made an estimate not very far from the exact figure of 4,836 Imperial Japanese Marines and construction troops.
In assault against them would be only two-thirds of the Second Marine Division’s strength, the Second and Eighth Marines with attached troops. The Sixth Marines would be in Corps reserve, on call for either operation. But all of the Second Division’s 18,600 Marines were together when they began boarding ship in Wellington in late October under the delusion that they were merely going to run up Hawkes Bay on maneuvers.
Julian Smith had not forgotten how the First Division sailed from Wellington fifteen months ago with newspapers talking of an attack on Tulagi, and he took his own Second out of New Zealand under an elaborate smokescreen. Orders for the “Hawkes Bay Maneuvers” were drawn up. The Royal New Zealand Air Force was solemnly briefed on coverage for these practice landings. Men were told they would be back in camp within a week, and of course they told their girls. The final touch was to arrange with New Zealand firms for the movement of equipment from Hawkes Bay back to the Wellington base.
