On November 20th at 2:15 A.M. the marine transports went to
General Quarters. Last minute
landing preparations were made and the marines received their
last rites. At 5:05 A.M. the first
battleship let loose a salvo on Betio's coastal batteries,
followed shortly thereafter by the other
battleships and destroyers in the task force. The shelling
stopped only for enough time to let the
dive bombers from the escort carriers pound the island. The
first wave of amphtracks and Higgins
boats moved in on the lagoon side of Betio. The formation was
jolted to a stop 500 yards out by
a reef which the amphtracks could climb over only with great
difficulty. Simultaneously, a hail of
fire opened up from the island, incinerating the lodged and
incoming boats as well as mowing
down the marines wading ashore. Few of the first wave survived.
But a few got through, and
with the help of four successive waves the marines established a
beachhead up to a four foot sea
wall. By nightfall, the marines were pinned down on a stretch of
beach 100 yards long and 20 feet
inland. And rather than being obliterated, the Japanese marines
had barely been scratched by the
naval and air bombardment. While a brief respite between
bombardment and the landings had
occurred, the Japanese rushed to their gun posts and had
delivered devastating fire. But because
their communication lines had been cut, none of them knew what
was going on. Therefore,
according tot the Bushido Code, each isolated soldier or group of
soldiers was obliged to either
fight to the death or commit suicide unless ordered otherwise.
Consequently, Japanese resistance
was fanatical. Some Japanese swam out to disabled amphtracks
that night and poured fire onto
the marines from the rear- silenced only at great cost to the
marines. And a lone Japanese
seaplane-turned-bomber easily inflicted casualties on the
concentrated beachhead. In all, the first
day on Betio had been very costly for the 2nd Division-
amphtracks and Higgins boats littered the
lagoon, wounded marines everywhere, and dead bodies and parts of
bodies everywhere: out of
5,000 men, 1,500 were dead or wounded.
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