NOVEMBER 23: THE FINAL ACT
On the morning of November 23rd, the 6th Marines counted 300
Japanese bodies scattered
around their positions. As it turned out, this group of Japanese
had been the last large contingent
on Betio with only small pockets of resistance remaining. And
following a painstaking mop up of
the eastern side of the island, Japanese resistance, with the
exception of a few snipers who would
continue to take pot shots at marines for the next several days,
came to an end. For at 1:12 P.M.,
after 76 hours of fighting, Betio was declared 'secure'.
Upon arriving at Betio that day, General Holland Smith
ordered both the Stars and Stripes and
the Union Jack to be raised over Betio(for Betio was to revert to
the British as a Pacific trust after
the war). The general then toured the island west of the
airport. He noted that only seventeen
Japanese had surrendered while only 129 Korean laborers had
survived out of a total of 4,700
troops and construction workers.
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