WITH THE MARINES AT TARAWA

Zenatorus

Documentary short film depicting the harrowing battle between the U.S. Marines and the Japanese for control of the Pacific island of Tarawa.

Transcript

00:00These are the men of the 2nd Marine Division.

00:22We're now embarking on a full-scale amphibious operation

00:26after many months of intensive training.

00:30The transports are combat loaded.

00:40The ships of the Navy and Coast Guard form our convoy.

00:43Squadrons of carrier planes cover us in the sky.

00:47Several days from our destination,

00:49the destroyer brings us sealed orders.

00:51It won't be long now before we know where we're bound.

01:04The relief map of our objective is broken out.

01:09The fortified island of Betio and the Tarawa Atoll,

01:13a very important Jap air base on the outer fringe of their Pacific defenses.

01:17Our platoon leaders started explaining the terrain to us.

01:20By the time they were finished, we knew that island and its reefs

01:22as well as we knew our own backyards.

01:24We built more machine gun ammunition.

01:26Check and test fire all weapons.

01:35Exercise helped to relieve the tension.

01:49Navy and Coast Guard coxswains receive last-minute instructions on formations,

02:06rendezvous areas, and departure times.

02:08Services are held on the last evening before D-Day.

02:21We liked listening to Father Kelly.

02:23He'd been with us at Guadalcanal.

02:25He had a way of saying what we wanted to hear.

02:28Many of these men were killed the following morning.

02:45We are ready.

02:50D-Day.

02:51This is the day we attacked.

02:53Long before daylight, we were over the side into amphibian tractors and landing boats.

02:57At daylight, our naval vessels opened fire, and for four solid hours,

03:10they found Tarawa with high explosives.

03:16Everything went like clockwork.

03:29When the ships stopped firing, the Navy planes would take over.

03:33Bombing.

03:34Strafing.

03:35We were a team, working together.

03:40Then, again, according to plan, the planes withdraw and the ship's batteries open up again.

03:54Each hour, the hour we attack, is getting close.

03:59For three days before we moved in, over four million pounds of explosives had been dropped

04:03on the island.

04:05It didn't seem possible that anyone could live through that bombardment.

04:12From this Jap hulk, machine guns constantly strafed our assault waves.

04:39We found them out twice, but each time, a new crew took over.

04:55One of our planes scores a direct hit.

04:58As we approach the island, we have the feeling that the show is just about over.

05:05There doesn't seem to be any organized resistance.

05:08However, we're taking no chances.

05:11Suddenly, we're met by heavy machine gun and mortar fire.

05:14It takes a heavy toll of our boats and men.

05:17It doesn't stop us.

05:32We fight our way onto the beach.

05:36Our men wade ashore from wrecked amphibians.

06:01A long pier extending across the fringing reef gives protection to a lot of our boys on

06:12the way in.

06:14We have a pretty good toehold on the beach, but Jap fire pins us down for hours.

06:37The casualties are pretty high, but as we found out later, blood plasma saves a lot of lives.

06:44When reinforcements arrive, we start moving up.

06:52It isn't easy knocking those Japs out of their positions.

07:12They're hidden in trees behind revetments, buried pill boxes, bomb proofs, bunkers.

07:19...

07:21...

07:22...

07:28...

07:30...

07:35...

07:38...

07:44...

07:46Come on.

08:16We use hand grenades.

08:23We use all the firepower we have to blast them out.

08:28Our rifle fire is dead.

08:30So are the flamethrowers and the mortars.

08:37The enemy breaks from cover.

08:46It's tough getting them out of places like this.

08:52We can never be sure where their snipers are placed.

08:55We take it slow, easy.

08:57This bunker is giving us plenty of trouble.

09:28We have orders to clean it up.

09:29Let's go.

09:30Let's go.

09:31Let's go.

09:32Let's go.

09:33Let's go.

09:34Let's go.

09:35Let's go.

09:36Let's go.

09:37Let's go.

09:38Let's go.

09:39Let's go.

09:40Let's go.

09:41Let's go.

09:42Let's go.

09:43Let's go.

09:44Let's go.

09:45Let's go.

09:46Let's go.

09:47Let's go.

09:48Let's go.

09:49Let's go.

09:50Let's go.

09:51Let's go.

09:52Let's go.

09:53Let's go.

09:54Let's go.

09:55Let's go.

09:56Let's go.

09:57Let's go.

09:58Let's go.

09:59Let's go.

10:00Let's go.

10:01Let's go.

10:02Let's go.

10:03Let's go.

10:04Let's go.

10:05Let's go.

10:06Let's go.

10:07Let's go.

10:08This is what we found on the other side.

10:23They're savage fighters.

10:37Their lives mean nothing to them.

10:39One of our boys is hit.

10:52hit.

10:58At night, the Japs would swim out to our wrecked amphibians and set up machine guns.

11:06They got a few of us before we got them.

11:14Commanding officer of the assault troops confers with his staff.

11:18One of our medium tanks remains in operation.

11:28Although at the end of the second day, D plus one, we breathe a little easier,

11:32motor squads continue to hammer enemy points of resistance.

11:48By this time, we know the Japs are licked.

11:58They must know it too.

12:00There's still strong resistance.

12:02Nip suicide snipers tie themselves up in the trees and take pot shots at us.

12:07We hit them, but they don't fall.

12:09Just die and hang them.

12:11They don't fall.

12:12Cover their guns.

12:13Cover their guns and하지 them.

12:14Cover their guns!

12:16Cover their guns!

12:17Love they won't!

12:19The arms areelijk пож Aussie!

12:21You have to be vulnerable, Di pronto.

12:22You have to be vulnerable now.

12:23Move out.

12:24The arms are北ings!

12:26Move out.

12:27Move out!

12:29Move out!

12:31Move out!

12:32Move out!

12:33Move out!

12:34Move out!

12:35Move out!

12:36Move out!

12:37Move out!

12:38Move out!

12:39A light tank moves up the airstrip.

13:09One of our boys is wounded during the attack on the airfield.

13:20Another Marine goes out after him in a jeep under heavy machine gun fire.

13:31Back at the beach, there's constant activity.

13:33Amphibians tow in fresh supplies, food, ammunition, guns.

13:38As the battle moves across the island, the chaplains' assistants tend the dead, removing

13:47the lower identification taken, leaving the duplicate on each Marine so there'll be no

13:51mistake later on.

13:55Generals Holland Smith and Julian Smith commanding the force and division.

14:01There's no hairy hill commanding the task force.

14:06Sometimes we actually have to dig the Japs out of their holes.

14:10The island is infested with buried pillboxes, many of them still crawling with Japs.

14:16These bunkers were so constructed that heavy shelling and demolition charges failed to crumble

14:20them.

14:22Many of them were over 20 feet deep.

14:31Our first prisoners.

14:33The wounded are given first aid in the field and then carried by stretchers to the boats.

14:47With them always are the Navy hospital corpsmen and Navy doctors and surgeons.

14:52At the transport, the steel litters are lifted from the barges and lowered into the hold.

14:59They're taken to the ship's hospital.

15:02Not a second is lost.

15:07These are Marine dead.

15:16This is the price we have to pay for a war we didn't want.

15:19And before it's over, there'll be more dead on other battlefields.

15:27Burial aboard ship for Marines killed in action.

15:54Just to make sure they're not concealing weapons, the prisoners are lined up and their clothes

16:05cut away.

16:06We gave them new ones later from their own dumps.

16:20The rest of the island's defending force is dead.

16:23None escaped.

16:25Tokyo once boasted that it would cost 100,000 of our men to take Tarawa.

16:30We lost less than 1,000.

16:32The Japs, over 4,000.

16:37A wounded Jap soldier.

16:40We took very few of these.

16:43Most of our prisoners were Korean laborers.

16:48One of our officers captured these Japs from a disabled landing boat.

16:54Prisoners carry their own wounded to the pier for evacuation.

17:00Captured Jap water.

17:01This is the first chance the boys have had to war since they got on the island.

17:07One fire from our warships knocked these big guns out early in the bombardment.

17:16These were English Vickers guns captured by the Japs in Singapore.

17:27One of their many light tanks.

17:30This was the Jap command post, built of reinforced concrete several feet thick.

17:35That building was built to withstand plenty, and did.

17:40We finally took it with TNT and flamethrowers.

17:45The fighting was still going on at one end of the island when the Seabees landed with their

17:49heavy equipment.

17:51They set to work clearing the airstrip even while we were fighting for it.

18:13The first plane landed just 24 hours after the Seabees had started to work.

18:21The second one lands one minute later.

18:27He welcomed the pilot to our new home.

18:30It was our first chance to thank those guys for the swell job they did for us before and

18:35during the attack.

18:36On D plus four, our relief came in.

18:41Maybe you'd think we weren't glad to see them.

18:45I guess all of us knew from the first, no matter how tough the going was, that we'd take the island.

19:04Just the same, the day the colors were run up on this palm tree and flew for the first time over Tarawa,

19:11we got a lump in our throats.

19:13We were mighty proud.

19:15These are the marines who took Tarawa.

19:40Let's go.

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