How would Times cover Tarawa today?

The Providence Journal ^ | November 7, 2006 | Theodore L. Gatchel

[snowsislander]

Sixty-three years ago this month, the 2nd Marine Division landed in the Gilbert Islands on a tiny islet smaller than New York City's Central Park. In doing so, it precipitated one of the most vicious battles in the history of a Corps that has become famous for tough fights. Betio was the name of the island, but the battle has become known by the name of the atoll in which Betio formed the centerpiece of the Japanese defense: Tarawa.

As much as any battle of World War II, Tarawa illustrates the profound difference between how the American news media regarded war in 1943 and how it does so today.

The landing at Tarawa, for example, was plagued from the start by what today would almost certainly be characterized as an intelligence failure. Tarawa was surrounded by a fringing reef that extended as far out as a thousand yards in places. On D-day, the tide was so low that landing craft could not cross the reef. Many Marines were forced to debark at the edge of the reef and wade in to the beach under murderous fire.

The Marines who had planned the operation were disappointed, but not surprised. The question of tides had surfaced early in the planning process. The planners knew that tides would be lower than normal on D-day, but no one knew whether or not the water over the reef would be so low that landing craft could not reach the beach.

Unfortunately, the American naval charts and tidal information were based largely on data collected by the Wilkes Expedition of the mid-1800s. Even local mariners with recent experience were unable to predict the tides with certainty.

To hedge their bets, the Marines looked for an alternate way to land. The solution was the amphibious tractor or amtrac. This ingenious vehicle could swim ashore like a boat but could crawl over the reef on its tracks if necessary.

Before they could implement their innovative plan, the Marines had to surmount two obstacles. The first was to round up an adequate number of amtracs. The best they were able to do was to assemble enough to land the first three waves. The rest of the Marines would literally have to wade into the fight.

Because the amtracs were designed as logistics vehicles, they were unarmored. To afford them minimum protection, the Marines searched junkyards throughout New Zealand, where they were stationed, for boiler plate and other pieces of scrap that could be welded to the amtracs as a form of home-made armor.

The planners were also relying on an intense pre-landing bombardment by air and naval gunfire to eliminate, or seriously damage, the coast-defense guns and heavy machine-guns on Betio that could destroy the amtracs during the landing. In spite of predictions that the bombardment would "obliterate" the defenders, the reality was very different.

The hundreds of reinforced concrete and coconut-log bunkers and gun positions that caused some historians to call Tarawa "the most heavily defended atoll that would ever be invaded by Allied forces in the Pacific" proved to be largely impervious to bombs and gunfire. As a result, the Marines were forced to dig the Japanese out of their positions one bunker at a time. The defenders were Rikusentai, special naval-landing-force troops who preferred death to surrender. When the battle was over, eight of the 2,571 defenders were alive. The rest had been killed in the fighting or had committed suicide to avoid capture.

Because Tarawa was the first assault against a heavily defended atoll, the Marines were breaking new ground. They found themselves lacking adequate numbers of flamethrowers, tanks and demolition teams needed to deal with extensive fortifications. The battle degenerated into the most savage kind of no-quarter close combat that was reflected in American casualties. In the 76 hours it took to secure Betio, the Marines and their Navy corpsmen suffered 3,407 casualties, more than a thousand of them killed.

The toll at Tarawa shocked the American public. Gen. Douglas MacArthur criticized the landing as "an unnecessary massacre," and some members of Congress demanded an investigation.

Robert Sherrod, a war correspondent who landed with the Marines on Betio, became convinced that the Japanese adopted their fatalistic approach in the "hope that the Americans would grow sick of their own losses before completing the job."

Shortly after the battle, a New York Times editorial dealt with the numerous American mistakes at Tarawa by noting that "a cunning enemy like the Japanese will always present us with problems that can never be quite solved in advance." The editorial went on to say that the approach adopted by the enemy "makes the war against Japan a war of extermination in which there is virtually no quarter."

Incredible! A paper that now worries about depriving captured terrorists of their sleep was writing in 1943 about a war in which enemy garrisons "will have to be killed off to the last man."

One can only wonder how today's New York Times would have dealt with Tarawa and what the impact might have been on American public opinion.

Col. Theodore L. Gatchel (USMC, ret.), a monthly contributor, is a military historian and a professor of operations at the Naval War College. The views here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Naval War College, the U.S. Navy or the Department of Defense.

[snowsislander]

D-Day for Tarawa was November 20, 1943.

As Col. Joseph H. Alexander put it in Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa, "The rikusentai awaiting the 2nd Marine Division along Betio's north shore were ably led, thoroughly trained, admirably proficient with their entire range of weaponry, skilled in camouflage and concealment, and imbued with a fierce fighting spirit."

And so were our Marines.

It was a bloody three days, and one can only imagine if our current media were reporting on the war in the Pacific with the same type of spin that they are putting on Iraq.

[mainepatsfan]

They'd spin it as a Japanese victory for starters.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Wow.....if you Google Earth the islands it's unbelievable how crowded they are.

[basil]

Ping!

[New Perspective]

To afford them minimum protection, the Marines searched junkyards throughout New Zealand, where they were stationed, for boiler plate and other pieces of scrap that could be welded to the amtracs as a form of home-made armor.

NYSlimes would report "US armed forces sent ot battle lacking adaquate protection. Many say that due to Republican tax cuts for the rich armor was to expensive thus costing American lives.

Because Tarawa was the first assault against a heavily defended atoll, the Marines were breaking new ground. They found themselves lacking adequate numbers of flamethrowers, tanks and demolition teams needed to deal with extensive fortifications.

NYSlimes would report "Due to poor planning by some Republicans American lives were lost as a result. Japanese women and children affected the most.

the Japanese adopted their fatalistic approach in the "hope that the Americans would grow sick of their own losses before completing the job."

The NYSlimes would report "No time table set by Republicans, indefinate deployment causes heartache on deployed families.

Also a perfect opportunity for the dems to cut and run which is just what the enemy wants.

[Red Dog #1]

"hope that the Americans would grow sick of their own losses before completing the job."

It didn’t work for Japan, unfortunately that strategy seems to be succeeding today.

[rlmorel]

"...if our current media were reporting on the war in the Pacific with the same type of spin that they are putting on Iraq...."

And so the drumbeat goes on. The media, and those who READ, LISTEN and WATCH it and take it in HOOK LINE AND SINKER are all rowing in the same direction.

Which just happens, not coincidentally, to be in the same directions the Liberals and the Terrorists want us to go.

Ah well. As I suspected, we did not learn the lesson of 9/11 and take it to heart. We learned a platitude to mouth as long as the people in power made half an attempt to officially counter the negative drumbeat and make the platitudes easy to mouth for most of us.

The people in charge now ALL think 9/11 was an anomaly, not something that will be repeated. Hence the "We need to put it behind us" storyline they all mouth. Funny how the "Memory Hole" is most apt and practiced in Liberalism. Their only problem is that they do not DIRECTLY control and fund the dissemination of media, and the "Memory Hole" works imperfectly even though the Media does its best by pushing things off the front page and television news.

With liberals in charge of Congress...all the direction of news will eminate from there now. Note that the drumbeat of negativism and defeat did not issue primarily from Congress during the last three years, it was coming primarily from the DNC and the Media. Now with the children in charge, it will be in the news every single day with the authority of Congress.

[syriacus]

And how would the media cover the Korean "War" today?

3,000 troops have lost their lives under Bush in approximately the same length of time as 30,000 troops lost their lives in Korea under Truman (1950-52).

10 times as many deaths occurred in the war that Truman got us into.

[RaceBannon]

Now let's dop one on Peleiliu.

Peleiliu lost more men in three days than Tarawa lost in the 31 day campaign combined.

Peleiliu was attacked to clear a base for air support so Macarthur could invade the Philippines. 3 Days after the invasion of Peleiliu started, Macarthur landed anyways, practically unopposed.

Over 1000 men died for Macarthur to walk ashore in direct contradiction to the mission they were dying for.

[skinkinthegrass]

With liberals in charge of Congress...

Why?... Haven't you noticed....the air is much cleaner, the grass is greener, the bummers/huskers are much more polite....the c*@p smells much sweeter....its' a new day. {:D

[rlmorel]

There are people who believe Macarthur was a great general. I personally think he was the epitome of the pompous ass general officer.

Sitting in Australia wringing his hands, talking about how things should be done and botching most of his operations. His strength was the American officers and soldiers who served under him...they were the only ones who did anything of substance.

Just my opinion (and certainly not a slam on those who served in the Army in the Pacific Theatre)

[smoketree]

To compare to today Bush would have gone straight to Okinawa.
Instead of working his way to the heart of the enemy's stronghold like the island hopping of WWII. If we had the Air Force of today back then we could have gone to Okinawa first then bombed all the other islands into submission when they tried to get our supply lines.
I believe this is what Bush did by going to Iraq.
He actually has saved many lives by going to the heart of the beast instead of starting at the feet

[RaceBannon]

I wonder, Okinawa or Kyushu?

Tokyo would certainly gone up, the rail yards, comm centers

shipping

But, remember this game can only be played with WWII's weapons!

I would have taken Iwo right after taking back WAKE ISLAND!

In fact, WAKE ISLAND would have NEVER fallen to Japan if I was FDR!

Abandoning those Marines on Wake was a war crime in itself.

Wonder how the media would play THAT one, eh?

[Lancey Howard]

Semper fidelis BUMP!

[Centurion2000]

NYSlimes would report "US armed forces sent ot battle lacking adaquate protection. Many say that due to Republican tax cuts for the rich armor was to expensive thus costing American lives.

NYSlimes would report "Due to poor planning by some Republicans American lives were lost as a result. Japanese women and children affected the most.

The NYSlimes would report "No time table set by Republicans, indefinate deployment causes heartache on deployed families.

And if they had done that in WWII, they would have been shutdown and jailed after a visit from a few FBI agents for violations of the sedition acts. That's the real reason the democrats didn't want to declare war this time around. During a declared war the President has a lot more power to prosecute the war, and sedition and treason laws get enforced.

[freema]

Ping

[smoketree]

If the gop acted then like the rats are today FDR would have been impeached for not only Wake but Pearl Harbor too.
Not to mention the preemptive invasion of the soveriegn nation of Guadalcanal. Then Truman would have been impeached for getting us into the quagmire of all the other battles in the Pacific which cost thousands of American lives.
Then the gop would have taken over and demanded we pull out of the Pacific and "redeploy" to San Diego or Hawaii where we could strike out as necessary.

[B4Ranch]

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
-- Winston Spencer Churchill

[bannie]

My dad did not have to battle at Tarawa, but he was stationed there right after the battle. About 10 years ago, he--through the Sons of the American Revolution--got a monument for the island to honor those in the Battle of Tarawa.

I am trying to find a copy of either LIFE or LOOK Magazine in which there is a picture of my dad playing poker on Tarawa. He had a copy years ago, but his mother threw it away because daddy was playing poker in his shorts. I have 4 LIFE Magazines ordered, and I'm waiting for them to keep my search up.

My dad was a flight navigator in the Navy. After, I guess, a year of teaching navigation in Hollywood, Florida, he got his request to head out to "do his job" to help win the war. He still seems apologetic because he was never in battle. I'm so so proud of him for so many reasons, and this is just one of them.

[Marine_Uncle]

Peleiliu,Tarawa,Solomons,Phillipines,Omaha,Utah,Cherborg, French Africa,Sicily,Metz,Bastogne... the list is long.
The screw ups often immense in planning. Yet our men and women did what had to be done. THEY STAYED THE COURSE AND WON THE WAR.