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Breaking the Outer Ring:Marine Landings in the Marshall Islandsby Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret)

y the beginning of1944, United StatesMarine forces had al-ready made a dramaticstart on the conquest

of areas overrun by the Japanese ear-ly in World War II. Successful Ameri-can assaults in the Southwest Pacificbeginning with Guadalcanal in theSolomon Islands in August 1942, andin the Central Pacific at Tarawa in theGilbert Islands in November 1943,were crucial campaigns to mark theturn of the Japanese floodtide of con-quest. The time had now come totake one more decisive step: assaultof the islands held by Japan before1941.

These strategic islands, mandatedto the Japanese by the League of Na-tions after World War I, were asource of mystery and speculation.Outsiders were barred; illegal fortifi-cations were presumed; yet any Cen-tral Pacific drive towards Japan'sinner defense ring had to confrontthese unknowns. The obvious targetto begin with was the Marshall Is-lands. As early as 1921 a Marineplanning officer had pinpointed theirgeographic significance.

Planning the Attack

In May 1943, the Combined Chiefsof Staff decided to seize them. Thisdifficult assignment fell to AdmiralChester W. Nimitz who bore the im-pressive titles of Commander in

On the Cover: A flamethrower, center,is among weapons carried by men of the22d Marines on Eniwetok. At left: Ma-rine riflemen, under fire, leap from ajust-beached amphibian tractor in theJanuary 1944 landing. (Department ofDefense Photo [USMC] 72411)

Chief, Pacific, and Commander inChief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CinC-Pac/CinCPOA), based at Pearl Har-bor in Hawaii. He turned to fourvery capable men who would carryout the actual operation: three ad-mirals who were experts in amphibi-ous landings, fast carrier strikes, andshore bombardment, and MajorGeneral Holland M. Smith, who wasthe commanding general of the Ma-rines' V Amphibious Corps and nowalso would be Commanding Gener-al, Expeditionary Troops. It was hewho would command the troopsonce they got ashore. Original cau-tious plans for steppingstone attacksstarting in the eastern Marshalls weremodified, and the daring decisionwas made to knife through the edgesand strike directly at Kwajalein Atollin the heart of Marshalls' cluster of32 atolls, more than 1,000 islands,and 867 reefs.

Kwajalein is the largest atoll in theworld, 60 miles long and 20 mileswide, a semi-enclosed series of 80reefs and islets around a huge lagoonof some 800 square miles. Located620 miles northwest of Tarawa and2,415 miles southwest of Pearl Har-bor, its capture would have far-reaching strategic significance in thatit would break the outer ring ofJapanese Pacific defense lines. Withinthe atoll itself there were two objec-tives: Roi and Namur, a pair of con-nected islands shaped like weights ona four-mile barbell in the north end,and crescent-shaped Kwajalein Islandat the south end. The 4th Marine Di-vision under Major General HarrySchmidt was to assault Roi-Namur,and the Army 7th Infantry Divisionunder Major General Charles H.Corlett would attack Kwajalein. Af-

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ter these islands were taken, therewas one more objective in the Mar-shalls: Eniwetok Atoll. This was tar-geted for attack some three monthslater by a task force comprised of the22d Marine Regiment (called in theCorps the "22d Marines") and mostof the Army's 106th Infantry Regi-ment. Brigadier General Thomas E.Watson, USMC, would be incommand.

As a preliminary to these priorityoperations, the occupation ofanother atoll in the eastern Marshallswas planned. This objective wasMajuro, which would serve as an ad-vanced air and naval base andsafeguard supply lines to Kwajalein220 miles to the northwest. Becauseit was believed to be very lightlydefended, only the Marine V Am-phibious Corps ReconnaissanceCompany and the 2d Battalion,106th Infantry, 7th Infantry Divisionwere assigned to capture Majuro. Tosupport all of these thrusts therewould be a massive assemblage ofU.S. Navy ships: carriers, battleships,cruisers, destroyers, and an astonish-ingly varied array of transports andlanding craft. These warships provid-ed a maximum potential for intensivepre-invasion aerial bombing andship-to-shore bombardment; the in-creased tonnage in high explosives,the lengthened duration of thesoftening-up process, and the pin-pointing of priority enemy targetswere all lessons sorely learned fromthe inadequate preparatory shellingwhich had contributed to the steepcasualties of Tarawa. For the Mar-shalls, there were altogether 380ships, carrying 85,000 men.

With the plans in place and a verytight schedule to meet the D-day

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Major General Holland M. Smithne of the most famous Ma-rines of his time, GeneralSmith was born in 1882. He

was commissioned a second lieutenant in1905. There followed a series of overseasassignments in the Philippines, Nicara-gua, Santo Domingo, and with the Ma-rine Brigade in France in World War I.Beginning in the early 1930s, he becameincreasingly focused on the developmentof amphibious warfare concepts. Soonafter the outbreak of war with Japan in1941, he was assigned to a crucial posi-tion, command of all Marines in theCentral Pacific.

As another Marine officer laterdescribed him, "He was of mediumheight, perhaps five feet nine or teninches, and somewhat paunchy. Hisonce-black hair had turned gray. Hisonce close-trimmed mustache was some-what scraggly. He wore steel-rimmedglasses and he smoked cigars incessant-ly:' There was one other feature thatcharacterized him: a ferocious temperthat earned him the nickname, "Howlin'Mad" Smith, although his close friendsknew him as "Hoke."

This characteristic would usuallyemerge as irritation at what he felt were

sub-standard performances. One famousexample of this was his relief of an Armygeneral from his command. It camewhen an Army division was on the linealongside two Marine divisions on Sai-pan in the Marianas Islands campaignfollowing the Marshalls operation. Ahuge interservice uproar erupted!

Less than two years later, after 41years of active service, during which hewas awarded four Distinguished Serv-ice Medals for his leadership in four suc-cessive successful amphibiousoperations, he retired in April 1946, asa four-star general. He died in January1967.

deadline, the complex task of assem-bling and transporting the assaulttroops to the target area was put inmotion. Readying the Army 7th Di-vision was the easiest part of thelogistical plan; it was already inHawaii after earlier operations atAttu and Kiska in the Aleutian Is-lands off Alaska. The 22d Marines,however, had to come from Samoa(where it had been on garrison dutyfor some 18 months), and the 4thMarine Division was still at CampPendleton in California, where it hadrecently been formed. On 13 Janu-ary 1944, the division sailed fromSan Diego to commence the longestshore-to-shore amphibious operationin the history of warfare: 4,300 miles!

Life at sea soon settled down intoa regular routine. All hands soon be-

came acquainted with the rituals ofalerts for "General Quarters" in theblackness of predawn, mess linesstretching along the passageways, in-spections and calisthenics on the clut-tered decks, the loudspeaker with itsshrill whistle of a "bosun's pipe" andits "Now hear this!;' fresh waterhours, and classes and weapons-cleaning every day. Off duty, the mentook advantage of the opportunity tosleep, play cards, stand in line for icecream, write letters, and, of course,engage in endless speculation aboutthe division's objective (which wasoriginally known only by the intrig-uing title of "Burlesque andCamouflage").

On 21 January the transports car-rying the Marines anchored in Lahai-na Roads off Maui, Hawaii, and

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visions of shore leave raced throughthe minds of all the men: hula girls,surf swimming, cooling draughts ina local bar — just what was needed af-ter the long nights in the crowded,humid troop compartments duringthe voyage. Over the ships' loud-speakers, sad to say, came a not un-expected announcement, "There willbe no liberty

After one day filled with confer-ences and briefings for the seniorofficers, the task force sailed again.Next stop: the Marshall Islands! Enroute, crossing the-l8Oth Meridian,there were the traditional, colorfulceremonies in which the old salts in-itiated the men who had never beforecrossed the International Date Lineinto the "Domain of the Golden Dra-gon:' On 30 January the ships thread-

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72162B

On board Rocky Mount (AGC 3), newly designed and equipped to serve as a am-phibious command ship, MajGen Holland M. Smith, V Amphibious Corps com-mander and commander of Expeditionary Troops at Roi-Namur in the Mars halls,points out a feature of the battle to his chief of staff, BGen Graves B. Erskine.

ed their way through the easternatolls of the Marshalls, and the fol-lowing morning (dawn, 31 January)they halted before their objectives,with the northern component offRoi-Namur and the southern compo-nent facing Kwajalein Island. On ev-ery transport the men crowded theships' rails to stare at the low-lyingislets which they must soon attack.The 23d, 24th, and 25th Marineswere assigned to the Roi-Namuroperation, and the 32d, 17th, and184th Infantry Regiments of theArmy's 7th Division were to take theKwajalein Island objectives.

Meanwhile, the small group as-signed to Majuro (2d Battalion, 106th

Infantry, plus the V AmphibiousCorps Reconnaissance Company)had split off from the main task forceand would make its own landing on31 January. Advance intelligence es-timates of minimal enemy forcesproved accurate; there were noAmerican casualties and just oneJapanese officer was captured on themain islet. Three days later morethan 30 U.S. ships lay at anchor inthe Majuro lagoon.

Forward at the main theater, anawesome pre-landing saturationbombardment, begun on 29 January,was in full swing. U.S. Navy shipsmoved in on Roi-Namur, with someat the unprecedented short range of

1,900 yards, and poured in theirpoint-bank massed fire. Continuingthe repeated aerial strikes which hadbegun weeks earlier from the carri-ers, waves of planes swept in low forbombing and strafing runs. Key ene-my artillery and blockhouse strongpoints had earlier been mapped fromsubmarine and aerial reconnaissance,and individual attention was given tothe destruction of each one. Thecombined total of shells and bombsreached a staggering 6,000 tons.

As a result of the underwater ob-stacles and beach mines uncovered atTarawa, for the first time Navy un-derwater demolition teams had beenformed for future operations. For-

Major General Harry Schmidthe leader of the 4th MarineDivision at Roi-Namur wasborn in 1886 and entered the

Corps as a second lieutenant in 1909. Byextraordinary coincidence, his first for-eign duty was at Guam in the MarianasIslands, an area he would return to 33years later under vastly different circum-stances!

The Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, andNicaragua (where he was awarded aNavy Cross — second only to the Medalof Honor), interspersed with repeatedstays in China, were the marks of a

diverse overseas career. At home, therewere staff schools, paymaster duties, anda tour as Assistant Commandant.

By the end of the war, he had beendecorated with three Distinguished Serv-ice Medals. Retiring in 1948 after 39years of service, he was advanced to thefour-star rank of general. He died in1968.

A contemporary described him as "aBuddha, a typical old-time Marine: hehad been in China; he was regulationOld Establishment; a regular Marine:'

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Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 1118D

MajGen Harry Schmidt

The 4th Marine Division

T his division was formed as theresult of the organization andredesignation of several other

units. The 23d Marines began as infan-try detached from the 3d Division inFebruary 1943, the same month that anartillery battalion of the 12th Marinesbecame the genesis of the 14th Marinesand engineer elements of the 19th Ma-rines formed the nucleus of the 20thMarines. In March the 24th Marineswas organized, and then in May it wassplit in two to supply the men for the25th Marines.

This war-time shuffling provided themajor building blocks for a new divi-sion. The units were originally sepa-rated, however, with the 24th Marinesand a variety of reinforcing units (en-gineer, artillery, medical, motor trans-port, special weapons, tanks, etc.) atCamp Pendleton in California. The

rest of the units were at Camp Lejeune,North Carolina. This East Coast eche-lon moved to Pendleton by train andtransit of the Panama Canal in Julyand August. When all the units werefinally together, the 4th Marine Divi-sion was formally activated on 14 Au-gust 1943.

After intensive training, it shippedout on 13 January 1944, and in 13short months made four major assaultlandings: Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian,and Iwo Jima, suffering more than17,000 casualties. It was awarded twoPresidential Unit Citations and a NavyUnit Commendation, and then deac-tivated 28 November 1945. In Febru-ary 1966, however, it was reactivatedas the lead division in the MarineCorps Reserve, and major units laterserved with distinction in the PersianGulf.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A707113

Shoulder patch of the 4th Marine Di-vision: a gold "4" on scarlet back-ground, official colors of the U.S.Marine Corps. This emblem was de-signed by John Fabion, in the division'sPublic Affairs Office before the Mar-shalls campaign, and his commandingofficer was astonished to find that thelayout of the runways on the Japaneseairstrip on Roi were "an exact replica."

tunately, they found no mines at Roi-Namur and were not needed atKwajalein.

Another factor which would assistthe assault troops was the configu-ration of the atoll. The two main ob-jectives, at the north end and at thesouth, were each adjoined by islets,and these neighboring locations wereto be seized on D-day, 31 January, asbases to provide close-in artillerysupport for the infantry landing. Oneither side of Roi-Namur the 14thMarines would bring in its 75mmand 105mm howitzers and dig themin to support the main landing fromislets which carried the exotic namesof Ennuebing, Mellu, Ennubirr, En-numennet, and Ennugarret. As is al-ways the case in war, there wereproblems. The task was assigned tothe 25th Marines, and, because ofcommunications difficulties, thedifferent units going ashore on differ-ent islets could not coordinate theirlandings. Their radios went deadfrom drenching sea swells that sweptover the gunwales of the amtracs(LVTs, landing vehicles, tracked, or

amphibian tractors). Nevertheless, bynightfall, the beachheads had beensecured, and, for the first time, U.S.Marines had landed on a Japanesemandate.

On board the transports outsidethe lagoon, the men of the 23d and24th Marines spent the afternoon ofD-day transferring to LSTs (LandingShips, Tank). That night saw a mud-dled picture of amphibian tractorsstranded or out of gas inside the la-goon, with many others wanderingin the blackout as they sought to findtheir own LST mother ship.

While this scramble was going on,the assault troops on board the LSTswere facing, each in his own way, theprospect of intensive combat on thefollowing morning. One rifleman,Private First Class Robert F. Graf,remembered:

As I thought of the landing thatI would be making on the mor-row, I was both excited andanxious. Yes, I thought ofdeath, but I wasn't afraid.Somehow I couldn't see myselfas dead. "Why wasn't there

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fear?" I wondered. Even thoughI was nervous, it was with ex-citement, not fear. Instead therewas a thrill. I was headed forgreat adventure, where I hadwanted to be. This was just anadventure. It was "grown up"Cowboys and Indians, it was"grown up" Cops and Robbers.

Thoughts of glory were inmy mind that night. Now it wasmy turn to "carry the flag" intobattle. It was my turn to be apart of history. To top it all off,I was going into battle with the"Elite of the Elite;' the UnitedStates Marines. Just prior tofalling asleep, I prayed. Myprayers were for courage, formy family, and I prayed to stayalive.

By the next morning, D plus 1, 1February, the LSTs had moved insidethe lagoon. Up before dawn, the in-fantrymen filed into the cavernousholds of the LSTs and clambered on-board their amphibious tractors.Graf described his equipment:

Landings were made with each

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person loaded with weight. Wewore our dungarees, leggings,and boondockers (shoes). Ourskivvies (underwear) had beendyed green while we were stillin the States. White ones weretoo good a target. In addition,our packs were loaded withwhatever gear we thought wewould need, such as extrasocks, toilet gear, poncho, andour "D" and "K" rations. Extracigarettes were stuffed in also.Believe it or not, some of us car-ried books that we werereading.

I wore two knives. The K Bar[knife] that was issued wastucked into my right legging.The throwing stiletto that I hadpurchased was on my belt; aleather thong at the bottom ofthe sheath was tied around myleg so that the knife would notflop around. My bayonet wasin its sheath and attached to mypack. On went the loaded pack.Around my waist went the car-tridge belt, fully loaded, withten clips of Ml rifle ammo, eachclip holding eight rounds. Overmy shoulder were two ban-doleers of Ml ammo, holdingan additional eighty rounds.Hanging from my pockets werefour hand grenades, only re-quiring a pulled pin to be acti-vated. We donned our helmetswith the brown camouflagedcovering. Finally we slung ourgas masks over our shoulders.Now we were ready for bear!

Out of the deafening din of theships' holds, eerily lit by red battlelamps, down the ramps of the un-folding bows, lurching into the roughseas whipped up by the wind, thecolumns of amtracs went to war.

As the amphibian tractors soughtto form up in organized attackwaves, a series of problems arose.There was a continuation of therough weather and radio communi-cations difficulties of the day before;the amtrac crews had not previous-ly practiced with the assault units;the control ship turned out to havebeen assigned firing missions as well

as wave control and left its controlstation (followed by some stray am-tracs); the attack commander wasreduced to racing around in a smallship and shouting instructionsthrough a megaphone. As a result,W-hour, the hour for attack, had tobe postponed from 1000 to 1100.

Meanwhile the men in the amtracs(and some in hastily scrounged upLCVPs [landing craft, vehicle or per-sonnel]) were watching the awe-inspiring sight of the furious bom-bardment. Overhead, for the firsttime in the Pacific War, two Marineswere in airplanes to act as naval gun-fire controllers who would cut off theshelling when the troops approachedthe beach. Brigadier General WilliamW. Buchanan later recalled how oneof them "on one of his passes foundone of the trenches on the north sideof Namur filled with a number oftroops crouching down in the trench.So he asked the pilot to go in on astrafing attack, and then as theycame over he was going to continueraking them with the machine guns.He did this to such a point that, af-ter they got back to the ship, it wasdetermined that in his [the spotter's]enthusiasm he practically shot off thetail end!"

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 146975

Jammed all together in the fetid multi-tiered bunks below decks, Marine troopswelcomed being in the fresh air on deck even if they were also crowded there.

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Down in the lagoon the signal fi-nally came to the assault waves, "Goon in!,, The two lead battalions of the23d Marines headed for Roi, with thetwo lead battalions of the 24th Ma-rines churning towards Namur. Thememories of this run-in were burnedforever into the mind of young Se-cond Lieutenant John C. Chapin,leading his platoon in the first wave:

By now everything was allmixed up, with our assault waveall entangled with the armoredtractors ahead of us. I orderedmy driver to maneuver aroundthem. Slowly we inched past, astheir 37mm guns and .50-cal.machine guns flamed. Thebeach lay right before us.However, it was shrouded insuch a pall of dust and smokefrom our bombardment that we

could see very little of it. As aresult, we were unable to tellwhich section we were ap-proaching (after all our hours ofcareful planning, based on hit-ting the beach at one exactspot!) I turned to talk to my pla-toon sergeant, who was man-ning the machine gun rightbeside me. He was slumpedover—the whole right side ofhis head disintegrated into amass of gore. Up to now, theentire operation had seemedalmost like a movie, or like oneof the innumerable practicelandings we'd made.

Now one of my men lay in awelter of blood beside me, andthe reality of it smashed into myconsciousness.

The landing then became a chaotic

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jumble of rapid events for that officerand his men. There was a grindingcrash to their right, and looking overthey saw an LVT collide at the water'sedge with an armored tractor, climbon its side and hang there, crazilyatilt. Simultaneously, there was agrating sound under their tractor asthey hit the beach. Keeping low, themen slid over the side of the tractorand dove for cover, for their LVT wasa perfect target sitting there on thesand. The lieutenant was the last oneto drop to the deck, and as hesprawled on the sand, the amtracground its way backwards into theocean.

Now the lieutenant faced his firstcombat in a situation that character-ized all the landing beaches. His in-tensive training stood him in goodstead as he took stock of the situa-

Department of Defense Photo (USMC 70490Col Franklin A. Hart, commander of the 24th Marines, briefs To his left is his regimental executive officer, LtCol Homerhis staff on the operation plan for the invasion of Roi-Namur. L. Litzen berg, Jr. Both would retire as general officers.

Naval Support

T he infantry assault units in the Marshalls opera-tions were carried by an incredible array of shipsdesigned to perform very specialized functions.

Also included were converted destroyers. The amphibiantractors carried the invading Marines in to the beaches, sup-plemented by the older ramped landing craft. Added tothese were a jumble of acronyms: LCI, LST, LSM, etc., forinfantry; rockets, tanks, and trucks.

No landings would have been successful, however,without the crucial support of naval gunfire and aerialbombardment. The fast task force that roamed the Pacificand the support groups which stood off the island objec-tives were visual proof of the deadly striking power thathad been reborn in the U.S. Navy in the two years sincethe debacle at Pearl Harbor. Nearly all the old, slow bat-tleships which had lain shattered in the mud were back inaction, and now were joined by brand new, fast counter-parts, and the familiar old peacetime carriers were now sup-plemented by a steady flow of new fleet carriers and the

innovation of smaller escort carriers.This is the roll call of the ships which poured in their

fire before and during the landings:Battleships: Tennessee (BB 13), Colorado (BB 45),

Maryland (BB 46), Pennsylvania (BB 38), Idaho (BB 42),New Mexico (BB 40), and Mississippi (BB 41).

Heavy Cruisers: Louisville (CA 28), Indianapolis (CA35), Portland (CA 33), Minneapolis (CA 36), San Francis-co (CA 38), and New Orleans (CA 32).

Light Cruisers: Santa Fe (CL 60), Mobile (CL 63), andBiloxi (CL 80).

Carriers: Saratoga (CV 3), Princeton (CVL 23), Langley(CVL 28), Enterprise (CV 6), Yorktown (CV 10), BelleauWood (CVL 24), Intrepid (CV 11), Essex (CV 9), Cabot(CVL 27), Cowpens (CVL 25), Monterey (CVL 26), andBunker Hill (CV 17), plus six escort carriers.

Destroyers: The Kwajalein Atoll landings had 40 in directsupport.

tion. Being in the first scattered groupof tractors ashore, his men had nocontact yet with any other unit, sothe Japanese were on both sides ofthem — as well as in front. One glancetold him that they had landed on thewest side of Namur, 300 yards to theright of the spit of land that theircompany had for its objective. Thelong hours of studying maps and aer-ial photographs had proved theirworth. The lieutenant's account con-tinued:

My immediate task was to re-organize my platoon, for it wasscattered along the beach. Thenoise, smoke, and choking pallof burnt powder further com-plicated things. I turned to mysergeant guide, as we lay therein the sand, and asked himwhere his men were. He start-ed to point and right before myeyes his hand dissolved into abloody stump. He rolled over,screaming "Sailor! Sailor!" (Thiswas our code name for a corps-man. Bitter past experiences ofthe Marines had shown that theJaps delighted in calling "corps-man" themselves, and then

shooting anyone who showedhimself.) Soon our corpsmancrawled over, and started togive the sergeant first aid, so Iturned my attention to morepressing matters.

As yet the officer hadn't seen a sin-gle Japanese, even though he was inthe midst of them. But now one ofthe men next to him gasped, "They'rein there!;' pointing to a slit trenchfour feet away; the Marine raisedhimself up to a crouching positionand hurled his bayonetted rifle likea javelin into the slit trench. Therewas heavy enemy fire coming at theplatoon, but it was almost impossi-ble to determine its source. Ten feetin front of the Marines, however, theJapanese had dug a series of trenchesrunning the length of the beach. Tiedin with these trenches were scores ofmachine gun positions and foxholes,mutually supporting each other, allcamouflaged so that they were invisi-ble until a Marine was right on topof them. Accordingly, as soon as themen of the platoon would locate anemplacement, they would deluge itwith hand grenades, and then workon the next one. The lieutenant's next

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experience was almost his last:

At one point in this swirlingmaelstrom of action I waskneeling behind a palm treestump with my carbine on thedeck, as I fished for a fresh clipof bullets in my belt. Somethingmade me look up and there, notten feet away, was a Jap charg-ing me with his bayonet. Myhands were empty. I was help-less. The thought that "this is it"flashed through my brain! Thenshots chattered from all sides ofme. My men hit the running Japin a dozen places. He fell deadthree feet from me.Shortly after this, the squad with

the Marine officer was working onanother Japanese emplacement. Hepulled the pin from one of hisgrenades, let the handle fly off, andstarted counting to three. (Thegrenade's fuse was timed to give aman about five seconds before it ex-ploded.) In the middle of his count,a Japanese started shooting at himfrom the flank. Instinctively heturned to look for the enemy. Thensomething in his mind clicked, "Andwhat about that live grenade in your

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hand?" Without looking, he threw itand dove for the deck. It went off inmid-air and the fragments spatteredall around him .

Groups of Marines were formingnow under their own initiative, andbeginning to work their way slowlyinland. It was nearly impossible tokeep tight control of the platoon un-der these conditions, but the lieu-tenant was moving with them, tryingto get them coordinated as best hecould, when suddenly he dropped tothe ground, stunned. He recalled:

My first reaction was thatsomeone had hit my right cheekwith a baseball bat. With theshock, instinct made me covermy right eye with my hand.Then I realized I'd been hit.Searing my mind came thequestion, "When I take myhand away, will I be able tosee?" Slowly I lowered my armand opened my eye. I couldsee! Relief flooded through me.The wound was on my cheek-bone, just below the eye, and itwas bleeding profusely, so I laythere and broke out my first aidpacket. After shaking sulfapowder into the wound rather

awkwardly, I bandaged myright eye and cheekbone as bestI could. The bullet had gonecompletely through my helmetjust above my right ear, and lefta jagged, gaping hole in thesteel. My left eye was still func-tioning all right, however, so af-

ter a drink from my canteen, Istarted forward again.

A little later I encounteredanother lieutenant from ourcompany, Jack Powers. He hadbeen hit in the stomach, but wasstill fighting. Crouching behinda concrete wall, he showed mea pillbox about 25 feet awaythat was full of Japs who werestill very much alive and full offight. This strong point com-manded the whole area aroundus and was holding up our ad-vance very effectively. It wasabout 50 feet long and 15 feetwide, constructed of doublerows of sand-filled oil drums.Grabbing the nearest men, weexplained our plan of attackand went to work. With a cou-ple of automatic riflemen, Jackcovered the rear entrance withfire. Taking another man and ahigh-explosive bangalore torpe-do, I crawled around to thefront and observed for a fewminutes. Then we inched ourway up to the slit that served asa front entrance, and I threw a

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Department of Defense Photo (Army) 324729

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grenade in to keep down anylap who might be inclined topoke a rifle out in our faces.

Next we lighted the fuse onthe bangalore, jammed it insidethe pillbox, and scrambled forshelter. The fuse was very short,we knew, and we barely hadtumbled into a nearby shell holewhen we were overwhelmed bythe blast of the bangalore. Dirtsprayed all over us, billowingacrid smoke blinded us, and thenumbing concussion deafenedus. In a few moments we felt allright once more, and a glancetold us that we had closed thatentrance permanently. Weworked our way back to wherewe'd left Jack Powers, andfound that he'd managed to lo-cate a shaped charge of high ex-plosive in the meantime. Takingthis, we repeated our job — thistime blowing the rear entranceshut.

That took care of that pill-

box! Jack looked like he was inpretty bad shape, and I urgedhim to go get some medical at-tention, but he refused andmoved on alone to the next Jappillbox (where, I later learned,he was killed in a single-handedheroic attack for which he wasawarded the Medal of Honor).All over Namur there were simi-

lar examples of individual initiative.They were needed, for the island wascovered with dense jungle, concretefortifications, administrative build-ings, and barracks. It was difficult tomount an armored attack underthese conditions. Meanwhile, theJapanese used them to their fullest ex-tent for cover and concealment. Ene-my resistance and problems ofmaintaining unit contact slowed theMarines' advance.

Amidst all of this, a Marine demo-lition team threw a satchel charge ofhigh explosive into a Japanese bunkerwhich turned out to be crammedwith torpedo warheads. An enor-

9

mous blast occurred. From off shore,an officer watched as "the whole ofNamur Island disappeared from sightin a tremendous brown cloud of dustand sand raised by the explosion."Overhead, a Marine artillery spotterfelt his plane catapult up 1,000 feetand exclaimed, "Great GodAlmighty! The whole damn islandhas blown up!" On the beach anotherofficer recalled that "trunks of palmtrees and chunks of concrete as largeas packing crates were flying throughthe air like match sticks . . . . Thehole left where the blockhouse stoodwas as large as a fair-sized swimmingpool." The column of smoke rose toover 1,000 feet in the air, and the ex-plosion caused the deaths of 20 Ma-rines and wounded 100 others in thearea.

Finally, at 1930, Colonel FranklinA. Hart, commander of the 24th Ma-rines ordered his men to dig in for thenight. The troops had come acrossa good portion of the island. Nowthey would hold the ground gained

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first class and his 44-year-old father,a corporal, had been together in thesame company back in California,but the son was hospitalized with aminor illness and then transferred toanother outfit. The father boardedhis ship prepared to sail for combatalone, but then his son was foundstowed away on it in order to be withhis father. The young man was taken

and get ready for the morrow. Onerifleman, Robert F. Graf, later wroteabout that time:

Throughout the night thefleet sent flares skyward, light-ing the islands as the flaresdrifted with the prevailingwind. Ghostly flickering lightwas cast from the flares as theydrifted along on theirparachutes. Laying in our fox-hole, my buddy and I werewatching, waiting, and strain-ing our ears trying to filter outthe known sounds.

Our foxhole in that sand wasabout six feet long by two feetin depth and just about wideenough to hold the two of us.Since I had eaten only my "D"ration since leaving the ship, Iwas hungry. "D" rations werebitter-sweet chocolate barsabout an inch and a half squareand were supposed to be full ofenergy. I removed a "K" rationfrom my pack and opened it."K" rations came in a box aboutthe size of a Cracker Jack boxand had a waterproof coating.These rations contained a smalltin of powdered coffee orlemonade, some round hardcandies, a package of threecigarettes, and a tin about thesize of a tuna-fish can contain-ing either cheese, hash, or eggswith a little bacon. We dined onour rations, drank water fromour canteens, and prepared tosettle in for the night .

After finishing chow weelected to take two-hourwatches, one on guard while theother slept. Also we made surewe knew where our buddies'foxholes were, both on the leftand right of us. Thus we wereset up so that anyone to ourfront would be an enemy. Ourfirst night in combat hadstarted.

Before dawn the Japanese mount-ed a determined counterattack whichwas finally repulsed. Nevertheless, itwas a tragic night for one particularfamily. A 19-year-old Marine private

off and was placed under arrest. Hismother, however, telephoned theCommandant's office in Washingtonand told the story of her son's effortto be together with her husband. Thecharges were dropped and the twowere reunited for the trip to the Mar-shalls. The son was killed that firstnight on Namur. The father went onfighting — alone.

Early on the afternoon of the nextday, 2 February, D plus 2, the 24thMarines finished its conquest ofNamur, and the island was declared"secured." In the final moments ofcombat, however, Lieutenant ColonelAquilla J. Dyess, commander of the1st Battalion, was standing to directthe last attack of his men. A burstof machine gun fire riddled his body,


Landing Vehicles, Tracked (LVTs) equipped with rocket launchers new to the 4thMarine Division, churn towards the assault beaches of Roi-Namur on D-Plus One.

Troops of the 24th Marines near the beach on Namur, thankful for having madeit safely ashore, are now awaiting the inevitable word to resume the attack.


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tack from the sea rather thanthe lagoon shore. Two heavyhits had been made on theblockhouse, one apparently by14-inch or 16-inch shells andthe other by an aerial bomb.Nevertheless, the position hadnot been demolished .

[The battalion commander,Lieutenant Colonel Edward J.Dillon] then ordered CompanyC to take the blockhouse. Thecompany commander first sentforward a 75mm half track,which fired five rounds againstthe steel door. At this point ademolition squad came up, and

and he became the most seniorofficer to die in the battle. For his su-perb leadership under fire he wasawarded a posthumous Medal ofHonor.

Across the sand spit, on Roi, it hadbeen a different story. This island wasnearly bare, for it was mostly co-vered by the airfield runways. Whenthe 23d Marines hit the beaches onD plus 1, the fierceness of the pre-landing bombardment prevented theJapanese defenders from mounting acoordinated defense. Small groups ofMarine riflemen joined their regi-ment's attached tanks in a race acrossto the far side of the island. Thischarging style caused considerableconfusion as to who was where. Re-organized into more coherent units,the men made a final orderly driveto finish the job.

In spite of the rapid progress onRoi, there were still some major ene-my strongpoints which had to bedealt with. An after-action report ofthe 2d Battalion described one exam-ple of this perilous work in matter offact terms:

[There] was a blockhouse

constructed of reinforced con-crete approximately three feetthick. It had three gunports,one each facing north, east, andwest, another indication of theenemy's mistaken assumptionthat the Americans would at-

its commander volunteered toknock out the position with ex-plosives. While the halftrackcontinued to fire, infantry pla-toons moved up on each flankof the installation. The demo-lition squad placed charges atthe ports and pushed bangaloretorpedoes through a shell holein the roof. .

"Cease fire" was then ordered,and after hand-grenades werethrown inside the door, half asquad of infantry went into in-

Marine Corps Art Collection

A watercolor by combat artist LtCol Donald L. Dickson depicts members of aMarine fire team in a close-in attack on a Japanese defensive position on Namur.

Members of the 23d Marines on Roi turn to look in astonishment at the black plumeof the giant explosion which took many lives in the 24th Marines on Namur.


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vestigate. Unfortunately, the en-gineers of the demolition squadhad not got the word to ceasefire, and had placed a shapedcharge at one of the ports whilethe infantry was still inside.Luckily, no one was hurt, butas the company commanderreported, "a very undignifiedand hurried exit was made byall concerned:' Inside were threeheavy machine guns, a quanti-ty of ammunition, and the bod-ies of three Japanese.Many Japanese had to be flushed

out of or blown up in the airfield'sdrainage ditches and culverts, but by1800 that day, D plus 1, Roi had beensecured. ("Secured" seemed a some-what flexible term when the firstservice of Mass, held the next day,was interrupted by Japanese shots.)By 6 February, however, the groundelements of a Marine aircraft wingwere ensconced at the airfield,preparing for the arrival of theirplanes in five more days. For the en-tire remainder of the war these planespounded the by-passed atolls withsuch power that the Japanese onthem were eliminated from any fur-ther role in the war. (There was one

surprise Japanese air raid on Roi,staged from the Mariana Islands, on12 February. This caused a numberof casualties and major damage tomaterial.)

The repair of the airfield and itsquick return to action was a tributeto the skills of both the 20th Marines,an engineer regiment, and the 109thNaval Construction Battalion (Sea-bees). This achievement was onemore illustration of the vital role

played by a dizzying list of units thatsupported the assault rifle battalions.Besides the vast armada of navalplanes, ships, and landing craft, therewere Navy chaplains and corpsmen(two specialties which are alwaysNavy). In addition to the Marine air,artillery, and engineer units, therewere the tanks, heavy weapons, mo-tor transport, quartermaster, signals,and headquarters supporting units.An amphibious operation, to be suc-

One of the very few Japanese finally persuaded to surrenderin the Roi-Namur operation, this stripped-down soldier is

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70241well covered by suspicious Marine riflemen as he leaves hishiding place in a massive but shell-shattered blockhouse.

Marine tanks and infantry worked effectively together when the terrain permitted.Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70203

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cessful, must be a finely tuned, high-ly trained juggernaut that depends onall its parts working smoothlytogether and this was clearly demon-strated in the Marshalls.

The conquest of Roi-Namur hadbeen a relatively easy operationwhen compared to some of the otherMarine campaigns in the Pacific. (AtTarawa, for example, more than3,300 men had been killed or wound-ed in 76 hours.) The 4th Division'svictory came at a cost of 313 Marinesand corpsmen killed and 502 wound-ed. By contrast, the defeated Japanesegarrison numbered an estimated3,563—with all but a handful ofthem now dead.

It was on this junket that themen of the 25th got to know theMarshall Island natives, for itwas these Marines who freedthem from Japanese domina-tion. On many islets, bivouack-ing overnight, the natives andMarines got together and sanghymns; the Marshall Islandershad been Christianized manyyears before, and missionarieshad taught them such songs as"Onward Christian Soldiers." Krations and cigarettes also madea big hit with them. And morethan one Marine sentry, walk-

ing post in front of a nativecamp, took up the islander'sdress and wore only a loincloth—usually a towel from aLos Angeles hotel.

The final task that remained forthe division was a miserable one. Roiand Namur were littered with deadJapanese; the stench was overpower-ing as their bodies putrefied in theblazing tropical sun. All hands,officers and enlisted, were put towork day and night on burial details."Hey, I just finished two days of bru-tal combat! We don't have any glovesor equipment for this!"—"Too bad, juststart doing it anyway!" Health con-ditions were so bad that 1,500 menin the division were suffering from'dysentery when the troops finally re-boarded transports for the journeyback to their rear base at Maui in theHawaiian Islands.

13

In accordance with the overallcampaign plan for the seizure of theMarshall Islands, the Army's attackon Kwajalein Island at the south endof the atoll began in exact synchroni-zation with the Marine assault in thenorth. The same softening-up process

This watercolor by LtCol Donald L. Dickson, USMCR, portrays Marines revivingthemselves and taking it easy after the fighting near blockhouse skeleton.

Two more tasks remained for the4th Division; the first was moppingup the rest of the islets in the north-ern two-thirds of the atoll. The 25thMarines, which had supported theattacks of the 23d and 24th, took offon a series of island-hopping trips onboard their LVTs. The regimentchecked out more of the exoticallynamed islets such as Boggerlapp,Marsugalt, Gegibu, Oniotto, andEru. The 25th found no resistanceand by D plus 7 it had covered all 50of the islets that were its objectives.This assignment was a total changefrom what the regiment had ex-perienced around Roi-Namur. Onewriter, Carl W. Proehl, described theexpedition this way:The once heavily overgrown terrain of Namur was almost completely denud-ed at the end of the battle by the combination of naval gunfire and bombing.

National Archives Photo 127-N-72407

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was used on D-day, 31 January, witha large force of warships and planespouring on a blanket of high explo-sive. The Navy, for instance, fired7,000 shells. Because of the locationof the islets immediately surround-ing its main objective, the 7th Infan-try Division was able to follow a planidentical to the Marines, with the17th Infantry Regiment clearing theway for placement of close-by sup-porting artillery. The 145th Field Ar-tillery Battalion then proceeded toinundate the target with 28,000rounds.

Then, on D plus 1, the riflemen ofthe 32d and 184th Infantry Regi-ments landed on Kwajalein Island it-self. Because of previous jointrehearsals held in Hawaii the am-tracs carried in the assault troopswith smoothness and efficiency. Inaddition, Major General Charles H.Corlett, the division commander,had an assemblage of DUKWs (am-phibious trucks always called"ducks") available, and it provedvaluable in ferrying priority suppliesashore to the fighting men.

Once ashore, the assault unitsfound widespread devastation fromthe preinvasion bombing and shell-ing. Smashed seawalls, uprootedtrees, demolished buildings, scarredpillboxes were everywhere. Dug inamidst all this debris, the Japanesefought resolutely. This kind of closecombat usually forced the issue down

to the individual level. An Armyofficer, Lieutenant Colonel S. L. A.Marshall, who later interviewed thetroops, gave this account of how theydealt with the deadly Japanese"spider holes" they encountered:

The holes were everywhere.Each one had to be searchedfrom close up. Every spot wherea man might be hiding had tobe stabbed out. So greatly wasthe beach littered with brokenfoliage that it was like lookingthrough a haystack for a fewpoisoned needles .

The fire which cut the mendown came from the spiderholes farther up the line. It wasthe kind of bitter going thatmade it necessary for the juniorleaders to prod their men cons-tantly. The leader of the 3dSquad had been trying to get hismen forward against the fire.Private First Class John Treagergot up, rushed forward aboutten yards, hit the dirt, fired afew shots with his BAR [Brown-ing Automatic Rifle] and crum-pled with a bullet in his head.

Somewhat farther along, abayonet was seen sticking upthrough a patch of fronds. TheJap crouched within it hadn't


Using palm fronds for concealment, two Marines carefully scout out the terrainahead of them on Roi in a fire fight with the Japanese forward of their position.

A rifleman of the 23d Marines moves slowly past a Japanese airplane and ahangar destroyed on Roi by naval gunfire. The rifle slung over his shoulder andthe adjacent Marine carrying supplies indicate that combat is no longer imminent.

National Archives Photo 127-GW-1253-70345

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the other men, he vomited allover the beach. Minutes passedbefore he could gather himselftogether again.

As the two Army regiments begantheir third day of combat, it wasdirty and dangerous work. One Ma-

room to draw in the wholelength of the weapon. PrivateFirst Class Edward Fiske firedhis BAR at the hole; the driedfronds caught fire from thetracers. At that point Fiske ranout of ammunition.

Private First Class JulianGuterrez then took up the firewith his Ml [rifle]. He stooddirectly above the hole andfired down into it. Then thehole exploded; the Jap insidehad turned a grenade on him-self. A man's shattered armcame flying out of the hole andhit Guterrez on the shoulder,splattering blood all over his

face and clothing. The armbounced off and fell to the side.As Guterrez looked at it, fasci-nated and horror-stricken, hesaw another bayonet rising outof a patch of fronds just beyondthe outstretched and still-quivering fingers. He yelled toa man behind him. The manrelayed a grenade and Guterrezpitched it with all of his mightinto the patch of fronds. Iterupted in a shower of palmleaves and blood and flesh.

Guterrez reeled over towardthe lagoon to cleanse himself ofthe blood. Before he couldreach the water, in sight of all

15

rine historical summary of the Mar-shalls operation told their story:

Resistance during the daywas continually stiffer as theenemy took advantage of everypossible uncertainty of the ter-rain, and concentrated the fireof such mortars and artillery aswere left to them. Despite thehavoc wrought by the bom-bardments, there was still muchcover available and positionswere concealed with greatadroitness. Many of the con-crete installations still stood inpartial ruin even though theyhad received direct hits fromheavy naval guns, and the firefrom 75mm [cannon] had littleeffect on them.

It was necessary to employheavy demolition charges tobreach emplacements sufficient-ly for the employment of flamethrowers and grenades. In theutter turmoil, it was nearly im-possible to maintain contact.Nothing was any longer recog-nizable. The situation wasmade doubly uncertain fromthe fact that fire might comefrom almost any direction atthe flanks, frontally, or fromthe rear. The going was tough.

Weird things can and do happenin such fighting. A Japanese officercharged a U.S. tank with just his baresaber. In the dusk one eveningJapanese riflemen tried to walk intothe American lines carrying palmbranches in front of their bodies sothey would not be seen. A U.S. in-fantryman carrying a flamethrowerapproached a pillbox, and outthrough its door bolted a Japaneseofficer in counterattack. He was


The American flag is raised on Roi on 2 February 1944 to signify the end of the fight-ing. In the background is the shattered hulk of a three-story concrete blockhouse.

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National Archives Photo 127-N-88477Named "Dyess Field" in honor of the deceased battalion corn- quickly converted from Japanese use to become a new base formander who earned the Medal of Honor, the Roi airstrip was Marine aircraft as the Central Pacific drive moved westward.

squirting a fire extinguisher towards Navy corpsmen (in their Marine uniforms) are there on the front lines of combat,the flame gun. The liquid doused the plasma in hand, saving riflemen's lives in the critical minutes after a wound.American soldier as he let the flame Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72399go. The Japanese officer droppeddead at his feet, burned to a crisp.

And so it went for four long daysuntil the far tip of Kwajalein hadbeen reached and the island wasdeclared secured.

The successful battle for both endsof Kwajalein Atoll had been conclud-ed, and a series of conclusions weredrawn from it. Japanese deathsreached a total of 8,122, some 27times the number of Americanskilled. The relatively small scale ofU.S. casualties gave Admiral ChesterW. Nimitz the ready forces he need-ed to push forward rapidly withplans for further action: first, onemore atoll in the Marshalls, and thenquickly on to the vital Mariana Is-lands, the linchpin of Japan's innerline of defense. Kwajalein would pro-vide the air base from which the B-29bombers would conduct their raidson the Marianas, and the Army 7th

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was the first use of Navy underwater


LtCol Aquilla 1. Dyess was post humous-ly awarded the Medal of Honor for hisheroic personal leadership on Namur.Known affectionately as "Big Red,"he was the only person to have beenawarded both the Medal of Honor andthe Carnegie Medal for Heroism (in1928). He was honored in 1945 by hav-ing a Navy destroyer named after him.

Infantry Division and the 4th MarineDivision would play key roles inthose future operations.

Tactically, there were a variety ofinnovations in the twin battles atKwajalein, and these would continueto prove valuable in the future. There

lstLt John V. Power, after being seriouslywounded attacking one pilibox, heldhis hand over his wound and went onto attack a second one. He was posthu-mously awarded the Medal of Honor.


demolition teams; the first use ofDUKWs in combat; the first use ofcommand ships with special commu-nications equipment to control thebattle; the first use of airplanes tocntrol naval gunfire; and the firstuse of armored amphibian tractors(LVTAs). In addition, the two battlessaw the debut of new units designedto facilitate crucial communicationsduring combat. These were the JointAssault Signal Companies. The offi-cial Marine history of the Marshallscampaign described their complexresponsibilities:

The primary mission of thisunit was to coordinate all sup-porting fires available to a Ma-rine division during anamphibious operation. In ord-er to carry out this function, thecompany was divided intoShore and Beach Party Com-munications Teams, Air LiaisonParties, and Shore Fire ControlParties . . . . During training,the various teams were attachedto the regiments and battalionsof the division. Thus each as-sault battalion could becomefamiliar with its shore andbeach party, air liaison, and firecontrol teams.Another new element was the way

rockets were used. This was acenturies-old technique of bombard-ment, but in the Marshalls the 4thMarine Division was the first Ameri-can division to use rockets mountedon jeeps, pick-up trucks, and Navygunboats in combat.

One other Marine resource wasunique: the use of Navajo Indian"code talkers" in battle. They proveda perfect foil for the Japanese abili-ty in previous battles to understandMarine voice-to-voice communica-tions and Morse Code. To preventthis a group of Navajo Indians hadbeen recruited and trained in specialcode words they could use in com-bat. When they were talking in theNavajo's exotic language, no Japanese

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Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 302952PFC Richard B. Anderson was posthu-mously awarded the Medal of Honor forsacrificing his life when he threw him-self upon a live Japanese hand grenade,in order to protect his fellow Marines.

would ever decipher the message! AtRoi-Namur their walkie-talkie port-able radios carried the urgent instruc-tions back and forth between shipand shore, as well as between higherechelons and subordinate units, anddid it so quickly that previous delaysof up to 12 hours (intercepting, trans-mitting, and deciphering messages)were eliminated.

Pvt Richard K. Sorenson saved the livesof five Marines by throwing himself on aJapanese grenade which was thrown in-to the shell crater they occupied. He wasawarded the Medal of Honor and laterrecovered from his terrible wounds.

Marine Corps Historical Collection

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Finally, the two battles forKwajalein Atoll proved incontestablythe effectiveness of prolonged andmassive preinvasion naval gunfireand aerial bombing. The U.S. planesand warships had so thoroughlyscoured not only the target islands,but also the other Japanese air basesin the Marshalls, that not a singleJapanese plane was able to attack theAmerican surface forces in thecampaign.

With Kwajalein Atoll now inAmerican hands, a review of the nextoperation immediately took place.Admiral Nimitz flew there from PearlHarbor and met with his top com-manders. The 2d Marine Division,tempered in the fires of Tarawa, hadearlier been alerted to prepare for aMay attack on Eniwetok Atoll, 330miles northwest of Kwajalein. Theplanners decided to use instead the22d Marines (under the command ofColonel John T. Walker) and twobattalions of the Army's 106th Infan-

try Regiment, since they had notbeen needed in the quick conquest ofRoi-Namur and Kwajalein. In addi-tion, the date for the attack wasjumped forward to mid-February.

The softening-up process had be-gun at the end of January, and thecarrier air strikes increased the fol-lowing month. Japanese soldierscaught in this deluge were dismayed.One wrote in his diary, "The Ameri-can attacks are becoming more fun-

ous. Planes come over day after day.Can we stand up under the strain?"Another noted that "some soldiershave gone out of their minds."

On D-Day, 17 February, the Na-vy's heavy guns joined in with athunderous shelling. Then, usingsecret Japanese navigation chartscaptured at Kwajalein, the task forcemoved into the huge lagoon, 17 by21 miles in size. Brigadier GeneralThomas E. Watson, the Marine inoverall command of some 10,000 as-sault troops, had the responsibilityfor conducting a complex series ofsuccessive maneuvers. As atKwajalein Atoll, the artillery wassent ashore on D-Day on two tiny is-lets adjacent to the first key target,Engebi Island. The Marines' 2dSeparate [75mm] Pack Howitzer Bat-talion went to one islet, and the Ar-my's 104th Field Artillery Battalionwent to the other. There they set upto provide supporting fire for theforthcoming infantry assault.

The landing on Engebi came thenext morning, D plus 1, 18 February,as the 1st and 2d Battalions of the22d Marines headed for the beach intheir amtracs. At this time there oc-curred "one of those pathetic episodesincident to the horrible waste of war"As one Marine report described it:

One tank was lost in thelandings. It was boated in anLCM [Landing Craft, Medium]


Resolute and fanatic Japanese defenders who were not previously killed by theMarines very often committed hara-kiri, as did the two soldiers in the foreground.

Men of the 17th Infantry Regiment go in by amtrac to occupy one of the isletsadjacent to Kwajalein itself in preparation for the main landing the next day.


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Troops of the Army's 7th Infantry Division make the tricky which will now carry them in across the reef fringingtransfer from their landing craft to the amphibian tractors Kwajalein, for the final leg of their assault of the island.

on which, unfortunately, only Map of the attack on Kwajalein Island, with the landings at the west end, 184thone engine was functioning. By Regiment on the left and 32d on the right. Demarkation lines show daily progress.

some mischance the leverdepressing the ramp was oper-ated with the result that thecraft began to flood rapidlywhile still 500 yards offshore.The tank crew had "buttonedup" and could gain but [a I smallidea of the accident. Despite thefrantic efforts of the LCM's crewto warn the occupants, thedesperate urgency of the situa-tion was not appreciated. TheLCM gradually filled, listed,and finally spilled her load intothe lagoon, turning completelyover. At the last possible mo-ment, one of the crew of thetank managed to escape as thetank actually hit bottom fortyfeet down.Once the two battalions hit the

beach, they found the core of theenemy defenses to be a palm grovein the middle of the island. This areawas riddled with "spider holes;' and

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KWAJALEIN ISLAND1-4 FEBRUARY 1944

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The 37mm gun provided invaluable direct fire support guns takes on a stubborn Japanese position on Kwajalein,throughout the campaigns of the Pacific War. Here, one of the reinforcing the ability of riflemen to deal with the enemy.

Army soldiers lie warily on the ground as their flamethrower often multiple exits from the strongpoints, these soldiers arepours a sheet of fire on a Japanese pillbox. Since there were on the alert for any of the enemy who may try to escape.


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the American shelling had addedfallen trees to the cover provided tothe Japanese by the dense under-brush. Thus their positions were ex-tremely difficult to locate. It wasdangerous work for the individualsand small groups who had to take theinitiative, but they did and the as-sault ground ahead against enemydefenses.

With these advances and somedirect fire from self-propelled 105mmguns against concrete pillboxes, thewhole of Engebi had been overrun bythe Marines by the afternoon of Dplus 1. On the following morning theAmerican flag was raised to thesound of a Marine playing "To theColors" on a captured Japanese bu-gle. An engineer company, however,spent a busy day using flamethrow-ers and demolitions to mop up by-passed enemy soldiers. More than1,200 Japanese, Koreans, and Okina-wans were on Engebi, and only 19surrendered.

The main action now shiftedquickly on D plus 2 to the attack on

Eniwetok Island. This mission wasassigned to the 1st and 3d Battalionsof the Army's 106th Infantry Regi-ment. When they landed, their ad-vance was slow. Only 204 tons ofnaval gunfire rounds (compared tothe 1,179 tons which had plasteredEngebi) hit Eniwetok. "Spider hole"defenses held up their advance. Asteep bluff blocked the planned in-land advance of their LVTAs, result-ing in a traffic jam on the beaches.Less than an hour after the initiallanding, General Watson felt obligedto radio Colonel Russell G. Ayers,commanding the 106th, "Push yourattack:'

Things were clearly not going asplanned, for General Watson hadhoped to secure Eniwetok quickly,and then have the battalions of the106th immediately ready for an at-tack on the final objective, Parry Is-land. To speed the progress onEniwetok, the reserve troops, the 3dBattalion of the 22d Marines, wereordered to land early in the after-noon. Moving forward, they weresoon in heavy combat. Japanese sold-

21

iers who had been by-passed kept uptheir harassing fire; permission tobring the battalion's half-track 75mmcannon ashore was flatly deniedColonel Ayers. The Marines had totake responsibility for clearing two-thirds of the southern zone on the is-land. Tanks were ashore but "notavailable;' and coconut log emplace-ments provided the Japanese withstrong defensive positions.

Nevertheless, the attack inchedforward with the repeated use offlamethrowers and satchel charges.Halting for the night several hundredyards from the tip of the island, theMarines were greeted the followingmorning (D plus 3) by an astonish-ing sight. The Army battalion sup-posed to be on their right flank had,without notifying the Marines,pulled back 300 yards to the rear dur-ing the night and left a large gap inthe American lines. The Marinesthen had to stem a small but furiousJapanese night counterattack. Whenthe soldiers returned in the morning,the American attack began again,and by mid-afternoon the Marines

Victorious Army soldiers relax by the ruins of a Japaneseplane, smashed by the preinvcision bombardment of one of


the islets adjacent to Kwajalein. One enterprising man still hasthe energy and the curiosity to climb on board for a look.

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A crater from U.S. Navy gunfire marks the left end of a seriesof Japanese trenches designed to provide mutually support-

Department of Defense Photo (Navy) 218615ing enfillade fire against attackers. The shattered trunks of thepalm trees show the effects of the Navy's bomdardment.

ommander of Tactical Group-ibuilt on the 22d Marines, heled the conquest of Eniwetok.

For this he was awarded a DistinguishedService Medal. Promoted to majorgeneral, he received a second DSM forhis service while commanding the 2dMarine Division at Saipan and Tinian.He retired in 1950.

With a birth date of 1892, and an en-listment date of 1912, he fully qualifiedas a member of "the Old Corps:' Afterbeing commissioned in 1916, he servedin a variety of Marine assignments in theCaribbean, China, and the UnitedStates.

Given the nickname "Terrible Tommy;'Watson's proverbial impatience was latercharacterized by General Wallace M.Greene, Jr., as follows: "He would nottolerate for one minute stupidity, lazi-ness, professional incompetence, orfailure in leadership. . . . His temper incorrecting these failings could be fiery

and monumental:' And so, both Marineand Army officers found out at Eniwe-tok and later Saipan!

BGen Thomas E. Watson, USMC, com-manded Tactical Group-I, built aroundthe 22d Marines, as he led his Marinesin the capture of Eniwetok. He latercommanded the 2d Marine Division inthe ensuing Saipan-Tinian operation.


and the Army battalion had securedthe southern part of the island.

Progress was still very slow in thenorthern sector, so Marine tanks andengineers moved in to assist the otherArmy battalion there. Finally, in theafternoon of D plus 4, 21 February,the northern area was also declaredsecure.

With the elapse of all this time (96hours instead of the 24 hours expect-ed), General Watson was forced toalter his plans for the final phase ofthe operation: the assault on Parry.He brought down from Engebi the1st and 2d Battalions of the 22d Ma-rines, pulled that regiment's other(3d) battalion off Eniwetok, anddesignated them for the landing onParry.

Amidst all of this purposeful ac-tivity, the ludicrous side of waremerged in one episode. A U.S. floatplane moored in the lagoon, and aboat was sent to take off the crew.Coming alongside, the boat cleverly

Brigadier General Thomas E. Watson

22

;_I—-C

managed to capsize the plane.The exact timing of an amphibi-

ous assault is a crucial decision basedon a delicate balancing of a host offactors, such as the condition of thetroops and their equipment, provi-sion of fire support, etc General Wat-son decided to hold off the landingon Parry until D plus 5 (22 Febru-ary). An official report explained thereasons for the delay:

(a) To rehabilitate and reor-ganize [the battalion of the 22dMarines] which had been in ac-

tion for three successive days.(b) To reembark, repair, and

service medium tanks and resttheir crews.

(c) To make light tanks,which were still engaged onEniwetok, available for the as-sault on Parry Island if re-quired.

(d) To provide one [battalion]of the 106th Infantry as supportreserve in the event it was re-quired.

(e) To allow additional time

23

for the air and surface bom-bardment of Parry.Awaiting the amtracs of the 22d

Marines, the Japanese commanderon the island issued a very succinctorder to his troops:

At the edge of the water scat-ter and divide the enemy infan-try in their boats — attack andannihilate each one. Launchcleverly prepared powerfulquick thrusts and vivid suddenattacks, and after having at-tacked and having destroyedthe enemy landing forces, first

Waves of amtracs, each one crammed with Marines uncertainof what they will find when they hit the beach, churn in for

Department of Defense Photo (Navy) 217679

the assault of Engebi on 18 February 1944. They are hopingto find an enemy dazed by the preparatory artillery fire.

landed with his machine gun platoonin the second wave of assault troops,three minutes after the first men tohit the beach on Eniwetok. Movingquickly inland, the platoon came tothe edge of a blasted coconut grove.Then, as the lieutenant later wrotehome:

of all, then scatter and break uptheir groups of boats and ships.In the event that the enemy suc-ceeds in making a landing an-nihilate him by means of nightattacks.The enemy plans to "annihilate"

failed. For two days before the Ma-rine assault, the Navy had moved itsbig guns in as close as 850 yards off-shore and pounded the defenderswith 944 tons of shells. This was sup-plemented by artillery fire from theneighboring islands and rocket firefrom the gunboats as the Marineswent in. This rain of shells creptahead of the tanks and infantrymenas they tenaciously slogged their wayacross the island.

As always, there was the unexpect-ed. When a shell from a U.S. warshiphit directly on top of an undergroundbunker, all the Japanese insidepoured out and ran — of all places —into the sea. Another shell hurled acoconut tree aloft and catapulted thebody of an enemy sniper from itsbranches through the air to his death.

For the assault troops, it was a con-tinuing story of "spider holes;' tun-nels, underground strong points, andenemy resistance to the death.Another young Marine, Second Lieu-tenant Cord Meyer, Jr., in his firstcombat fought on both Eniwetok andParry. The grueling experiences hehad were typical of everyone whotook part in these battles. He was

24

We were hard hit there, andwith terrible clarity the realityof the event came home to me.I had crawled forward to ask aMarine where the Japs were—pretty excited really and enjoy-ing it almost like a game. I

crawled up beside him but hewouldn't answer. Then I sawthe ever widening pool of darkblood by his head and knewthat he was dying or dead. Soit came over me what this warwas, and after that it wasn't funor exciting, but something thathad to be done.

Fortune smiled on me thatday, or the hand of a DivineProvidence was over me, or Iwas just plain lucky. We killedmany of them in fighting thatlasted to nightfall. We corneredfifty or so Imperial [Japanese IMarines on the end of the is-

CplAnthonyP Damato, VAmphibiousCorps, was posthumously awarded theMedal of Honor for having saved thelives of his fellow Marines by throwinghimself on a Japanese hand grenade.


RE STBILThe capture of this atoll followed a carefully planned sequence, using a variety ofgeographic points: (1) entrance of U.S. ships into the lagoon through Wide Pas-sage in the south and Deep Entrance in the southeast; (2) artillery set up on "Camel-ha" and "Canna" in the northeast; (3) landing on Engebi in the north; (4) landingon Eniwetok in the south; and, finally (5) landing on Parry in the southeast.

LADYSUPPEI

HEARTSTRINGS

ENIWETOK(DOWNSIDE)

ATOLL5 I 3 2

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land, where they attempted abanzai charge, but we cut themdown like overripe wheat, andthey lay like tired children withtheir faces in the sand.

That night was unbelievablyterrible. There were many ofthem left and they all had onefanatical notion, and that wasto take one of us with them. Wedug in with orders to kill any-thing that moved. I kept watchin a foxhole with my sergeant,and we both stayed awake allnight with a knife in one handand a grenade in the other.They crept in among us, andevery bush or rock took onsinister proportions. They gotsome of us, but in the morningthey all lay about, some withtheir riddled bodies actually in-

side our foxholes. With daylightit was easy for us and wefinished them off. Never haveI been so glad to see the blessedsun.With that battle over, the lieu-

tenant and his men were hustled backon ship. For a day and a night theywere "desperately trying" to get theirgear into proper shape to go rightback into combat. The followingmorning, they went in on the attackon Parry.

They found the beach was sweptwith machine-gun and mortar fire,but they surged inland over ruined,shell-blasted soil rocked by the con-tinual mortar bursts. Then their cap-tain suddenly pointed, and above thebrush line they saw 150 or so menbending forward, moving on aparallel course about 50 yards away.

25

The Marines, however, waved,thinking that they must be fellowMarines. The men paid little atten-tion to the Marines and seemed to besetting up machine guns. The reali-zation struck home: they wereJapanese.

The lieutenant by now had justhalf a platoon of men and twomachine guns. They set the guns upand started firing at the enemy. Onegun jammed, so they buried the partsin the sand, because they thoughtthat the Japanese would charge andthey couldn't possibly stop it or pre-vent the capture of the gun. Whenthey didn't attack, the Marinesmoved in against them. The twosides threw grenades back and forthfor what seemed like hours. Manywere killed on both sides. Finally thelieutenant and his men threw a whole

Poised in a shallow trench, riflemen of the 22d Marines awaitthe order to attack an enemy coconut-log strongpoint on


Eniwetok. While the most of the men are carrying M-1 rifles,the flamethrower in their midst may well prove crucial.

F6F "Hellcat" fighters from carrier decks played an important on a number of islands in the Marshalls, as well as inpart in the U.S. Navy's elimination of Japanese airpower the devastating air strikes supporting the assault landings.

Department of Defense Photo (Navy) 8O-K-100

26

The Deadly Spider Holes

Later accounts explained what the Marines ran intoat Engebi — and what they did to keep theiradvance moving forward.

Those defenses were of the "spider web" type to whichthere were many entrances. They were constructed byknocking out the heads of empty gasoline drums and mak-ing an impromptu pipeline of them, sunk into the groundand covered with earth and palm fronds. The tunnels thusconstructed branched off in several directions from a cen-tral pit and the whole emplacement was usually concealedwith great skill and ingenuity. If the main position was spot-ted and attacked the riflemen within could crawl off fiftyfeet or so down one of the corridors and emerge at an en-tirely different and unexpected spot from which they couldget off a shot and dive down to concealment before it was

possible to determine whence the fire proceeded. Every footof ground had to be gone over with the greatest precau-tion and alertness before these honeycombs of death couldbe silenced by the literal process of elimination.

The attacking Marines soon hit upon a method of des-troying completely these underground defenses. When thebunker at the center of the web had been located, a mem-ber of the assault team would hurl a smoke grenade inside.Although this type of missile did no harm to the Japanesewithin, it released a cloud of vapor which rolled throughthe tunnels and escaped around the loosefitting covers ofthe foxholes.

Once the outline of the web was known, the bunker andall its satellite positions could be shattered with demolitions.

w

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volley of grenades and charged inand got to the beach. Down it theycould see a whole group of Japanese,so all 12 of the Marines, standing,kneeling, or lying prone, fired theirrifles and carbines. The enemy felllike ducks in a shooting gallery, butstill they closed in on the little groupof Marines who then had to backaway.

Now the lieutenant continued hisstory:

But we got some tanks andreinforcements some half hourlater and moved through themin skirmish line, which bringsthis tale to the most extraordi-nary incident of all. I was fol-lowing some ten yards behind

the tanks, when a Jap officercame out of a hole pointing hispistol at me; so instinctively Ishot my carbine from the hipand hit him full in the face. Iwalked forward and looked intothe trench and saw anotherwith his arm cocked to throw agrenade. He didn't see me. I wasonly six feet away. I pulled thetrigger but the weapon wasjammed with sand. I had to dosomething, so I took my carbineby the barrel and hit him withall my might at the base of theneck. It broke his neck and mycarbine.

Finally we killed them all.They never surrender. Againthe night was a bad one, but

27

with the dawn came completevictory, and those of us whostill walked without a woundlooked in amazement at ourwhole bodies. There was notmuch jubilation. We just satand stared at the sand, andmost of us thought of thosewho were gone — those whom Ishall remember as alwaysyoung, smiling, and graceful,and I shall try to forget howthey looked at the end, beyondall recognition. .

The lieutenant's letter went on topraise his men:

They obeyed with an unques-tioning courage. One of my sec-tion leaders was hit by a bullet

In one of the classic photographs of the Pacific War, dog-tiredand battle-grime-coated Marines, thankful to be off the island


and still alive, relax with a hot cup of coffee on board shipafter victoriously ending the bruising fight for Eniwetok.

The Secretary of the NavyWashington

The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in commending the

Twenty-Second Marines, Reinforced, Tactical Group One,Fifth Amphibious Corps

consisting of

Twenty-second Marines; Second Separate Pack Howitzer Company; Se-cond Separate Tank Company; Second Separate Engineer Company; Se-cond Separate Medical Company; Second Separate Motor TransportCompany; Fifth Amphibious Corps Reconnaissance Company; Com-pany D, Fourth Tank Battalion, Fourth Marine Division; 104th FieldArtillery Battalion, U.S. Army; Company C, 766th Tank Battalion, U.S.Army; Company A, 708th Amphibian Tank Battalion, U.S. Army; Com-pany D, 708th Provisional Amphibian Tractor Battalion, U.S. Army;and the Provisional DUKW Battery, Seventh Infantry Division, U.S.Army.

for service as follows:

"For outstanding heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces dur-ing the assault and capture of Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, fromFebruary 17 to 22, 1944. As a unit of a Task Force, assembled only twodays prior to departure for Eniwetok Atoll, the Twenty-second Marines,Reinforced, landed in whole or in part on Engebi, Eniwetok and ParryIslands in rapid succession and launched aggressive attacks in the faceof heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from well camouflaged enemydugouts and foxholes. With simultaneous landings and reconnaissancemissions on numerous other small islands, they overcame all resistancewithin six days, destroying a known 2,665 of the Japanese and captur-ing 66 prisoners. By their courage and determination, despite the difficul-ties and hardships involved in repeated reembarkations and landing fromday to day, these gallant officers and men made available to our forcesin the Pacific Area an advanced base with large anchorage facilities andan established airfield, thereby contributing materially to the success-ful conduct of the war. Their sustained endurance, fortitude and fight-ing spirit throughout this operation reflect the highest credit on theTwenty-second Marines, Reinforced, and on the United States NavalService"

All personnel attached to and serving with any of the above units during theperiod February 17 to 22, 1944, are authorized to wear the Navy Unit Com-mendation Ribbon.

in his arm. It spun him cleararound and set him down onhis behind. A little dazed, he satthere for a second and thenjumped up with the remark,"The little bastards will have tohit me with more than that:' ihad to order him back to thedressing station an hour later.He was weak with loss of bloodbut actually pleaded to stay.

My runner was knockeddown right beside me withthree bullet holes in him andblood all over his face. Stupid-ly I said, "Are you hit, boy?" Hewas crying a little, being just akid of eighteen, and said, "I'msorry, sir. I guess I'm just a sissy:'I damn near cried myself atthat.

And so it went all through the day,but by evening it was nearly all over.Early the next morning (D plus 6, 23February) Parry was completely inAmerican hands, and the conquest ofEniwetok Atoll's vital objectives wascomplete. Some 3,400 Japanese hadbeen eliminated there at a cost of 348American dead and 666 wounded.

Mopping up operations on manyof the tiny islets in the Marshalls con-tinued until 24 April. The troops en-countered a few scattered Japanesesoldiers — quickly dispatched — andan oddity. On one atoll they founda German who had married a nativewoman and had lived there since hehad originally been shipwrecked in1891. One of the obscure atolls waslater to become famous as a U.S.nuclear testing ground, and as aname given to a sensational newwoman's bathing suit: Bikini.

The 22d Marines had performedsuperbly. Recognition of theirachievements came in the form of aNavy Unit Commendation, whichpraised its "sustained endurance, for-titude, and fighting spirit throughoutthis operation:'

Thus the Marshall Islands opera-tions were successfully concluded.With relatively light American

casualties, a big step had been takenin the Central Pacific campaign. U.S.forces were now within 1,100 milesof their next objective, the MarianaIslands. The timetable for that leapwas moved up by at least 20 weeks.The 2d Marine Division and the re-mainder of the Army's 27th Divisionwere now free for that operation,

28

since they were not needed in theMarshalls. The basic techniques forvictorious amphibious assaults werenow clearly proven. Another largecontingent of American troops hadreceived its baptism of fire, and theAmericans had broken the outer ringof Japan's Central Pacific defenseswith impressive skill and courage.

All of the basic Marine histories forWorld War II contain detailed accounts ofthe Marshalls operation. This monographrepresents a summary, supplemented byindividual experiences drawn from the Per-sonal Papers and Oral Histories Collec-tions in the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter, Washington, D.C.

Among the most useful were: lstLt JohnC. Chapin, USMCR, The 4th Marine Di-vision in World War II (Washington:Historical Division, HQMC, 1945); LtColRobert D. Heinl, Jr., USMC, and LtColJohn A. Crown, USMC, The Marshalls:Increasing the Tempo (Washington: Histor-ical Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1954);Historical Division, HQMC. "The Mar-shall Islands Operations" Unpublisheddraft, n.d. World War II —Marshall IslandsRecords File. Marine Corps HistoricalCenter, Washington, D.C.; LtCol S. L. A.Marshall, AUS, Island Victory (Washing-ton: Infantry Journal Press, 1944); Carl W.Proehl, ed., The Fourth Marine Divisionin World War II (Washington: InfantryJournal Press, 1946); Henry I. Shaw, Jr.,Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turn-bladh, Central Pacific Drive —History ofU.S. Marine Corps Operations in WorldWar II, vol 3 (Washington: HistoricalBranch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1966).

In the Personal Papers Collection Unit,Marine Corps Historical Center, Washing-ton, D.C., the following files have beenuseful: First Lieutenant John C. Chapin(PC 671); Master Sergeant Roger M. Em-mons (PC 304); Private First Class RobertF. Graf (PC 1946); Princeton UniversityCollection (PC 2216).

Transcripts of interviews in Oral HistoryCollection, Marine Corps HistoricalCenter, Washington, D.C: BGen WilliamW. Buchanan; BGen Melvin L. Kriilewitch;Col William P. McCahiII; MajGen WilliamW. Rogers; LtGen James L. Underhill.

Other TitlesThe following pamphlets in the Marines

in World War II Commemorative Seriesare now in print: Opening Moves: MarinesGear Up For War; Infamous Day: Marinesat Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941; FirstOffensive: The Marine Campaign forGuadalcanal; Outpost in the North Atlan-tic: Marines in the Defense of Iceland; AMagnificent Fight: Marines in the Battlefor Wake Island; Across the Reef: The Ma-rine Assault of Tarawa; Up the Slot: Ma-rines in the Central Solomons; Time of theAces: Marine Pilots in the Solomons,1 942-1 944.

C aptain John C. Chapin earned a bachelor ofarts degree with honors in history from Yale

University in 1942 and was commissioned laterthat year. He served as a rifle-platoon leader inthe 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division, and waswounded in action during assault landings onRoi-Namur and Saipan.

Transferred to duty at the Historical Division,Headquarters Marine Corps, he wrote the firstofficial histories of the 4th and 5th Marine Divi-

sions. Moving to Reserve status at the end of World War II, he earned a master'sdegree in history at George Washington University with a thesis on "The MarineOccupation of Haiti, 1915-1922:'

Now a captain in retired status, he has been a volunteer at the Marine CorpsHistorical Center for 10 years. During that time, he wrote History of Marine Fighter-Attack (VMFA) Squadron 115. With support from the Historical Center and theMarine Corps Historical Foundation, he then spent some years researching andinterviewing for the writing of a new book, Uncommon Men —The Sergeants Majorof the Marine Corps. This was published in 1992 by the White Mane PublishingCompany.

945

WORLD WAR II

/ A94" W'WIIll c)45

I

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in theWorld War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines bythe History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observanceof the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part bya bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband,Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a PurpleHeart.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMSBrigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR,WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANTGeorge C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISIONRobert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information

Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical CenterBuilding 58, Washington Navy Yard

Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1994PCN 190 003124 00

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