Battle Field Angels by Scott Mcgaugh Page A

looked forward to more island assaults where the Japanese had built nearly indestructible defenses in caves on hillsides above the Marines’ landing sites.
    The Japanese high command knew the Pacific war had begun to turn in the Americans’ favor. The standoff in the Coral Sea in May 1942, followed by the decimation of the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway the following month and the American victory on Guadalcanal in early 1943, forced a change in Japanese plans. They developed yogaki , a defensive strategy along an imaginary line stretching from the Aleutians in the north down to the Marshall Islands, about two thousand miles southeast of Japan. This became the outer line of defense for the Japanese empire in the face of America’s island-hopping advance toward their homeland. The Gilbert Islands, consisting of sixteen scattered atolls in the central Pacific more than two thousand miles from Hawaii, were considered crucial. The Gilberts could not be lost to the Americans because the airstrip on Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilberts would put American bombers within range of the Marshalls.
    As Duffee and the 2nd Marines began serious training exercises in July, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered Admiral Chester Nimitz to develop a plan to capture the Gilbert Islands. “Get the hell in and get the hell out,” Nimitz ordered his admirals. 22 Only a few weeks later, the Japanese ordered a rear admiral trained as an engineer, Keiji Shibasaki, to take command of the Gilberts and prepare for the widely expected invasion. The airstrip on Betio at Tarawa must be defended to the last Japanese soldier. The Japanese knew they had to stop the American invaders on the beach. If the Marines established a beachhead, their overwhelming number of men and weapons ultimately would destroy the Japanese defenders.
    When American planners spread out a map of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll, they saw what resembled a dead bird lying on its back. Less than three miles long and no more than eight hundred yards wide, the center of the island bowed northward like a bird’s chest with a long, thin tail to the east, and a small promontory, shaped like a bird’s beak, to the west. There was no natural elevation of more than ten feet. Betio was a flat, narrow spit of coral sand covered with palm trees. Admiral Shibasaki intended to turn it into an impenetrable killing zone.
    A shallow reef surrounded the island, in some places stretching nearly 800 yards from shore. At low tide, the water could be only a few inches deep, making an amphibious assault extremely risky. Admiral Shibasaki immediately installed steel tetrahedrons interspersed with barbed wire and mines across the reef. Betio had only three landing beaches on the north side, each about 600 yards across. Shibasaki built his underwater defenses on the shallow reef so that American amphibious craft would be driven into channels of crossfire from more than 500 Japanese pillboxes filled with snipers and machine gunners. They were part of a force of more than 4,800 men, 2,600 of whom were highly trained Imperial Japanese Marines.
    When Admiral Nimitz ordered Plan 13-43, codenamed Operation Galvanic, on October 5, 1943, a massive showdown became a certainty, a clash that would produce one of the most brutal and shocking battles of World War II.
    “Okay guys, we’re headed for Efate for a couple of days of practicing amphib assaults. Get your gear ready.” 23
    When Duffee heard the order from an officer, he had assumed he would be back in New Zealand in time for a dance that had been scheduled in Wellington. A few days at Efate shouldn’t be a big deal—probably some contusions and maybe a broken leg or two to take care of.
    Duffee reported to the transport ship USS Harry Lee . The living conditions onboard terrorized the nine hundred Marines. Bunks were stacked five high, with the top bunk having only sixteen inches of clearance from the bulkhead. The air grew hot and stultifying, filled