_Marines try to drag a wounded comrade to safety and medical treatment
on D-Day._]
Fortunately, as it turned out, Hall never received this message from
Smith. Later in the afternoon, a float plane reported to Smith that a
unit was crossing the line of departure and heading for the left flank
of Red Beach Two. Smith and Edson assumed it was Hall and Hays going
in on the wrong beach. The fog of war: the movement reported was the
beginning of Rixey’s artillerymen moving ashore. The 8th Marines spent
the night in its boats, waiting for orders. Smith did not discover this
fact until early the next morning.
[Illustration: _Col Michael P. Ryan, USMC, wears the Navy Cross
awarded to him at Tarawa. Ryan, the junior major in the Division, was
instrumental in securing the western end of Betio, thereby enabling the
first substantial reinforcements to land intact._
Marine Corps Historical Collection
]
On Betio, Shoup was pleased to receive at 1415 an unexpected report
from Major Ryan that several hundred Marines and a pair of tanks had
penetrated 500 yards beyond Red Beach One on the western end of the
island. This was by far the most successful progress of the day, and
the news was doubly welcome because Shoup, fearing the worst, had
assumed Schoettel’s companies and the other strays who had veered in
that direction had been wiped out. Shoup, however, was unable to convey
the news to Smith.
Ryan’s composite troops had indeed been successful on the western
end. Learning quickly how best to operate with the medium tanks, the
Marines carved out a substantial beachhead, overrunning many Japanese
turrets and pillboxes. But aside from the tanks, Ryan’s men had
nothing but infantry weapons. Critically, they had no flamethrowers or
demolitions. Ryan had learned from earlier experience in the Solomons
that “positions reduced only with grenades could come alive again.” By
late afternoon, he decided to pull back his thin lines and consolidate.
“I was convinced that without flamethrowers or explosives to clean
them out we had to pull back ... to a perimeter that could be defended
against counterattack by Japanese troops still hidden in the bunkers.”
The fundamental choice faced by most other Marines on Betio that day
was whether to stay put along the beach or crawl over the seawall and
carry the fight inland. For much of the day the fire coming across
the top of those coconut logs was so intense it seemed “a man could
lift his hand and get it shot off.” Late on D-Day, there were many
too demoralized to advance. When Major Rathvon McC. Tompkins, bearing
messages from General Hermle to Colonel Shoup, first arrived on Red
Beach Two at the foot of the pier at dusk on D-Day, he was appalled at
the sight of so many stragglers. Tompkins wondered why the Japanese
“didn’t use mortars on the first night. People were lying on the beach
so thick you couldn’t walk.”
Conditions were congested on Red Beach One, as well, but there was a
difference. Major Crowe was everywhere, “as cool as ice box lettuce.”
There were no stragglers. Crowe constantly fed small groups of Marines
into the lines to reinforce his precarious hold on the left flank.
Captain Hoffman of 3/8 was not displeased to find his unit suddenly
integrated within Crowe’s 2/8. And Crowe certainly needed help as
darkness began to fall. “There we were,” Hoffman recalled, “toes in
the water, casualties everywhere, dead and wounded all around us. But
finally a few Marines started inching forward, a yard here, a yard
there.” It was enough. Hoffman was soon able to see well enough to call
in naval gunfire support 50 yards ahead. His Marines dug in for the
night.
West of Crowe’s lines, and just inland from Shoup’s command post,
Captain William T. Bray’s Company B, 1/2, settled in for the expected
counterattacks. The company had been scattered in Kyle’s bloody
landing at mid-day. Bray reported to Kyle that he had men from 12
to 14 different units in his company, including several sailors who
swam ashore from sinking boats. The men were well armed and no longer
strangers to each other, and Kyle was reassured.
[Illustration: