_M-4A2 Sherman tank (“Charlie”) of 3d Platoon, Company C, Medium
Tanks, was disabled inland from Red Beach Three by mutually supporting
Japanese antitank guns firing from well-dug in positions not too far
from the beaches._]
The Shermans joined Wave 5 of the ship-to-shore assault. The tanks
negotiated the gauntlet of Japanese fire without incident, but five
were lost when they plunged into unseen shell craters in the turbid
water. Ashore, the Marines’ lack of operating experience with medium
tanks proved costly to the survivors. Local commanders simply ordered
the vehicles inland to attack targets of opportunity unsupported. All
but two were soon knocked out of action. Enterprising salvage crews
worked throughout each night to cannibalize severely damaged vehicles
in order to keep other tanks operational. Meanwhile, the Marines
learned to employ the tanks within an integrated team of covering
infantry and engineers. The Shermans then proved invaluable in Major
Ryan’s seizure of Green Beach on D+1, the attacks of Major Jones
and Major Crowe on D+2, and the final assault by Lieutenant Colonel
McLeod on D+3. Early in the battle, Japanese 75mm antitank guns were
deadly against the Shermans, but once these weapons were destroyed,
the defenders could do little more than shoot out the periscopes with
sniper fire.
Colonel Shoup’s opinion of the medium tanks was ambivalent. His
disappointment in the squandered deployment and heavy losses among
the Shermans on D-Day was tempered by subsequent admiration for
their tactical role ashore. Time and again, Japanese emplacements of
reinforced concrete, steel, and sand were reduced by direct fire from
the tanks’ main guns, despite a “prohibitive ammunition expenditure.”
Shoup also reported that “the so-called crushing effect of medium
tanks, as a tactical measure, was practically negligible in this
operation, and I believe no one should place any faith in eliminating
fortifications by running over them with a tank.”
The Marines agreed that the advent of the Shermans rendered their light
tanks obsolete. “Medium tanks are just as easy to get ashore, and they
pack greater armor and firepower,” concluded one battalion commander.
By the war’s end, the American ordnance industry had manufactured
48,064 Sherman tanks for employment by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps
in all theaters of combat.
]
_D+1 at Betio,_
_21 November 1943_
The tactical situation on Betio remained precarious for much of the 2d
day. Throughout the morning, the Marines paid dearly for every attempt
to land reserves or advance their ragged beachheads.
The reef and beaches of Tarawa already looked like a charnel house.
Lieutenant Lillibridge surveyed what he could see of the beach at first
light and was appalled: “... a dreadful sight, bodies drifting slowly
in the water just off the beach, junked amtracks.” The stench of dead
bodies covered the embattled island like a cloud. The smell drifted out
to the line of departure, a bad omen for the troops of 1st Battalion,
8th Marines, getting ready to start their run to the beach.
Colonel Shoup, making the most of faulty communications and imperfect
knowledge of his scattered forces, ordered each landing team commander
to attack: Kyle and Jordan to seize the south coast, Crowe and Ruud
to reduce Japanese strongholds to their left and front, Ryan to seize
all of Green Beach. Shoup’s predawn request to General Smith, relayed
through Major Tompkins and General Hermle, specified the landing of
Hays’ LT 1/8 on Red Beach Two “_close to the pier_.” That key component
of Shoup’s request did not survive the tenuous communications route to
Smith. The commanding general simply ordered Colonel Hall and Major
Hays to land on Red Two at 0615. Hall and Hays, oblivious of the
situation ashore, assumed 1/8 would be making a covered landing.
[Illustration: