_R Johnstone_]
Little or nothing during the trip into the beaches and the touchdown
revealed the character of the revised Japanese tactical plan to the
five Marine assault battalions. Bouncing across almost half a mile of
coral fronting the landing beaches (White 1 and 2, Orange 1, 2, and
3), the tractors passed several hundred “mines,” intended to destroy
any craft which approached or ran over them. These “mines” were aerial
bombs, set to be detonated by wire control from observation points
onshore. However, the preliminary bombardment had so disrupted the wire
controls, and so blinded the observers, that the defensive mining did
little to slow or destroy the assaulting tractors.
As the tractors neared the beaches, they came under indirect fire from
mortars and artillery. Indirect fire against moving targets generates
more apprehension than damage, and only a few vehicles were lost to
that phase of Japanese defense. Such fire did, however, demonstrate
that the preliminary bombardment had not disposed of all the enemy’s
heavy fire capability. More disturbingly, as the leading waves neared
the beaches, the LVTs were hit by heavy enfilading artillery and
antiboat gun fire coming from concealed bunkers on north and south
flanking points.
The defenses on the left (north) flank of Beach White 1, assaulted by
the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines (Lieutenant Colonel Stephen V. Sabol),
were especially deadly and effective. They disrupted the critical
regimental and division left flank. Especially costly to the larger
landing plan, these guns shortly thereafter knocked out tractors
carrying important elements of the battalion’s and the regiment’s
command and control personnel and equipment. The battalion and then the
regimental commander both found themselves ashore in a brutally vicious
beach fight, without the means of communication necessary to comprehend
their situations fully, or to take the needed remedial measures.
The critical mission to seize the “The Point” dominating the division
left flank had gone to one of the 1st Regiment’s most experienced
company commanders: Captain George P. Hunt, a veteran of Guadalcanal
and New Britain, (who, after the war, became a long-serving managing
editor of Life magazine). Hunt had developed plans involving specific
assignments for each element of his company. These had been rehearsed
until every individual knew his role and how it fit into the company
plan. Each understood his mission’s criticality.
D-Day and H-Hour brought heavier than expected casualties. One of
the company’s platoons was pinned down all day in the fighting at
the beach. The survivors of the rest of the company wheeled left, as
planned, onto the flanking point. Moving grimly ahead, they pressed
assaults upon the many defensive emplacements. Embrasures in the
pillboxes and casements were blanketed with small-fire arms and smoke,
then attacked with demolitions and rifle grenades. A climax came at
the principal casement, from which the largest and most effective
artillery fire had been hitting LVTs on the flanks of following landing
waves. A rifle grenade hit the gun muzzle itself, and ricocheted into
the casement, setting off explosions and flames. Japanese defenders ran
out the rear of the blockhouse, their clothing on fire and ammunition
exploding in their belts. That flight had been anticipated, and some of
Hunt’s Marines were in position to cut them down.
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