| Original caption: “Sprawled bodies on beach of Tarawa, testifying to ferocity of the struggle for this stretch of sand.” 2 United States Marines are photographed on a disabled M4A2 Sherman tank named “Cecilia” of C Company, I Corps Medium Tank Battalion, as bodies of dead men float in the surf in the foreground. Japanese latrines are in the extreme background. “Cecilia” was named for the wife of driver Corporal Alfonso A. Chavez (August 23, 1921 – June 18, 1944). Attached to C Company’s Headquarters Platoon, disembarked from a Mechanized Landing Craft (LCM) with “Commando,” another M4A2 Sherman tank. They were 2 of 14 medium tanks; many drove into shell holes when their scouts were killed and markers floated away. “Cecilia,” a command tank, linked up with “China Gal,” and they tried to find a way inland. They had trouble getting inland. The seawall was a hellish nightmare, filled with dead and dying marines, wrecked LVTs, and other obstacles, and this prevented the tanks from moving. “China Gal” and “Cecilia” managed to find a way inland and found nothing but Japanese troops. When a Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go tank wheeled into view, it got off the 1st hit, and got very lucky; its 37 millimeter (1.47 inch) round hit “Cecilia” in the main gun and wrecked it. The rifling was damaged, and the breach was open, so fragments bounced around the turret and scared the hell out of the crew, but no 1 was hurt. “China Gal” blasted the Japanese tank. “Cecilia” raced back to the beach to check out the damage, and later hooked back up with “China Gal,” the company commander, who jumped from the tank with the disabled gun into “China Gal.” They spent the rest of the day working with the Marines, blasting Japanese pill boxes, “Cecilia” using just her machine guns. They worked between Red Beach 1 and Red Beach 2 the rest of the day. As the LVT-1 and LVT-2 Amtracs of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, entered the cove that formed Red Beach 1 on D-Day, November 20, they came under murderous fire from in front and from both sides. Within minutes, a few Amtracs were burning as their unarmored fuel tanks erupted, while others spun out of control as their drivers fell dead or wounded; some just disappeared in a ball of flame as they were blown away by point-blank artillery fire. United States Marine Private 1st Class Ralph Butler (August 4, 1926 – December 16, 2018) will never forget that day: “After what seemed like hours of milling about, jockeying for positions, we all seemed in proper alignment and proceeded shoreward. Each tractor was equipped with two fifty caliber (12.7 millimeter) machine guns mounted in front, and at a certain point, the first wave was to start firing. I don’t recall how far we were from the shore when all hell let loose; the Amtrac started getting hit, and our first reaction was that the tractors on our flanks had lost control of their guns. The sudden realization that there were Jap[anese] still alive on the island and capable of resistance snapped everybody out of their joviality. I remember a violent, turbulent trip shoreward, explosions, detonations, bodies slumped and bloody, and finally crunching to a stop. Somebody screamed, ‘Get the hell out, fast!’ throwing equipment out and scrambling over the side onto the beach.” The fire from the east shore was particularly fierce. Here, the enemy had in place 75 millimeter (3-inch) and 37 millimeter (1.47-inch) guns, together with numerous single and twin machine gun emplacements. This area was destined to be the last part of Betio to fall to the Marines. In the face of such heavy fire, many Amtracs veered away to the west, coming ashore at the junction of Red Beach 1 and Green Beach, where they encountered a 5-foot (1 1/2 meter) high seawall, and few Marines could get onto the land. The 1st Amtrac arrived on the shores of Betio at 0910 Hours. Number 49 “My Deloris” driven by Private 1st Class Edward J. Moore (May 15, 1924 – March 18, 2005). The ride had been hair-raising as they were riddled by machine gun fire from an emplacement near their landing point at the western end of the beach. 2 Marines jumped out and silenced the machine gun with well-aimed grenades, but another gun sent a hail of bullets into the front of the Amtrac, destroying the instrument panel and bringing it to a lurching halt at the water’s edge. “How my radio operator and myself got out of that riddled cab without being hit at the time remains a mystery to me to this day,” recalls Moore. The 2nd and 3rd waves of Amtracs suffered even more intense fire, several being shattered by large caliber anti-boat guns, while the survivors scrambled ashore to engage the enemy. K Company was decimated by strongpoints on the eastern shore, while I Company lost 50 percent of its strength in the 1st half hour as it made for the western extremity of the beach. Major Michael P. Ryan’s (January 30, 1916 – January 9, 2005) L Company was forced to wade ashore when their boats grounded on the reef and suffered 35 percent casualties: “As the men struggled ashore, I looked for the command elements of the battalion,” he said. “It never arrived, and I was later informed that the commander believed that our waves were completely destroyed in the water, and he had moved his boat to another beach. After some hours, we were convinced that the battalion command was not coming ashore and had probably been destroyed.” Private 1st Class Robert “Bob” Libby (March 13, 1922 – March 28, 1995) from the 81 millimeter (3.16 inch) mortar platoon of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, should have been in the 3rd wave of Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP)s heading for Red Beach 1. The account of his arrival on the beach is an explicit illustration of the horror of Tarawa. “About five hundred yards (four hundred and fifty meters) out, our LCVP rammed into the reef, and everyone was ordered over the side. I landed in water well over my head, having missed the reef because the boat was held up against it. Kicking myself from the bottom, I rose to the surface and found a footing on the reef itself. A quick look ‘round revealed nightmarish activity; I noticed our boat drifting ashore and struck to my right, my intention being to keep the boat between me and the heavy fire coming from shore as long as I could. It was possible to keep a watch for machine-gun fire skipping off the surface; a move to one side or the other allowed passage for this while still moving slowly toward the beach. Everywhere and anywhere I looked, there were knocked-out amphibious tractors burning fiercely, landing craft being blown apart. The walking wounded were moving in the opposite direction, making their way to drifting boats. The water around me was red or pink with a churning mass of spouting geysers; bodies were floating on the surface everywhere I looked; here, a man moving along was no longer seen. The sound of screaming shells passed overhead, the unmistakable crack of rifle fire zipped around my ears, and the screams of the wounded were almost lost in this cacophony of sound. If anyone can think up a picture of Hell, I don’t think that it would match up to that wade-in from the reef to the shore at Tarawa, with floating bodies and bits of bodies, the exploding shells, and burned-out craft; there was no hiding place, no protection: my only armor was the shirt on my back. It took about half an hour from leaving my boat to put foot on dry land.” By nightfall, only “Colorado,” “China Gal,” and “Cecilia” were operational, and “China Gal” and “Cecilia” tied into the Marine lines on Red Beach 1 and Red Beach 2, and “Colorado” did the same on Red Beach 3. Operations were very confused; lots of transports had just dumped whatever cargo was easiest into the Amtrac LVTs and other amphibious craft moving things ashore, and there was a lot of trouble getting the things the tankers needed. The most important item was rounds for the tanks’ M3 75 millimeter main guns. Late that night, heavy Japanese machine gun fire rained down on the base of the pier that they were using to bring in supplies. “Colorado” was sent to help and shut the Japanese machine guns down soon after. The Marines started trying to bring in more men at dawn on November 21. These troops were met by a hail of machine gun fire from the junction between Red Beach 1 and Red Beach 2. “Cecilia,” still without a working main gun, was dispatched to engage the Japanese machine gun positions at the junction. The tank was only in action for a short time before it slid into a shell crater and its electrical system shorted out. The tank was at a steep enough angle that the turret could not be rotated with the manual traverse and had to be abandoned. By the time this photograph was taken, 1 of the most famous of the Tarawa campaign and frequently used to illustrate the battle, the combat was ending. The corpses, in the humidity and heat, began to bloat rapidly. American dead were collected, tagged, and buried whenever possible. Japanese dead were pushed into landing craft with 2 bulldozers – 1 inside the landing craft already, and 1 that pushed the corpses into the boat. At sea, the ramp was lowered, and the bulldozer inside pushed the dead into the sea. Still, some American dead were recovered into the 21st century, and many are still missing. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1603.jpg |
| Image Size | 995.01 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2912 x 2388 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Navy |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 22, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | Betio |
| State or Province | Tarawa |
| Country | Gilberts |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-80-G-57405 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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