| United States Marines who survived the invasion of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll gather on Red Beach 2 in the open for the 1st time in 76 hours on November 24, 1943, after 3 days of brutal fighting. No 1 had any appetite that night. But United States Navy Commander Lawrence E. Tull (September 5, 1894 – September 7, 1987) took the best possible care of his 18th Construction Battalion, casting a weather eye about the island to determine the direction of the prevailing winds, then selecting a bivouac site clearly upwind of the carnage. The grimy Marines on Betio took a deep breath and sank to the ground. Many had been awake since the night before the landing. As Captain Carl W. Hoffman (December 24, 1919 – May 31, 2016) recollected: “There was just no way to rest; there was virtually no way to eat. Mostly it was close, hand-to-hand fighting and survival for three and a half days. It seemed like the longest period of my life.” Lieutenant George D. Lillibridge (July 20, 1921 – December 21, 2012) had no nourishment at all until the afternoon of D+3. “One of my men mixed up a canteen cup full of hot water, chocolate, coffee, and sugar, and gave it to me, saying he thought I needed something. It was the best meal I ever had.” United States Marine Private 1st Class Robert L. Kinley (May 4, 1924 – December 19, 2002), a demolitions man with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 18th Marines, had reached the point of total debility when the firing finally died. Finding dubious shade in the bottom of a huge shell crater, he collapsed into a deep sleep. He awoke, disoriented, terrified, to rough handling: the burial team had taken him for dead and were dragging him toward a common grave. United States Marine Colonel David M. Shoup (December 30, 1904 – January 13, 1983), Commanding Officer of the 2nd Marines, remarked to 1 emaciated Marine after the shooting stopped, “This business kinda takes a fellow’s appetite, doesn’t it?” The survivor stared at Shoup and replied, “Colonel, every minute I have fed on what I feared would be the last memories of my wife and baby boy.” The Marines stared dazedly at the desolation that surrounded them. United States Marine Major General Julian C. Smith (September 11, 1885 – November 5, 1975), Commanding Officer, 2nd Marine Division, sent a hasty note to Happy: “I am well, a little tired, and very dirty. I can’t talk about it yet.” Chaplain Lieutenant Warren W. Willard (July 12, 1905 – November 16, 1999) walked along Red Beach 1, the stretch so long dominated by the Japanese gunners in the Pocket. “Along the shore,” veteran correspondent Robert Sherrod (February 8, 1909 – February 13, 1994) wrote, “I counted the bodies of seventy-six Marines staring up at me, half in, half out of the water.” The carnage sobered Sherrod during his exploration of the island after the fighting. “What I saw on Betio was, I am certain, one of the greatest works of devastation wrought by man.” The survivors of 2nd and 8th Marines were soon taken off Betio in the same transports that brought them to Tarawa Atoll and taken to Hawaii. Now, with far less men and most of their equipment wrecked and buried in the sand or on the reef, the survivors could hear the screws exiting the water as the lightened ships rolled in the waves. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1613.jpg |
| Image Size | 350.85 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1600 x 1265 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Marine Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 24, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | Betio |
| State or Province | Tarawa |
| Country | Gilberts |
| Archive | |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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