| Original caption: “Marines wounded during the landing on Tarawa are towed out to larger vessels.” Marines wounded during the landing on Tarawa are towed out on rubber boats by their buddies to larger vessels that will take them to base hospitals for better medical care. Casualty handling was the most pressing logistic problem on D+1. The United States 2nd Marine Division was heroically served at Tarawa by its organic Navy doctors and hospital corpsmen. Nearly nienty of these medical specialists were themselves casualties in the fighting ashore. United States Navy Lieutenant Herman R. Brukhardt (October 11, 1914 – January 16, 2006), Medical Corps, established an emergency room in a freshly captured Japanese bunker (some of whose former occupants “came to life” with blazing rifles more than once). In 36 hours, under brutal conditions, Brukhardt treated 126 casualties; only 4 died. At 1st, casualties were evacuated to troopships far out in the transport area. The long journey was dangerous to the wounded troops and wasteful of the few available LVTs or LCVPs. The Marines then began delivering casualties to the destroyer USS Ringgold (DD-500) in the lagoon, even though her sickbay had been wrecked by a Japanese 5-inch shell on D-Day. The ship, still actively firing support missions, accepted dozens of casualties and did her best. Admiral Harry W. Hill (April 7, 1890 – July 19, 1971) then took the risk of dispatching the troopship USS Doyen (APA-1) into the lagoon early on D+1 for service as the primary receiving ship for critical cases. United States Navy Lieutenant Commander James Oliver, Medical Corps, led a 5-man surgical team with recent combat experience in the Aleutians. In the next 3 days, Oliver’s team treated more than 550 severely wounded Marines. “We ran out of sodium pentathol and had to use ether,” said Oliver, “although a bomb hit would have blown Doyen off the face of the planet.” Navy chaplains were also hard at work wherever Marines were fighting ashore. Their work was particularly heartbreaking, consoling the wounded, administering last rites to the dying, praying for the souls of the dead before the bulldozer came to cover the bodies from the unforgiving tropical sun. United States Marine 1st Lieutenant Roy H. Elrod (June 23, 1919 – December 17, 2016), veteran of Guadalcanal, recalled, “It was difficult to handle the wounded. Along the atoll side of the log seawall, sometimes at high tide, there was no beach at all. Even at the widest I saw, there was probably not more than ten or fifteen feet of beach. There wasn’t much the medical people could do there. To evacuate people, you had to use either one of the half-dozen amphibious tractors still there or one of the rubber boats. I never did see one of the rubber boats with a motor, so somebody would have to row or wade and push it. The casualty going out that way was under fire just as much, if not more, than they would have been if they stayed on the beach. As I mentioned, I had severe reservations in my mind about asking two, three, or four people to carry a wounded man because to carry him, they had to stand up, and if you stood up, there was a very good chance you would get hit. Many wounded stayed right where they were hit. We’d pass wounded Marines, and they would ask for water, and everyone would give them water. But I don’t remember any wounded crying; they were stoic, very stoic. I suspect a lot of people died that otherwise might not have. That was just a problem at Tarawa because of the all-around fire coming in. My instructions to my Marines were to let the corpsmen help the wounded. Your job is to man your guns and keep moving forward.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii1592.jpg |
| Image Size | 859.35 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2916 x 2316 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Marine Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 21, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | Betio |
| State or Province | Tarawa |
| Country | Gilberts |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS -127-G-63454 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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