SRBS said:
Fook, yer dad waded over the reef at Tarawa??
Golly. He still around? I'd love to chat with him.
He survived as bad as it gets.
My dad died in 1989. He was a BAR man in L/3/2, Michael Ryan was his company commander. The resistance on Red Beach 1 was so intense that Ryan wound up with remnants of other companies and those under Ryan's command became known as Ryan's Orphans. Dad was in the first wave of Higgins boats, so the 4th wave overall. Those guys got to witness the Alligators landing, or trying to land, be hit with mortars and other artillery, and like in the Omaha beach write up, many were caught in machine gun fire such that none, or very few, got out into the water alive. I have been there twice, and the first time I waded out around 400 yards (they waded 600 to 800 yards) and waded in to Red Beach 1. Do not see how a single Marine made it to the beach.
Casualties were, of course, quite high. K Company and L Company suffered very high casualty rates. I have a picture of my dad and probably 40 Marines taken at a party in New Zealand. He put an X on the faces, or neck, or shoulder of those who later died on Tarawa. As I recall, 23 or 25 of those in that picture died there.
I have so much respect for those who landed in the Pacific or in the European theatre like Normandy and did so under fire. I just cannot wrap my head around so many of them dying.
As to the article posted, I was somewhat surprised by the number of men who drowned trying to land.