Word: tarawa
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...when the Marines landed on the bloody beaches of Tarawa only three newsmen went ashore with them the first day. One was William Hippie of the Associated Press; one was Richard Johnston of the United Press; and the third was Robert Sherrod of TIME...
...during that first day on Tarawa "dozens of Marines were being killed or wounded every five minutes. Anyone who ventured beyond the precarious beachhead we held behind the retaining wall was more likely to become a casualty than not. Jap snipers were hidden so carefully in the tops of coconut trees or under earth-mounded coconut logs that they could rarely be seen. Machine guns from slits in those fortifications covered the beach and the areas behind the beach, chattering incessantly as they raked the Americans...
...Tarawa, the Japs were formidably dug in on nine large islets which form the backbone of the 22-mile-long atoll. Twenty-four hours after the initial landing, battle-hardened Marine veterans of the Pacific Fleet and green but tough Army units, under the remote command of Lieut. General Robert C. Richardson Jr., were still fighting desperate Japs...
Abemama, a number of small islands around a lagoon, could be developed into an emergency fighter airdrome. Reports from Honolulu suggested that fighting on the 12-by-5-mile atoll, 80 miles southeast of Tarawa, was light...
...seven straight days, land-based Liberators operating from new, secret bases (possibly Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, which the Japanese bombed Nov. 17, or from Nanumea, which the Marines occupied Sept. 4) had pounded atolls in the Gilbert and Marshall groups. Carrier-based planes later joined the assault against Tarawa, Mili and Maloelap...