Word: tarawa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
During the 76 hours of violent battle at Tarawa last November the Marines' beachhead commander, 39-year-old Colonel David M. Shoup, of Battle Ground, Indiana, carefully concealed a painful fact: as he waded ashore his leg had been pierced by a shell fragment. For that wound, indestructible, broad-beamed Colonel Shoup received his second Purple Heart (he had been wounded before by a bomb at New Georgia...
Last week, arriving in the U.S. from Saipan, where he was chief of staff of the 2nd Marine Division, Colonel Shoup learned that his "indomitable fighting spirit" at Tarawa had won him another award: the Congressional Medal of Honor. His citation: "Colonel Shoup fearlessly exposed himself to the terrific, relentless artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire . . . rallying his hesitant troops . . . gallantly led them across the fringing reefs ... to reinforce our hard-pressed, thinly held lines. Upon arrival at the shore he assumed command of all landed troops and, working without rest under constant, withering enemy fire during the next...
Shoup's was the 123rd Medal of Honor awarded in World War II (Army 67, Navy 29, Marines 26, Coast Guard 1), the third for Tarawa. The others went, posthumously, to two Texans, Lieut. William Deane Hawkins and Staff Sergeant William J. Bordelon...
...When we hit Peleliu's sandy beaches we wondered if another Tarawa was developing," Martin cabled. "The Japs knew we were coming and threw everything in the book at us in a desperate effort to stave off annihilation. Two Jap shells made near misses on our amphtrack, pelted its sides with shrapnel. When we reached the beach another mortar a few yards distant spouted bloodily against the smoky island background, killed one Marine, wounded two others. We had to dig for cover in a ditch because our front lines were only 25 yards inland...
...even before last week's casualties had been counted, Peleliu's hillside caves and mangrove swamps had not come cheap. The marines killed more than 8,000 Japs but lost 981 in killed and missing (against Tarawa's 984), had 3,639 wounded (against Tarawa's 2,072). Percentagewise, the 81st Infantry Division's losses on Angaur were higher. In killing 1,075 Japs, the soldiers had 880 casualties: 106 dead, five missing, 769 wounded...