The Central Pacific Drive
Copyright © 2005-6, Henry J. Sage
The American drive across the Central Pacific against Japan was led by the Navy under Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, at the center of which were the six Marine divisions and additional army units. Once Guadalcanal was secured, planners came up with an idea of leapfrogging across the string of defended Japanese islands, not wanting to use valuable resources to capture every stronghold along the way. Starting with each secured island they drew a circle out to the maximum range of adequate air support for the ground troops and selected a target on the outer rim.
The strategy of “island hopping” had benefits. Once the remote island was secured, any Japanese forces remaining on the intermediate islands had been effectively neutralized. Without air support of their own there was no way they could affect the Allied advance. The strategy also aided a more rapid advance, since larger areas of the South Pacific were brought more rapidly under control. During the advance the United States Navy was waging its own campaign against the Imperial Japanese Navy, fought heavily with carrier aircraft. Meanwhile American and Japanese submarines played their role in attempting to neutralize the opposing fleets.
That effective island-hopping strategy, however, did not mean that taking the islands themselves was any easier. Although the Marines perfected their amphibious techniques further with each landing, the Japanese were well dug in and defended their island strongholds with ferocity.
Major Battles
Bougainville
The next stop for the Marines in the Pacific once Guadalcanal was secured was the island at the other end of the Solomons chain, Bougainville. The strip of ocean in the center of the island was known as “the Slot,” and Japanese ships moved up and down threatening American forces on the islands. The capture of Bougainville would help secure the Central Pacific area and advance the campaign toward the overall objective of Japan itself.
On November 1, 1943, Marines went ashore at Empress Augusta Bay for the landing on the island of Bougainville. The Japanese had 60,000 troops on the southern part of the island who were supported by air and naval forces from Rabaul on New Britain Island. Shortly after the landings the Navy under Admiral Halsey launched an air strike from carriers against Rabaul, relieving the pressure on the American troops. Bougainville was a battle that saw some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, and after the Americans left for their next operations, Australian troops continued to fight Japanese on Bougainville until the war ended.
The Gilberts: Makin and Tarawa
Tarawa Atoll itself is a collection of coral islands in a triangular shape roughly 12 x 18 miles. Its location made it a major steppingstone on the drive towards the home island of Japan. Japan had seized the Gilberts in 1941 and had been busily building defenses since that time. The islands of Makin and Betio are also part of the Gilberts.
As Army forces under General Douglas MacArthur moved along the northern coast of New Guinea, the Navy and Marines prepared for an assault on the Gilbert Islands to the north of Guadalcanal. Tarawa became one of the bloodiest battles fought by the Marines during the war. The island was very heavily fortified and several days of naval bombardment failed to dislodge most of the defenders.
The Second Marine Division landed on Betio, the main island of the Tarawa atoll on November 22, 1943, after a three-hour bombardment. Betio was a strong fortress of bunkers made from coconut logs and coral cement. It contained the only airfield on the atoll and was defended by well-trained Japanese soldiers. The landing area was protected by intersecting fields of fire. Hampered by coral reefs which required the Marines to wade for long distances to get to shore, the first wave of attackers suffered almost 100% casualties. With the use of flamethrowers to drive defenders out of underground bunkers, the Marines worked their way painfully along the atoll. The final victory at Tarawa followed a “Banzai” or suicide attack by the fierce Japanese defenders. Although the Japanese commander had claimed that it would take years for an enemy to capture Tarawa, the American Marines accomplished it in 76 hours.
Although the fighting in Tarawa lasted only four days, 1000 Marines were killed and 3000 wounded. Back in the United States the government had restricted newsreels in movie theaters, the primary source of visual news in an era preceding television, from showing American casualties. But as the telegrams continued to arrive to the families of fallen fighting men, the restrictions were lifted, and the first newsreels showing American casualties were those from the Battle of Tarawa. The action at Tarawa continued to place pressure on Japanese defenders as the drive through the Southwest Pacific along the New Guinea coast was taking shape, and the Japanese found it increasingly difficult to defend both areas.
The Marshalls: Kwajalein
The assault of the Marshall Islands open a new phase of the Pacific war, for now the Americans were attacking islands that had been awarded to Japan at the end of the first world war and which they had occupied before 1941. The target selected for the man assault on the Marshalls was the Kwajalein Atoll, which was in the center of the islands. It was located approximately 600 miles northwest of Tarawa. A secondary objective was the Eniwetok Atoll. Knowing that the Japanese defenders had possessed the Marshall Islands for 20 years prior to the start of the war made American planners aware of the fact that the landing would not be easy. All they had learned from guadalcanal and Tarawa would be considered in planning the assault.
In addition to the transports which would carry the troops, aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers also ported the assault with air attacks and naval bombardment prior to the landings. The overall commander of the operation was Major General Holland M. Smith, commander of the Marine V (5th) Amphibious Corps, known within the Marine Corps as “Howlin’ Mad” because of his ferocious temper. The main elements of the assault force would be the fourth Marine division in the seventh infantry division of the United States Army.
D-Day for the invasion of the Marshalls was January 31, 1944. Following a heavy pre-landing bombardment Marines and army troops landed on various islands of the Atoll and set up artillery batteries to support the landings on more heavily defended beaches. Since the Kwajalein Atoll is very narrow the Japanese defended close to the beaches, using strong counterattacks.
After days of fierce fighting almost all of the Japanese defenders had been killed, and within days of the first invasion Marine ground troops had repaired the Japanese airfield for use by Marine aircraft. By mid-February the first Japanese mandated islands were in American hands.
Next it was on to Saipan and the Marianas, another step closer to Japan itself.
World War II | Updated October 22, 2006