One Square Mile of Hell
One Square Mile of Hell

Author: John Wukovits

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-10-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0593187474

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For Dutton Caliber's American War Heroes series, the riveting true account of the Battle of Tarawa, an epic World War II clash in which the U.S. Marines fought the Japanese nearly to the last man. In November 1943, the men of the 2d Marine Division were instructed to clear out Japanese resistance on the Pacific island of Betio, a speck at the end of the Tarawa Atoll. When the Marines landed, the Japanese poured out of their underground bunkers—and launched one of the most brutal and bloody battles of World War II. For three straight days, attackers and defenders fought over every square inch of sand in a battle with no defined frontlines, and where there was no possibility of retreat—because there was nowhere to retreat to. It was a struggle that would leave both sides stunned and exhausted, and prove both the fighting mettle of the Americans and the fanatical devotion of the Japanese. Drawn from new sources, including participants’ letters and diaries and exclusive firsthand interviews with survivors, One Square Mile of Hell is the true story of a battle between two determined foes, neither of whom would ever look at the other in the same way again.

Tarawa
Tarawa

Author: Robert Sherrod

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

Published: 2013-02

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1620871017

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In the summer of 1943, at the height of World War II, battles were exploding all throughout the Pacific theater. In mid-November of that year, the United States waged a bloody campaign on Betio Island in the Tarawa Atoll, the most heavily fortified Japanese territory in the entire Pacific. They were fighting to wrest control of the island to stage the next big push toward Japan—and one journalist was there to chronicle the horror. Dive into war correspondent Robert Sherrod’s battlefield account as he goes ashore with the assault troops of the U.S. Marines 2nd Marine Division in Tarawa. Follow the story of the U.S. Army 27th Infantry Division as nearly 35,000 troops take on less than 5,000 Japanese defenders in one of the most savage engagements of the war. By the end of the battle, only seventeen Japanese soldiers were still alive. This story, a must for any history buff, tells the ins and outs of life alongside the U.S. Marines in this lesser-known battle of World War II. The battle itself carried on for three days, but Sherrod, a dedicated journalist, remained in Tarawa until the very end, and through his writing, shares every detail.

Utmost Savagery
Utmost Savagery

Author: Estate of Joseph H Alexander

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2008-09-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1612511678

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Marine combat veteran and award-winning military historian Joseph Alexander takes a fresh look at one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War. His gripping narrative, first published in 1995, has won him many prizes, with critics lauding his use of Japanese documents and his interpretation of the significance of what happened. The first trial by fire of America's fledgling amphibious assault doctrine, the violent three-day attack on Tarawa, a seemingly invincible Japanese island fortress of barely three hundred acres, left six thousand men dead. This book offers an authoritative account of the tactics, innovations, leadership, and weapons employed by both antagonists. Alexander convincingly argues that without the vital lessons of Tarawa the larger amphibious victories to come at Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa might not have been possible.

Tarawa 1943
Tarawa 1943

Author: Derrick Wright

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-08-20

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1782002391

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The island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll was defended by the elite troops of the Special Naval Landing Force, whose commander, Admiral Shibasaki, boasted that "the Americans could not take Tarawa with a million men in a hundred years". In a pioneering amphibious invasion, the Marines of the 2nd Division set out to prove him wrong, overcoming serious planning errors to fight a 76-hour battle of unprecedented savagery. The cost would be more than 3000 Marine casualties at the hands of a garrison of some 3700. The lessons learned would dispel forever any illusions that Americans had about the fighting quality of the Japanese.

Faithful Warriors
Faithful Warriors

Author: James Dean Ladd

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2013-09-15

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1612510175

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Faithful Warriors is a memoir of World War II in the Pacific by a combat veteran of the 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. Written with award-winning author Steven Weingartner, Col. Ladd’s book recounts his experiences as a junior officer in some of the fiercest fighting of the war, during the amphibious invasions of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian. Ladd's recollections and descriptions of life--and death--on the far-flung battlefronts of the Pacific War are vividly rendered, and augmented by the personal recollections of many of the men who served with him in his wartime journey across the Pacific. This vividly written memoir will stir the memories of those who lived during these trying times and will help future generations of readers to understand the realities of the Pacific War.

Bloody Tarawa
Bloody Tarawa

Author: Eric M. Hammel

Publisher: Pacifica Press (CA)

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780935553338

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On the morning of Saturday, November 20, 1943, the U.S. 2d Marine Division undertook the first modern amphibious assault against a well-defended beachhead. The objective was tiny Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll. The result was an immortal story of tragedy and near defeat turned around into an epic of victory and indomitable human spirit.

D-Day in the Pacific
D-Day in the Pacific

Author: Harold J. Goldberg

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2007-05-02

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0253116813

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“The narrative moves smoothly and crisply. There is effective treatment of strategy, preparations, and then the invasion and battle for Saipan itself.” —Spencer C. Tucker, author of American Revolution In June 1944 the attention of the nation was riveted on events unfolding in France. But in the Pacific, the Battle of Saipan was of extreme strategic importance. This is a gripping account of one of the most dramatic engagements of World War II. The conquest of Saipan and the neighboring island of Tinian was a turning point in the war in the Pacific as it made the American victory against Japan inevitable. Until this battle, the Japanese continued to believe that success in the war remained possible. While Japan had suffered serious setbacks as early as the Battle of Midway in 1942, Saipan was part of her inner defense line, so victory was essential. The American victory at Saipan forced Japan to begin considering the reality of defeat. For the Americans, the capture of Saipan meant secure air bases for the new B-29s that were now within striking distance of all Japanese cities, including Tokyo. “Harold Goldberg’s riveting story of this conflict brings the dead back to life by blending rigorous research with dramatic narratives by hundreds of survivors. He has written a superb account of a pivotal, little-known, and heart-breaking battle.” —Col. Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (ret.),author of Storm Landings “Using recent interviews he conducted with extant US veterans, [Goldberg] skillfully develops the soldiers’ view of the battle for Saipan in an engaging, clearly written and interesting volume.” —The Journal of Military History

Bloody Tarawa
Bloody Tarawa

Author: Eric M. Hammel

Publisher: Zenith Press

Published: 2006-01

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780760324028

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On the morning of Saturday, November 20, 1943, the 2d Marine Division undertook the first modern amphibious assault against a well-defended beachhead. The objective was tiny Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, and the going was supposed to be easy—a target already ""pounded into coral dust"" by a massive naval and air bombardment. But what the Marines discovered was an island garrison alive and well, the Japanese defenses intact and manned by foes who would rather die than surrender. The battle that followed—three full days of terror during which more than 3,000 died to ""secure"" an island half the size of New York’s Central Park—is fully told in words and pictures in this dramatic book. Building on the updated text of their 76 Hours: The Invasion of Tarawa, the authors use more than 250 photos and combat drawings from the U.S. Navy and Marine archives and private collections to reveal the graphic horror of warfare at its worst. Their book follows every terrifying step as the Marines, failed by the invasion’s planners, are forced to wade more than 500 yards through fire-swept, knee-deep water, reaching land only to face what many historians agree was the best, most concentrated defenses American troops encountered in the entire Pacific War. The result is an immortal story of certainty shattered and courage recovered against overwhelming odds, of victory culled from near-defeat, and its terrible cost.

Dispatches from the Pacific
Dispatches from the Pacific

Author: Ray E. Boomhower

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-08-08

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0253029937

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In the fall of 1943, armed with only his notebooks and pencils, Time and Life correspondent Robert L. Sherrod leapt from the safety of a landing craft and waded through neck-deep water and a hail of bullets to reach the shores of the Tarawa Atoll with the US Marine Corps. Living shoulder to shoulder with the marines, Sherrod chronicled combat and the marines' day-to-day struggles as they leapfrogged across the Central Pacific, battling the Japanese on Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. While the marines courageously and doggedly confronted an enemy that at times seemed invincible, those left behind on the American home front desperately scanned Sherrod's columns for news of their loved ones. Following his death in 1994, the Washington Post heralded Sherrod's reporting as "some of the most vivid accounts of men at war ever produced by an American journalist." Now, for the first time, author Ray E. Boomhower tells the story of the journalist in Dispatches from the Pacific: The World War II Reporting of Robert L. Sherrod, an intimate account of the war efforts on the Pacific front.