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With The Marines At Tarawa generated controversy within the military over whether it should be shown to the public because it showed dead Americans, requiring FDR to personally approve its release.
Thanks for posting these Nanda. A week or two ago, CSPAN played “I Was There Tarawa” several times over the course of a weekend.
Four Marines received the Medal of Honor for their actions on Tarawa, one of whom was 1st Lt Sandy Bonnyman, still the only MOH recipient to be photographed during the action for which he received the medal (see below for photo). The Japanese bunker on which Bonnyman died can be seen starting at about 8:50 in the second video in the post above.
Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman was born in 1910. His father owned a coal company, and Sandy graduated from Princeton in 1932. When the war started he was 31, and exempt from the draft with a wife and three young daughters, but in July 1942 enlisted as a private in the Marines. Joining the 2nd Marine Division he served on Guadalcanal, seeing combat, promoted to corporal, and then receiving a field promotion to 2nd Lieutenant. In September 1943, Bonnyman became 1st Lieutenant and was appointed Executive Officer of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines’ Shore Party for the Tarawa attack.
Sandy Bonnyman’s Medal of Honor Citation tells of his actions during the battle when he led the attack on the largest fortified strongpoint on the island:
The photo below shows the emplacement being stormed by Marines led by Bonnyman who is standing at the center right, silhouetted by the smoke, on top of the bunker; he is the Marine furthest advanced in the picture.
The photo was taken by Corporal Obie Newcomb, a Marine Corps photographer who, according to an article by Joseph M Horodyski in WWII History Magazine, “quickly realized he was in the presence of someone unusual and decided to follow the lieutenant’s assault with his camera“.
Bonnyman led an improvised team of 21 Marines in the assault, eight of whom died along with Bonnyman. One member of that team was Corporal Harry Niehoff, who is quoted by Horodyski in his account. Niehoff said of Bonnyman, whom he did not know prior to November 21, “He just showed up. Until that time we were being held up with no gain to show for it“. Late that afternoon, Bonnyman led an unsuccessful assault on the Japanese bunker and then spent the evening planning how to renew the attack the following morning. Niehoff was next to Bonnyman when he died.
Obie Newcomb, in a letter to Bonnyman’s family, wrote:
Bonnyman was buried on Tarawa but the specific location has never been identified, despite repeated efforts to find it.
From memory: I recall that we lost so many Marines at Tarawa because their landing craft where inadequate for the mission. In particular that they could not get the Marines over the reefs so that some Marines had to wade up to 800 meters from landing craft to shore. They were mowed down by the Japanese like the sitting ducks that they were.
I suppose it is cheaper to waste thousands of good mens’ lives than to build adequate equipment that might give them a chance of both living and accomplishing their mission.
“Liking” the insight and information, not the sentiment behind the comment. I hope those in charge don’t think this way. But considering the number of times this issue comes up, in terms of transport, gear and weaponry being inadequate, in poor condition, or worn out beyond its years and useful life, it does seem that way sometimes. That it happens at all is shameful. That it seems to be part of a continuing pattern is unspeakably wrong.
^^This! Hoping that Secy. Mattis can get this into people’s thick heads. The honor lies in the fight for *each other* in those moments – and for the objectives as one can. The valor is in being aware of risk and choosing to act in spite of it, often. Chaplain’s-eye view, I know. I’m grateful that these – and others since – had found, and now find, the risk worth taking!
It was a combination of craft that were unable to handle the depth of the lagoon and insufficient information on that depth. The tracked LVTs were available — some LVT-2s were even used at Tarawa — but not common.
Interesting that youtube grays-out those frames, too…Can we handle the truth?
More on the reef and tide issue:
Two issues dominated the planning. One was the length of the naval bombardment before the landing. Because the Navy feared a sortie by the Japanese fleet the plan was to spend the minimum amount of time for the bombardment which was limited to three hours, a decision that upset the Marines.
The second was how to get the Marines from the ships to the beach. Tarawa, including Betio, is an atoll surrounded by a coral reef several hundred yards from the island. Any attacker needed to be able to get over the reef and into the shallow lagoon in order to land. This required landing on a high tide, which was normally five feet above the reef, because most of the American landing craft had a draft of four feet.
The Navy bombardment by sea and air began on the morning of November 20, 1943. Despite its abbreviated nature many of Naval planners expected it to be decisive. According to one account, an admiral boasted:
For the watching Marines it was an awesome sight and many expected resistance to be minimal. According to the same account:
But the bombardment was ineffective against the well-entrenched and protected Japanese defenses.
Then came the problem with the tides. What the planners were unaware of was that twice a month there were unusual high tide conditions at Betio that left only three feet of water over the reef and it turned out that the invasion had been scheduled during one of these periods. With many of the landing craft left stranded on the wrong side of the reef, Marines had to disembark and struggle on foot across the shallow lagoon under heavy rifle, machine gun, mortar and artillery fire with many being killed or wounded. Those who made it to the beach were pinned down against the log seawall. It took six hours before the Marines were able to advance off the beach.
This is excerpted from a longer piece I wrote on Tarawa several years ago.
The problem of not knowing the tides better is perplexing to me, but it was a situation that was apparently not known. I assume it was that they didn’t know the depth of the reefs themselves. On the positive side, Tarawa was the motivation to start a new specialty in the Navy – the Underwater Demolition Teams – the UDT’s, now morphed into the SEALS. My first SCUBA instructor was a UDT veteran. He was a remarkable character.
We shouldn’t blame the Higgins boats, really. They were works of genius. As I recall, Eisenhower said that without the Higgins boats, the D-Day invasion of Europe would have failed.
As far as antiquated / insufficient / not – well – maintained or tested equipment, those are the consistent products of primarily Democrat administrations since at least Wilson. With the Dem’s holding the House, hence the purse strings, the near future for our military forces does not look promising. That’s a major reason that the opening months or years of wars go so badly for us. The worrisome thing now is that any major conflict, with a realistic military threat, will only last a few months.
It’s the nature of warfare that we can’t always know what is “adequate” beforehand. It’s why we always need the heroic men like Bonnyman. The enemy has a say in how the battle will go and whining that we don’t have adequate equipment isn’t always productive.
This is why we also need intelligent men to know when whining is a good or bad idea for the situation.
Yes sir. That is why I used to tell my Marines to suffer in silence. Now I whine as much as I want to and usually about stuff that I have no idea about.
For example the LAV-25, am thinking about whining about those vehicles with an OP. Wether or not I am intelligent and whether or not my whining is good or bad for the situation I leave up to my gentle readers to determine.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Ready to read and learn when you’re ready to write it, ST…Hoping your Thanksgiving is/has been outstanding in every way!
So appreciate the “votes of confidence”, amplifications, extensions, and conversation that have added to my learning and understanding…Please do continue!