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Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign

Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign
Part of World War II, Pacific War

An SBD Dauntless flies patrol over the USS Washington and USS Lexington during the Gilbert and Marshall islands campaign.
Date November 1943 – February 1944
Location Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Pacific Ocean
Result United States victory
Belligerents
 United States  Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Chester W. Nimitz
Holland Smith
Richmond K. Turner
Ralph C. Smith
Marc A. Mitscher
Harry W. Hill
Thomas E. Watson (USMC) 		Kōsō Abe
Kanemitsu
Keiji Shibazaki †
Seizo Ishikawa
Monzo Akiyama †
Chūichi Hara
Yoshimi Nishida †
Casualties and losses
3,300 dead or missing,
4,830 wounded 		21,000 dead,
141 captured
Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign
Central Pacific

Southeast Asia

Southwest Pacific

North America

Japan

Manchuria

Second Sino-Japanese War

In the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, from November 1943 through February 1944, were key strategic operations of the United States Pacific Fleet and Marine Corps in the Central Pacific. The purpose was to establish airfields that would allow land based air support for the upcoming operations across the Central Pacific. The campaign began with a costly three-day battle for the island of Betio at the Tarawa atoll. The campaign was preceded a year earlier by a diversionary raid on Makin Island by U.S. Marines in August 1942.

Japanese bases in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands were the outer perimeter of eastern defenses for the Japanese Empire. The Marianas campaign followed the next summer.

Background

1944 US newsreel about the invasion

The Japanese forces occupied the Gilbert Islands three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As a provided token defense of Tarawa, they built a seaplane base on Makin and dispersed troops along the coastlines of the atolls to monitor the Allied forces movement in the South Pacific.[1] Following Carlson's Raiders diversionary Makin Island raid of August 1942, the Japanese command was made aware of the vulnerability and strategic significance of the Gilbert Islands.[2] The largest and most strategically important islands of the Gilberts was Tarawa. Fortifications were quickly improved by the Japanese starting in March 1943 with nearly 5,000 troops stationed abroad. An additional 3,000 Special Naval Landing Force and base force troops and 940 naval construction units were supplemented by 1,247 laborers.

By comparison, the Makin islands were held by only a total of 798 combat troops, including some 100 isolated Japanese aviation personnel.[3] General Holland M. Smith, Commanding General of V Amphibious Corps blamed the Carlson raid for the rapid build-up of Japanese forces and staunchly felt, even long after his retirement, that Tarawa should have been bypassed, instead of incurring heavy Marine casualties during the seizure.[1][4] Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Ernest King and Raymond A. Spruance did not agree, and believed that retaking the Gilberts to provide an air base for the next step, the battle for the Marshall Islands, was essential for continued movement toward Japan across the Pacific. The code name for the capture of the Gilberts was Operation Galvanic,[3][4] which called for the seizures of Tarawa, Makin, and Apamama.

References

  1. ^ a b Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. 7; Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls: June 1942–April 1944 (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2001).
  2. ^ Bruce F. Meyers, Swift, Silent, and Deadly: Marine Amphibious Reconnaissance in the Pacific, 1942–1945, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004).
  3. ^ a b Benis M. Frank and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. 5; Victory and Occupation (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1990).
  4. ^ a b Gen. Holland M. Smith and Perry Finch, Coral and Brass (New York: Viking, 1974, 1976).

Further reading

  • Drea, Edward J. (1998). "An Allied Interpretation of the Pacific War". In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.  
  • Dyer, George Carroll (1956). "The Amphibians Came to Conquer: The Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner". United States Government Printing Office. Retrieved May 5, 2011. 
  • Hoyt, Edwin P. (1978). Storm Over the Gilberts: War in the Central Pacific 1943. Mason/Charter.  
  • Wright III, Burton. Eastern Mandates. World War II Campaign Brochures. Washington, D.C.:  

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