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Subject: Battle of Tarawa/Betio
Ophelia    11/4/2004 5:19:57 PM
I am an undergraduate history major and am currently working on a project that deals with the Battle of Betio. I'm having a difficult time deciding whether or not Allied strategists actually did all they could to prevent the massacre that occurred on the beaches. Yes, they finally brought in more LVTs--yes, they couldn't fully anticipate the low tide situation--but was it really enough? Any opinions?
 
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F22    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   12/4/2004 6:48:10 PM
They didn't do all that could have been done, but they probably did all that they knew to do at the time. Lessons learned from Tarawa were put to good use in the Marshalls and Mariannas. In the end, though, storming a heavily defended beach is risky business. Amphibious assault = high casualties.
 
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jimmyjams    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   1/31/2005 6:58:55 PM
The battle of Betio taught the military a great deal about amphibious operations. Accurate and constant communication between naval and ground forces proved necessary. Early in the battle, marines had occupied a large porion of green beach by accident but were unable to exploit their gains because of a lack of communication. Because of this, entire ships became communication centers and didn't offer any fire support, instead they directed all their energy to keeping lines open. This is the battle for Betio in a nutshell. This, being the first major amphibious assault against a strengthened enemy, taught the Americans a little about everything. Not knowing what to expect, it is impossible to think of everything and counteract it. I do not think these commanders were negligent in their duty. They were slightly igonorant of the realities of close-in amphibious action. Now the commanders who decided to take Peliliu Island should have been held responsible for a bad decision.
 
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PowerPointRanger    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   3/16/2005 5:49:23 PM
I think you've stepped into what I call the "historian's trap". A historian should never ask "what if..." because you have then moved from being a historian to being a science fiction writer. The reason I say this is because a historian has no way to test such a theory. You might better use your time by explaining what went wrong and why bad decisions were made. Usually bad decisions were based on some logical, but flawed reason. Also disasters almost always result from a chain of events, not simply one bad decision. I do think you should bear in mind that the Japanese put up a good fight on just about every island invasion. Only 17 surrendered and they could not retreat. What would you expect? Maybe Tarawa wasn't wholly a result of errors, but a result of a dangerous and capable enemy. Bear in mind that the use of landing craft at Betio was limited by coral reefs. Also that the casualties were more than 4700 Japanese dead compared to 1000 Marines. While it was a bloody fight, it was a decisive victory.
 
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timon_phocas    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   3/21/2005 11:05:50 PM
one aspect to bear in mind was that the japanese had closed these areas to all outside observation for decades. there was no current information to be had later in the war, we had UDT's do beach surveys of landing sites. this solved one kind of problem, but I don't think it lowered American casualties at Iwo Jima or Okinawa
 
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Desertmole    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   6/7/2005 3:43:53 AM
"later in the war, we had UDT's do beach surveys of landing sites. this solved one kind of problem, but I don't think it lowered American casualties at Iwo Jima or Okinawa." The problem with UDT was that a beach survey could not get far enough inland to get details on fortifications there. Remember Iwo and Okinawa were pretty big islands, and the Japanese were very adept at camouflage. Interestingly, I was reading something the other day about the search for Amelia Earhart, that indicated that planes from US ships searching for her were able to get photos of some of the Japanese mandates. Supposedly, these photos did not show much in the way of facilities or fortifications.
 
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Carl S    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   9/2/2005 5:07:06 PM
Possibly one thing that could have been improved upon would have been to use a portion of the ships armor piercing ammo in the pre landing attack. The HE ammo with surfance detonating fuzes did not cause as much structural damage as th AP ammo would have. This difference was understood in part beforehand. The usual reason given for not using any AP ammo was that it would be required if Japanese battleships showed up . There was still the idea that a surface battle could be decisive in circulation. Since the war it has become apparent the Japanese were not heavily fortifying their islands during the 1920s & 30s, contrary to popular belief. The bulk of what they used were built from the summer of 1942, when the Japanese leaders realized the US was not going to ask for a armistice. The various USN raids in the spring & early summer of 1942 clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of their island garrisons. The lack of any real fortifications on Makin, Tulagi, Guadacanal ect... may have also caused USN leaders to underestimate what would be encountered on Betio.
 
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AlbanyRifles    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   9/19/2005 1:53:28 PM
As has has already been said, Betio taught the Navy and the Marine Corps what they needed to do in order to improve on amphibious operations. The 2 biggest, I believe, was increasing the length of time of preinvasion bombardment and better intel work on the terrain. As I recall, they forgot or ignored the advice of an Aussie planter who had lived in the Gilberts and recommended against the plan. And PPR is right, speaking as one who has an MA in Civil War history, your job is to tell the story and come to your conclusions based on the facts not to reinterpret and what if.....
 
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Carl S    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   9/19/2005 10:17:20 PM
not to reinterpret and what if..... Well that ends all the fun.
 
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AlbanyRifles    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   9/20/2005 10:31:06 AM
Then switch to an English major and write novels!! :-)
 
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S-2    RE:Battle of Tarawa/Betio   9/20/2005 8:37:24 PM
UDT was in a very formative stage. Moreover, as mentioned, the small size of Betio coupled with the high density of defending troops would have made an infiltration of the beaches, much less reconnaissance into the bunker network impossible. Interesting that while we had no clear knowledge of the construction methodologies underlying the Betio bunkers, the Japanese had perfectly understood what fortification specifications were necessary to defeat naval gunfire and close air support. I may be wrong but I thought that the tides were considerably lower than the U.S. Navy had anticipated. I doubt that hydrographic survey was very advanced anywhere in the world at that time, much less in the Gilbert Islands. While the kill ratios were in decisively in favor of the Americans, this battle was very close through the first 24 hours of combat. Marines and Seebees were extremely vulnerable to counterattack all through the first evening, and I believe that there were discussions within the taskforce command to possibly evacuating the landing force.
 
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