The Time Of My Life

For three days before the actual landing of troops on Tarawa, ships of the fleet pounded the island with heavy artillery day and night until it appeared to have a shell crater in every square yard of terrain.  The island, normally dense with coconut palm trees, appeared to be stripped of all life, and virtually barren. And smoke curled up from the burning stumps and splintered logs.  Nothing, it appeared, could have survived such a vicious and relentless bombardment.  Wrong!

D-Day!

The firing continued even as a contingent of United States Marines shoved off from their transports in the Higgins Landing Crafts that I had once helped develop and build.  But several hundred yards before they could reach the beach, the onslaught began.  A large force of Japanese soldiers, unscathed by the 3-day shelling, opened fire, killing nearly all of the first wave in, most still in the water, and sinking many of the Higgins Boats.  The heavy pounding of the area by ships’ gunners continued, and additional boatloads of Marines and heavy artillery made their way to shore under heavy fire until a beachhead was finally established and the Japanese force pushed back into hiding.  They hid in underground bunkers lined with cement, some as much as six feet below the surface.  Most died there, victims of US Forces with flame throwers spewing fire through their buried pillboxes.  The entire garrison of Japanese soldiers was annihilated.

The island was secured 76-hours after the assault troops landed, and the Battle of Tarawa had become perhaps the bloodiest battle of the war up to that time, and remains one of the worst to this day.  More than two thousand American Marines and Sailors had been killed in the landing alone. I don’t know how many Japanese soldiers were defending the island, but a rumor among sailors in the fleet was that the Marines took only thirty three prisoners.  I later learned that they had really killed all but one hundred, forty six of the Japanese soldiers.  .

Some members of our crew were put ashore to assist in the cleanup, and bulldozers were being used to push damaged equipment and materiel into piles to be burned, and or buried.  Some of my shipmates picked up Japanese helmets, some with body parts still inside, and rifles used by the Japanese, to bring back as souvenirs.  Surprisingly, the guns the Japanese were using were old model Browning Automatic Rifles.

With the island secure, the USS Martin proceeded to Abemama Island, and was subsequently ordered back to Hawaii.  Along the way, Christmas came and went with so little fanfare that I honestly don’t remember it.  We arrived at Pearl Harbor on December 29^th, 1943. The USS Martin was awarded a bronze battle star for her part in the Battle of Tarawa.

My friend from North Carolina, Charlie Yates, had been appointed the mail clerk aboard ship, and as soon as the gangplank dropped down, Charlie was dispatched to pick up the mail.  When he returned, we all thought we had died and gone to Heaven.  He had sacks and sacks of mail and packages.  I remember it as one of the most important mail calls of my naval service.  First, for the shear joy of getting all the news from home and second, for the exhilaration and great excitement I felt in anticipation of several letters from Celia.

We all gathered around the fantail for mail call, and the letters began to fly, first to one then to another.  Just about everybody had several pieces of mail from home, and I did, too.   But, when Yates sailed the last letter out into the crowd, I was kind of stunned.  I had gotten only one letter from Celia.  Then, when I looked at it more closely, an uneasy feeling enveloped me.  There was no “S.W.A.K.” on the flap of the envelope, and there was not an “X” to be found anywhere.  I went up on the bridge for privacy, and opened it.