Postscript on Tarawa

Navy spokesmen last week tried to correct the impression at home that Tarawa's cost had been too high (TIME, Dec. 13).

Dead, wounded & missing were fewer than the previously announced 3,583. Best unofficial estimate: 800 killed, 150 missing, 2,100 wounded -- a total of 3,050.

Survivors of the baby flat-top Liscome Bay, torpedoed offshore during the Gil berts invasion, numbered 268. This fact indicated that almost as many men went down with the ship as died on Tarawa; yet no one got particularly excited about the Liscome Bay.

Brigadier General Merritt A. Edson, Marine veteran of Guadalcanal and Ta rawa, contended that Tarawa's casualties, relatively no higher than Guadalcanal's, had struck the public "more forcefully'' because they were suffered in four days instead of four months. Battle-hardened Merritt Edson declared that determined Jap resistance, rather than U.S. mistakes, caused the losses on Tarawa and would cause more on other islands. Marines particularly resented the suggestion in some reports that excessive losses off the beaches indicated bungled landings; at least half of the dead fell within the Japs' inner defenses.

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