Researched at Tarawa

From Washington Admiral Ernest J. King signaled: "To all hands concerned with the Marshall Islands operation: Well and smartly done. Carry on."

Said Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, commander of the expeditionary force: enemy resistance was much less than had been expected. For the Japs it was the darkest week of the war. "We must all keep ourselves cool," said Diet Member Ichiro Hirose.

The U.S. attack on the Marshall Islands had caused Navy tacticians many a sleepless night since the decision was made, last summer, to open the Central Pacific. After the expensive Tarawa assault on the Gilberts in November, the tacticians squirmed harder. If the Japs had been able to fortify Tarawa so strongly in a year and a half, what would the Marshalls be like after some 20 years of fortification?

As it turned out, the Navy had learned its lesson from the Gilberts, and learned it quickly and well. There seemed to be no repetition of mistakes. The key to the Marshalls was taken at dramatically low cost.

The Target. Navy tacticians, who may have revised their first plans after the Gilberts attack, did not choose to invade the strong bases nearest Pearl Harbor (Wotje, Maloelap), nor those nearest the Gilberts (Jaluit, Mili) on the south. Instead they slapped around the enemy's end and pounced into his backfield, all the way to Kwajalein, largest atoll of them all (and reportedly the chief supply station for the Marshalls group).

Kwajalein lies in the midst of the western Ralik (Sunset) group of the Marshalls like a string of beads carelessly cast upon a table. The deep lagoon surrounded by this string is 66 miles long, ten miles wide, big enough to hold all the world's shipping. The atoll itself consists of 92 bits of sand-covered coral, some big enough to be called islands.

Largest of these islands is also called Kwajalein. It is two and a half miles long, a third of a mile wide--about as big as Tarawa's Betio. Some 50 miles north along the beads lies Roi, 7/10 sq. mi.--just large enough for an airfield.

The Preparation. At Tarawa the Navy learned that 3,000 tons of bombs and shells (more weight--but not more explosive--than ever hit Berlin in a single raid) was not enough to knock out the Japs' coconut-log, steel and concrete fortifications. The Navy also learned that four hours of pounding is not enough.

The pounding of Kwajalein began two months before the attack. In 17 raids by Army and Navy bombers the atoll was plastered with heavy bombs. The actual bombardment from the sea began three days before DDay. Hour after hour battleships and cruisers poured in thousands of rounds of 6-to-16-in. explosives. Roi and adjacent Namur rattled under the weight of 5,000 tons of naval shells.

Whenever the warships took a breather, land-based Army and carrier-based Navy planes streaked in to drop bombs by the hundreds. There were plenty of 2,000-pounders; Tarawa had proved that Jap defenses could hold up under half-ton bombs.

Before the troops were ready to land, the three little islands had really had it: some 15,000 tons of bombs and shells--a total without precedent in history--had been hurled into the defenses.

The Invasion. Then it was time for the foot soldiers to go in. Against Kwajalein on the south, "Terrible" Turner sent troops of Nebraska-born Major General Charles H. Corlett's Seventh Army division, battlewise veterans of Attu. Against Roi and Namur on the north went Nebraska-born Major General Harry Schmidt's new Fourth Marine Division.

Tarawa had shown the high price of frontal assault. This time the Army troops landed first on Kwajalein's flank, on the islet of Gea (which they mistook in the dark for Ninni). They dragged their artillery through the water with them. Then they crossed to Ninni, Ennylabegan and Enubuj.

The Marines and their artillery landed on Mellu and Boggerlapp, southwest of Roi; then on Ennugarret, Ennumennet and Ennubirr, southeast of it. Thus Roi and Namur were all but surrounded by big guns, land-based and deck-based.

Only after another day's pounding were the main island targets assaulted. When the troops got ashore, there was some machine-gun and sniper fire from debris and coconut trees. There were a few stubborn pockets of real resistance. But mostly there were only twisted remnants of coastal guns, shattered pillboxes, charred and broken Jap bodies. The defenders who survived the bombardment seemed dazed, frightened.

North Battle. The Marines captured Roi in a little over 24 hours. As on Betio, the Japs who still lived crawled back at night into pillboxes filled with their own dead. The pillboxes had to be cleaned out again with flamethrowers, blocks of TNT and rocket guns. Namur, separated from Roi by a 200-yd. causeway, was the Japs' last retreat from the Marines.

Reported United Pressman George E. Jones for the combined U.S. press: "Even the toughened, battle-hardened [by now] Marines were disgusted with the task of wiping out Japanese troops who hovered on the borderline of insanity as the result of the Allied bombardment." From Roi and Namur the Marines dashed southward, wiping out scattered Japs on other, smaller islands.

South Battle. The Army found the going slower on Kwajalein Island, whose strong pockets held out until battleships and bombers were recalled to help the land-based artillery and bazookas. Kwajalein's pillbox-to-pillbox struggle ended after four days, and Corlett's soldiers rushed northward to capture Ebeye with its seaplane base, Loi and Gugegwe.

Before week's end, surprised and delighted Kelly Turner could speculate: "Maybe we had too many men [30,000] and too many ships [2,000,000 tons--greater than the entire prewar Navy] for this job." But he was glad he had force on his side: "I prefer to do things that way. It was many lives saved for us."

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