Contents
- Across the Reef: The Marine Assault of Tarawa
- Setting the Stage
- Assault Preparations
- Sidebar: The 2d Marine Division at Tarawa
- Sidebar: Major General Julian C. Smith, USMC
- Sidebar: The Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces
- D-Day at Betio, 20 November 1943
- Sidebar: LVT-2 and LVT(A)2 Amphibian Tractors
- Sidebar: ‘The Singapore Guns’
- Sidebar: Sherman Medium Tanks at Tarawa
- D+1 at Betio, 21 November 1943
- Sidebar: Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC
- The Third Day: D+2 at Betio, 22 November 1943
- Completing the Task: 23–28 November 1943
- Sidebar: Incident on D+3
- The Significance of Tarawa
- Sidebar: Tarawa Today
- Sources
- About the Author
- About the Series
- Transcriber’s Notes
Across the Reef:
The Marine Assault
of Tarawa
Marines in
World War II
Commemorative Series
By Colonel Joseph H. Alexander
U.S. Marine Corps (Ret)
LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection
“Quiet Lagoon” is a classic end-of-battle photograph of the considerable wreckage along Red Beach Two.
U.S. Navy Combat Art Collection
Artist Kerr Eby, who landed at Tarawa as a participant, entitled this sketch “Bullets and Barbed Wire.”