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Across the Reef: The Marine Assault of Tarawa

Chapter 12: Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC
By Joseph H. Alexander
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About This Book

A detailed operational history recounts the planning, rehearsal, and execution of a major amphibious assault on a heavily fortified Pacific atoll, tracing strategic intent, intelligence on enemy defenses, and interservice debates over landing craft and logistics. It describes commanders’ decisions and unit preparations, the improvisation and deployment of amphibious tractors to negotiate coral reefs, the intense combat ashore with heavy casualties, and the immediate tactical adaptations. The narrative concludes with the lessons learned and the influence of the operation on subsequent amphibious doctrine and practice.

[Sidebar (page 33):]

Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC

An excerpt from the field notebook David Shoup carried during the battle of Tarawa reveals a few aspects of the personality of its enigmatic author: “If you are qualified, fate has a way of getting you to the right place at the right time—tho’ sometimes it appears to be a long, long wait.” For Shoup, the former farm boy from Battle Ground, Indiana, the combination of time and place worked to his benefit on two momentous occasions, at Tarawa in 1943, and as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s deep selection to become 22d Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1959.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 310552

Col David M. Shoup, here as he appeared after the battle, was the fourth and only living Marine awarded a Medal of Honor from the Tarawa fighting.

Colonel Shoup was 38 at the time of Tarawa, and he had been a Marine officer since 1926. Unlike such colorful contemporaries as Merritt Edson and Evans Carlson, Shoup had limited prior experience as a commander and only brief exposure to combat. Then came Tarawa, where Shoup, the junior colonel in the 2d Marine Division, commanded eight battalion landing teams in some of the most savage fighting of the war.

Time correspondent Robert Sherrod recorded his first impression of Shoup enroute to Betio: “He was an interesting character, this Colonel Shoup. A squat, red-faced man with a bull neck, a hard-boiled, profane shouter of orders, he would carry the biggest burden on Tarawa.” Another contemporary described Shoup as “a Marine’s Marine,” a leader the troops “could go to the well with.” First Sergeant Edward G. Doughman, who served with Shoup in China and in the Division Operations section, described him as “the brainiest, nerviest, best soldiering Marine I ever met.” It is no coincidence that Shoup also was considered the most formidable poker player in the division, a man with eyes “like two burn holes in a blanket.”

Part of Colonel Shoup’s Medal of Honor citation reflects his strength of character:

Upon arrival at the shore, he assumed command of all landed troops and, working without rest under constant withering enemy fire during the next two days, conducted smashing attacks against unbelievably strong and fanatically defended Japanese positions despite innumerable obstacles and heavy casualties.

Shoup was modest about his achievements. Another entry in his 1943 notebook contains this introspection, “I realize that I am but a bit of chaff from the threshings of life blown into the pages of history by the unknown winds of chance.”

David Shoup died on 13 January 1983 at age 78 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. “In his private life,” noted the Washington Post obituary, “General Shoup was a poet.”