Contents

Breaking the
Outer Ring:
Marine Landings in
the Marshall Islands

Marines in
World War II
Commemorative Series

By Captain John C. Chapin
U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret)

A flamethrower, center,
is among weapons carried by men of the
22d Marines on Eniwetok.

Marine
riflemen, under fire, leap from a
just-beached amphibian tractor in the
January 1944 landing. (Department of
Defense Photo [USMC 72411)]

1

Breaking the Outer Ring:
Marine Landings in the Marshall Islands

by Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret)

By the beginning of
1944, United States
Marine forces had already
made a dramatic
start on the conquest
of areas overrun by the Japanese early
in World War II. Successful American
assaults in the Southwest Pacific,
beginning with Guadalcanal in the
Solomon Islands in August 1942, and
in the Central Pacific at Tarawa in the
Gilbert Islands in November 1943,
were crucial campaigns to mark the
turn of the Japanese floodtide of conquest.
The time had now come to
take one more decisive step: assault
of the islands held by Japan before
1941.

These strategic islands, mandated
to the Japanese by the League of Nations
after World War I, were a
source of mystery and speculation.
Outsiders were barred; illegal fortifications
were presumed; yet any Central
Pacific drive towards Japan’s
inner defense ring had to confront
these unknowns. The obvious target
to begin with was the Marshall Islands.
As early as 1921 a Marine
planning officer had pinpointed their
geographic significance.

Planning the Attack

In May 1943, the Combined Chiefs
of Staff decided to seize them. This
difficult assignment fell to Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz who bore the impressive
titles of Commander in
Chief, Pacific, and Commander in
Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CinC-Pac/CinCPOA),
based at Pearl Harbor
in Hawaii. He turned to four
very capable men who would carry
out the actual operation: three admirals
who were experts in amphibious
landings, fast carrier strikes, and
shore bombardment, and Major
General Holland M. Smith, who was
the commanding general of the Marines’
V Amphibious Corps and now
also would be Commanding General,
Expeditionary Troops. It was he
who would command the troops
once they got ashore. Original cautious
plans for steppingstone attacks
starting in the eastern Marshalls were
modified, and the daring decision
was made to knife through the edges
and strike directly at Kwajalein Atoll
in the heart of Marshalls’ cluster of
32 atolls, more than 1,000 islands,
and 867 reefs.

Kwajalein is the largest atoll in the
world, 60 miles long and 20 miles
wide, a semi-enclosed series of 80
reefs and islets around a huge lagoon
of some 800 square miles. Located
620 miles northwest of Tarawa and
2,415 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor,
its capture would have far-reaching
strategic significance in that
it would break the outer ring of
Japanese Pacific defense lines. Within
the atoll itself there were two objectives:
Roi and Namur, a pair of connected
islands shaped like weights on
a four-mile barbell in the north end,
and crescent-shaped Kwajalein Island
at the south end. The 4th Marine Division
under Major General Harry
Schmidt was to assault Roi-Namur,
and the Army 7th Infantry Division
under Major General Charles H.
Corlett would attack Kwajalein. After
these islands were taken, there
was one more objective in the Marshalls:
Eniwetok Atoll. This was targeted
for attack some three months
later by a task force comprised of the
22d Marine Regiment (called in the
Corps the “22d Marines”) and most
of the Army’s 106th Infantry Regiment.
Brigadier General Thomas E.
Watson, USMC, would be in
command.

As a preliminary to these priority
operations, the occupation of
another atoll in the eastern Marshalls
was planned. This objective was
Majuro, which would serve as an advanced
air and naval base and
safeguard supply lines to Kwajalein
220 miles to the northwest. Because
it was believed to be very lightly
defended, only the Marine V Amphibious
Corps Reconnaissance
Company and the 2d Battalion,
106th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division
were assigned to capture Majuro. To
support all of these thrusts there
would be a massive assemblage of
U.S. Navy ships: carriers, battleships,
cruisers, destroyers, and an astonishingly
varied array of transports and
landing craft. These warships provided
a maximum potential for intensive
preinvasion aerial bombing and
ship-to-shore bombardment; the increased
tonnage in high explosives,
the lengthened duration of the
softening-up process, and the pinpointing
of priority enemy targets
were all lessons sorely learned from
the inadequate preparatory shelling
which had contributed to the steep
casualties of Tarawa. For the Marshalls,
there were altogether 380
ships, carrying 85,000 men.

With the plans in place and a very
tight schedule to meet the D-day2
deadline, the complex task of assembling
and transporting the assault
troops to the target area was put in
motion. Readying the Army 7th Division
was the easiest part of the
logistical plan; it was already in
Hawaii after earlier operations at
Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands
off Alaska. The 22d Marines,
however, had to come from Samoa
(where it had been on garrison duty
for some 18 months), and the 4th
Marine Division was still at Camp
Pendleton in California, where it had
recently been formed. On 13 January
1944, the division sailed from
San Diego to commence the longest
shore-to-shore amphibious operation
in the history of warfare: 4,300 miles!

Life at sea soon settled down into
a regular routine. All hands soon became
acquainted with the rituals of
alerts for “General Quarters” in the
blackness of predawn, mess lines
stretching along the passageways, inspections
and calisthenics on the cluttered
decks, the loudspeaker with its
shrill whistle of a “bosun’s pipe” and
its “Now hear this!” fresh water
hours, and classes and weapons-cleaning
every day. Off duty, the men
took advantage of the opportunity to
sleep, play cards, stand in line for ice
cream, write letters, and, of course,
engage in endless speculation about
the division’s objective (which was
originally known only by the intriguing
title of “Burlesque and
Camouflage”).

On 21 January the transports carrying
the Marines anchored in Lahaina
Roads off Maui, Hawaii, and
visions of shore leave raced through
the minds of all the men: hula girls,
surf swimming, cooling draughts in
a local bar—just what was needed after
the long nights in the crowded,
humid troop compartments during
the voyage. Over the ships’ loudspeakers,
sad to say, came a not unexpected
announcement, “There will
be no liberty….”

After one day filled with conferences
and briefings for the senior
officers, the task force sailed again.
Next stop: the Marshall Islands! En
route, crossing the 180th Meridian,
there were the traditional, colorful
ceremonies in which the old salts initiated
the men who had never before
crossed the International Date Line
into the “Domain of the Golden Dragon.”
On 30 January the ships threaded3
their way through the eastern
atolls of the Marshalls, and the following
morning (dawn, 31 January)
they halted before their objectives,
with the northern component off
Roi-Namur and the southern component
facing Kwajalein Island. On every
transport the men crowded the
ships’ rails to stare at the low-lying
islets which they must soon attack.
The 23d, 24th, and 25th Marines
were assigned to the Roi-Namur
operation, and the 32d, 17th, and
184th Infantry Regiments of the
Army’s 7th Division were to take the
Kwajalein Island objectives.

PACIFIC OCEAN AREAS

Meanwhile, the small group assigned
to Majuro (2d Battalion, 106th
Infantry, plus the V Amphibious
Corps Reconnaissance Company)
had split off from the main task force
and would make its own landing on
31 January. Advance intelligence estimates
of minimal enemy forces
proved accurate; there were no
American casualties and just one
Japanese officer was captured on the
main islet. Three days later more
than 30 U.S. ships lay at anchor in
the Majuro lagoon.

Forward at the main theater, an
awesome pre-landing saturation
bombardment, begun on 29 January,
was in full swing. U.S. Navy ships
moved in on Roi-Namur, with some
at the unprecedented short range of
1,900 yards, and poured in their
point-bank massed fire. Continuing
the repeated aerial strikes which had
begun weeks earlier from the carriers,
waves of planes swept in low for
bombing and strafing runs. Key enemy
artillery and blockhouse strong
points had earlier been mapped from
submarine and aerial reconnaissance,
and individual attention was given to
the destruction of each one. The
combined total of shells and bombs
reached a staggering 6,000 tons.

As a result of the underwater obstacles
and beach mines uncovered at
Tarawa, for the first time Navy underwater
demolition teams had been
formed for future operations. Fortunately,4
they found no mines at Roi-Namur
and were not needed at
Kwajalein.

Another factor which would assist
the assault troops was the configuration
of the atoll. The two main objectives,
at the north end and at the
south, were each adjoined by islets,
and these neighboring locations were
to be seized on D-day, 31 January, as
bases to provide close-in artillery
support for the infantry landing. On
either side of Roi-Namur the 14th
Marines would bring in its 75mm
and 105mm howitzers and dig them
in to support the main landing from
islets which carried the exotic names
of Ennuebing, Mellu, Ennubirr, Ennumennet,
and Ennugarret. As is always
the case in war, there were
problems. The task was assigned to
the 25th Marines, and, because of
communications difficulties, the
different units going ashore on different
islets could not coordinate their
landings. Their radios went dead
from drenching sea swells that swept
over the gunwales of the amtracs
(LVTs, landing vehicles, tracked, or
amphibian tractors). Nevertheless, by
nightfall, the beachheads had been
secured, and, for the first time, U.S.
Marines had landed on a Japanese
mandate.

On board the transports outside
the lagoon, the men of the 23d and
24th Marines spent the afternoon of
D-day transferring to LSTs (Landing
Ships, Tank). That night saw a muddled
picture of amphibian tractors
stranded or out of gas inside the lagoon,
with many others wandering
in the blackout as they sought to find
their own LST mother ship.

While this scramble was going on,
the assault troops on board the LSTs
were facing, each in his own way, the
prospect of intensive combat on the
following morning. One rifleman,
Private First Class Robert F. Graf,
remembered:

As I thought of the landing that
I would be making on the morrow,
I was both excited and
anxious. Yes, I thought of
death, but I wasn’t afraid.
Somehow I couldn’t see myself
as dead. “Why wasn’t there
fear?” I wondered. Even though
I was nervous, it was with excitement,
not fear. Instead there
was a thrill. I was headed for
great adventure, where I had
wanted to be. This was just an
adventure. It was “grown up”
Cowboys and Indians, it was
“grown up” Cops and Robbers….
Thoughts of glory were in
my mind that night. Now it was
my turn to “carry the flag” into
battle. It was my turn to be a
part of history. To top it all off,
I was going into battle with the
“Elite of the Elite,” the United
States Marines. Just prior to
falling asleep, I prayed. My
prayers were for courage, for
my family, and I prayed to stay
alive.

By the next morning, D plus 1, 1
February, the LSTs had moved inside
the lagoon. Up before dawn, the infantrymen
filed into the cavernous
holds of the LSTs and clambered onboard
their amphibious tractors.
Graf described his equipment:

5

Landings were made with each
person loaded with weight. We
wore our dungarees, leggings,
and boondockers (shoes). Our
skivvies (underwear) had been
dyed green while we were still
in the States. White ones were
too good a target. In addition,
our packs were loaded with
whatever gear we thought we
would need, such as extra
socks, toilet gear, poncho, and
our “D” and “K” rations. Extra
cigarettes were stuffed in also.
Believe it or not, some of us carried
books that we were
reading.

I wore two knives. The K Bar
[knife] that was issued was
tucked into my right legging.
The throwing stiletto that I had
purchased was on my belt; a
leather thong at the bottom of
the sheath was tied around my
leg so that the knife would not
flop around. My bayonet was
in its sheath and attached to my
pack. On went the loaded pack.
Around my waist went the cartridge
belt, fully loaded, with
ten clips of M1 rifle ammo, each
clip holding eight rounds. Over
my shoulder were two bandoleers
of M1 ammo, holding
an additional eighty rounds.
Hanging from my pockets were
four hand grenades, only requiring
a pulled pin to be activated.
We donned our helmets
with the brown camouflaged
covering. Finally we slung our
gas masks over our shoulders.
Now we were ready for bear!

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 146975

Jammed all together in the fetid multi-tiered bunks below decks, Marine troops
welcomed being in the fresh air on deck even if they were also crowded there.

Out of the deafening din of the
ships’ holds, eerily lit by red battle
lamps, down the ramps of the unfolding
bows, lurching into the rough
seas whipped up by the wind, the
columns of amtracs went to war.

[Sidebar (page 2):]

Major General Holland M. Smith

One of the most famous Marines
of his time, General
Smith was born in 1882. He
was commissioned a second lieutenant in
1905. There followed a series of overseas
assignments in the Philippines, Nicaragua,
Santo Domingo, and with the Marine
Brigade in France in World War I.
Beginning in the early 1930s, he became
increasingly focused on the development
of amphibious warfare concepts. Soon
after the outbreak of war with Japan in
1941, he was assigned to a crucial position,
command of all Marines in the
Central Pacific.

As another Marine officer later
described him, “He was of medium
height, perhaps five feet nine or ten
inches, and somewhat paunchy. His
once-black hair had turned gray. His
once close-trimmed mustache was somewhat
scraggly. He wore steel-rimmed
glasses and he smoked cigars incessantly.”
There was one other feature that
characterized him: a ferocious temper
that earned him the nickname, “Howlin’
Mad” Smith, although his close friends
knew him as “Hoke.”

This characteristic would usually
emerge as irritation at what he felt were
sub-standard performances. One famous
example of this was his relief of an Army
general from his command. It came
when an Army division was on the line
alongside two Marine divisions on Saipan
in the Marianas Islands campaign
following the Marshalls operation. A
huge interservice uproar erupted!

Less than two years later, after 41
years of active service, during which he
was awarded four Distinguished Service
Medals for his leadership in four successive
successful amphibious
operations, he retired in April 1946, as
a four-star general. He died in January
1967.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72162B

On board Rocky Mount (AGC 3), newly designed and equipped to serve as a amphibious
command ship, MajGen Holland M. Smith, V Amphibious Corps commander
and commander of Expeditionary Troops at Roi-Namur in the Marshalls,
points out a feature of the battle to his chief of staff BGen Graves B. Erskine.

[Sidebar (page 3):]

Major General Harry Schmidt

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 1118D

MajGen Harry Schmidt

The leader of the 4th Marine
Division at Roi-Namur was
born in 1886 and entered the
Corps as a second lieutenant in 1909. By
extraordinary coincidence, his first foreign
duty was at Guam in the Marianas
Islands, an area he would return to 33
years later under vastly different circumstances!

The Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, and
Nicaragua (where he was awarded a
Navy Cross—second only to the Medal
of Honor), interspersed with repeated
stays in China, were the marks of a
diverse overseas career. At home, there
were staff schools, paymaster duties, and
a tour as Assistant Commandant.

By the end of the war, he had been
decorated with three Distinguished Service
Medals. Retiring in 1948 after 39
years of service, he was advanced to the
four-star rank of general. He died in
1968.

A contemporary described him as “a
Buddha, a typical old-time Marine: he
had been in China; he was regulation
Old Establishment; a regular Marine.”

[Sidebar (page 4):]

The 4th Marine Division

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A707113

Shoulder patch of the 4th Marine Division:
a gold “4” on scarlet background,
official colors of the U.S.
Marine Corps. This emblem was designed
by John Fabion, in the division’s
Public Affairs Office before the Marshall
campaign, and his commanding
officer was astonished to find that the
layout of the runways on the Japanese
airstrip on Roi were “an exact replica.”

This division was formed as the
result of the organization and
redesignation of several other
units. The 23d Marines began as infantry
detached from the 3d Division in
February 1943, the same month that an
artillery battalion of the 12th Marines
became the genesis of the 14th Marines
and engineer elements of the 19th Marines
formed the nucleus of the 20th
Marines. In March the 24th Marines
was organized, and then in May it was
split in two to supply the men for the
25th Marines.

This war-time shuffling provided the
major building blocks for a new division.
The units were originally separated,
however, with the 24th Marines
and a variety of reinforcing units (engineer,
artillery, medical, motor transport,
special weapons, tanks, etc.) at
Camp Pendleton in California. The
rest of the units were at Camp Lejeune,
North Carolina. This East Coast echelon
moved to Pendleton by train and
transit of the Panama Canal in July
and August. When all the units were
finally together, the 4th Marine Division
was formally activated on 14 August
1943.

After intensive training, it shipped
out on 13 January 1944, and in 13
short months made four major assault
landings: Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian,
and Iwo Jima, suffering more than
17,000 casualties. It was awarded two
Presidential Unit Citations and a Navy
Unit Commendation, and then deactivated
28 November 1945. In February
1966, however, it was reactivated
as the lead division in the Marine
Corps Reserve, and major units later
served with distinction in the Persian
Gulf.

The Marine Attack:
Roi-Namur

As the amphibian tractors sought
to form up in organized attack
waves, a series of problems arose.
There was a continuation of the
rough weather and radio communications
difficulties of the day before;
the amtrac crews had not previously
practiced with the assault units;
the control ship turned out to have
been assigned firing missions as well
as wave control and left its control
station (followed by some stray amtracs);
the attack commander was
reduced to racing around in a small
ship and shouting instructions
through a megaphone. As a result,
W-hour, the hour for attack, had to
be postponed from 1000 to 1100.

Meanwhile the men in the amtracs
(and some in hastily scrounged up
LCVPs [landing craft, vehicle or personnel])
were watching the awe-inspiring
sight of the furious bombardment.
Overhead, for the first
time in the Pacific War, two Marines
were in airplanes to act as naval gunfire
controllers who would cut off the
shelling when the troops approached
the beach. Brigadier General William
W. Buchanan later recalled how one
of them “on one of his passes found
one of the trenches on the north side
of Namur filled with a number of
troops crouching down in the trench.
So he asked the pilot to go in on a
strafing attack, and then as they
came over he was going to continue
raking them with the machine guns.
He did this to such a point that, after
they got back to the ship, it was
determined that in his [the spotter’s]
enthusiasm he practically shot off the
tail end!”

AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS AGAINST
JAPANESE ON THE MARSHALL ISLANDS
1944

MARSHALL ISLANDS

6

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70490

Col Franklin A. Hart, commander of the 24th Marines, briefs
his staff on the operation plan for the invasion of Roi-Namur.
To his left is his regimental executive officer, LtCol Homer
L. Litzenberg, Jr. Both would retire as general officers.

Down in the lagoon the signal finally
came to the assault waves, “Go
on in!” The two lead battalions of the
23d Marines headed for Roi, with the
two lead battalions of the 24th Marines
churning towards Namur. The
memories of this run-in were burned
forever into the mind of young Second
Lieutenant John C. Chapin,
leading his platoon in the first wave:

By now everything was all
mixed up, with our assault wave
all entangled with the armored
tractors ahead of us. I ordered
my driver to maneuver around
them. Slowly we inched past, as
their 37mm guns and .50-cal.
machine guns flamed. The
beach lay right before us.
However, it was shrouded in
such a pall of dust and smoke
from our bombardment that we
could see very little of it. As a
result, we were unable to tell
which section we were approaching
(after all our hours of
careful planning, based on hitting
the beach at one exact
spot!) I turned to talk to my platoon
sergeant, who was manning
the machine gun right
beside me. He was slumped
over—the whole right side of
his head disintegrated into a
mass of gore. Up to now, the
entire operation had seemed
almost like a movie, or like one
of the innumerable practice
landings we’d made.

Now one of my men lay in a
welter of blood beside me, and
the reality of it smashed into my
consciousness.

The landing then became a chaotic
jumble of rapid events for that officer
and his men. There was a grinding
crash to their right, and looking over
they saw an LVT collide at the water’s
edge with an armored tractor, climb
on its side and hang there, crazily
atilt. Simultaneously, there was a
grating sound under their tractor as
they hit the beach. Keeping low, the
men slid over the side of the tractor
and dove for cover, for their LVT was
a perfect target sitting there on the
sand. The lieutenant was the last one
to drop to the deck, and as he
sprawled on the sand, the amtrac
ground its way backwards into the
ocean.

Now the lieutenant faced his first
combat in a situation that characterized
all the landing beaches. His intensive
training stood him in good
stead as he took stock of the situation.7
Being in the first scattered group
of tractors ashore, his men had no
contact yet with any other unit, so
the Japanese were on both sides of
them—as well as in front. One glance
told him that they had landed on the
west side of Namur, 300 yards to the
right of the spit of land that their
company had for its objective. The
long hours of studying maps and aerial
photographs had proved their
worth. The lieutenant’s account continued:

My immediate task was to reorganize
my platoon, for it was
scattered along the beach. The
noise, smoke, and choking pall
of burnt powder further complicated
things. I turned to my
sergeant guide, as we lay there
in the sand, and asked him
where his men were. He started
to point and right before my
eyes his hand dissolved into a
bloody stump. He rolled over,
screaming “Sailor! Sailor!” (This
was our code name for a corpsman.
Bitter past experiences of
the Marines had shown that the
Japs delighted in calling “corpsman”
themselves, and then
shooting anyone who showed
himself.) Soon our corpsman
crawled over, and started to
give the sergeant first aid, so I
turned my attention to more
pressing matters.

As yet the officer hadn’t seen a single
Japanese, even though he was in
the midst of them. But now one of
the men next to him gasped, “They’re
in there!,” pointing to a slit trench
four feet away; the Marine raised
himself up to a crouching position
and hurled his bayonetted rifle like
a javelin into the slit trench. There
was heavy enemy fire coming at the
platoon, but it was almost impossible
to determine its source. Ten feet
in front of the Marines, however, the
Japanese had dug a series of trenches
running the length of the beach. Tied
in with these trenches were scores of
machine gun positions and foxholes,
mutually supporting each other, all
camouflaged so that they were invisible
until a Marine was right on top
of them. Accordingly, as soon as the
men of the platoon would locate an
emplacement, they would deluge it
with hand grenades, and then work
on the next one. The lieutenant’s next
experience was almost his last:

At one point in this swirling
maelstrom of action I was
kneeling behind a palm tree
stump with my carbine on the
deck, as I fished for a fresh clip
of bullets in my belt. Something
made me look up and there, not
ten feet away, was a Jap charging
me with his bayonet. My
hands were empty. I was helpless.
The thought that “this is it”
flashed through my brain! Then
shots chattered from all sides of
me. My men hit the running Jap
in a dozen places. He fell dead
three feet from me.

Shortly after this, the squad with
the Marine officer was working on
another Japanese emplacement. He
pulled the pin from one of his
grenades, let the handle fly off, and
started counting to three. (The
grenade’s fuse was timed to give a
man about five seconds before it exploded.)
In the middle of his count,
a Japanese started shooting at him
from the flank. Instinctively he
turned to look for the enemy. Then
something in his mind clicked, “And
what about that live grenade in your8
hand?” Without looking, he threw it
and dove for the deck. It went off in
mid-air and the fragments spattered
all around him….

D-DAY in the NORTH

Groups of Marines were forming
now under their own initiative, and
beginning to work their way slowly
inland. It was nearly impossible to
keep tight control of the platoon under
these conditions, but the lieutenant
was moving with them, trying
to get them coordinated as best he
could, when suddenly he dropped to
the ground, stunned. He recalled:

My first reaction was that
someone had hit my right cheek
with a baseball bat. With the
shock, instinct made me cover
my right eye with my hand.
Then I realized I’d been hit.
Searing my mind came the
question, “When I take my
hand away, will I be able to
see?” Slowly I lowered my arm
and opened my eye. I could
see! Relief flooded through me.
The wound was on my cheekbone,
just below the eye, and it
was bleeding profusely, so I lay
there and broke out my first aid
packet. After shaking sulfa
powder into the wound rather
awkwardly, I bandaged my
right eye and cheekbone as best
I could. The bullet had gone
completely through my helmet
just above my right ear, and left
a jagged, gaping hole in the
steel. My left eye was still functioning
all right, however, so after
a drink from my canteen, I
started forward again.

A little later I encountered
another lieutenant from our
company, Jack Powers. He had
been hit in the stomach, but was
still fighting. Crouching behind
a concrete wall, he showed me
a pillbox about 25 feet away
that was full of Japs who were
still very much alive and full of
fight. This strong point commanded
the whole area around
us and was holding up our advance
very effectively. It was
about 50 feet long and 15 feet
wide, constructed of double
rows of sand-filled oil drums.
Grabbing the nearest men, we
explained our plan of attack
and went to work. With a couple
of automatic riflemen, Jack
covered the rear entrance with
fire. Taking another man and a
high-explosive bangalore torpedo,
I crawled around to the
front and observed for a few
minutes. Then we inched our
way up to the slit that served as
a front entrance, and I threw a9
grenade in to keep down any
Jap who might be inclined to
poke a rifle out in our faces.

Next we lighted the fuse on
the bangalore, jammed it inside
the pillbox, and scrambled for
shelter. The fuse was very short,
we knew, and we barely had
tumbled into a nearby shell hole
when we were overwhelmed by
the blast of the bangalore. Dirt
sprayed all over us, billowing
acrid smoke blinded us, and the
numbing concussion deafened
us. In a few moments we felt all
right once more, and a glance
told us that we had closed that
entrance permanently. We
worked our way back to where
we’d left Jack Powers, and
found that he’d managed to locate
a shaped charge of high explosive
in the meantime. Taking
this, we repeated our job—this
time blowing the rear entrance
shut.

That took care of that pillbox!
Jack looked like he was in
pretty bad shape, and I urged
him to go get some medical attention,
but he refused and
moved on alone to the next Jap
pillbox (where, I later learned,
he was killed in a single-handed
heroic attack for which he was
awarded the Medal of Honor).

All over Namur there were similar
examples of individual initiative.
They were needed, for the island was
covered with dense jungle, concrete
fortifications, administrative buildings,
and barracks. It was difficult to
mount an armored attack under
these conditions. Meanwhile, the
Japanese used them to their fullest extent
for cover and concealment. Enemy
resistance and problems of
maintaining unit contact slowed the
Marines’ advance.

Amidst all of this, a Marine demolition
team threw a satchel charge of
high explosive into a Japanese bunker
which turned out to be crammed
with torpedo warheads. An enormous
blast occurred. From off shore,
an officer watched as “the whole of
Namur Island disappeared from sight
in a tremendous brown cloud of dust
and sand raised by the explosion.”
Overhead, a Marine artillery spotter
felt his plane catapult up 1,000 feet
and exclaimed, “Great God
Almighty! The whole damn island
has blown up!” On the beach another
officer recalled that “trunks of palm
trees and chunks of concrete as large
as packing crates were flying through
the air like match sticks…. The
hole left where the blockhouse stood
was as large as a fair-sized swimming
pool.” The column of smoke rose to
over 1,000 feet in the air, and the explosion
caused the deaths of 20 Marines
and wounded 100 others in the
area.

ROI-NAMUR ISLANDS

PREPARED BY HISTORICAL DIVISION U. S. MARINE CORPS

Finally, at 1930, Colonel Franklin
A. Hart, commander of the 24th Marines
ordered his men to dig in for the
night. The troops had come across
a good portion of the island. Now
they would hold the ground gained10
and get ready for the morrow. One
rifleman, Robert F. Graf, later wrote
about that time:

Throughout the night the
fleet sent flares skyward, lighting
the islands as the flares
drifted with the prevailing
wind. Ghostly flickering light
was cast from the flares as they
drifted along on their
parachutes. Laying in our foxhole,
my buddy and I were
watching, waiting, and straining
our ears trying to filter out
the known sounds.

Our foxhole in that sand was
about six feet long by two feet
in depth and just about wide
enough to hold the two of us.
Since I had eaten only my “D”
ration since leaving the ship, I
was hungry. “D” rations were
bitter-sweet chocolate bars
about an inch and a half square
and were supposed to be full of
energy. I removed a “K” ration
from my pack and opened it.
“K” rations came in a box about
the size of a Cracker Jack box
and had a waterproof coating.
These rations contained a small
tin of powdered coffee or
lemonade, some round hard
candies, a package of three
cigarettes, and a tin about the
size of a tuna-fish can containing
either cheese, hash, or eggs
with a little bacon. We dined on
our rations, drank water from
our canteens, and prepared to
settle in for the night….

After finishing chow we
elected to take two-hour
watches, one on guard while the
other slept. Also we made sure
we knew where our buddies’
foxholes were, both on the left
and right of us. Thus we were
set up so that anyone to our
front would be an enemy. Our
first night in combat had
started.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70694

Landing Vehicles, Tracked (LVTs) equipped with rocket launchers new to the 4th
Marine Division, churn towards the assault beaches of Roi-Namur on D-Plus One.

Before dawn the Japanese mounted
a determined counterattack which
was finally repulsed. Nevertheless, it
was a tragic night for one particular
family. A 19-year-old Marine private
first class and his 44-year-old father,
a corporal, had been together in the
same company back in California,
but the son was hospitalized with a
minor illness and then transferred to
another outfit. The father boarded
his ship prepared to sail for combat
alone, but then his son was found
stowed away on it in order to be with
his father. The young man was taken
off and was placed under arrest. His
mother, however, telephoned the
Commandant’s office in Washington
and told the story of her son’s effort
to be together with her husband. The
charges were dropped and the two
were reunited for the trip to the Marshalls.
The son was killed that first
night on Namur. The father went on
fighting—alone.

Early on the afternoon of the next
day, 2 February, D plus 2, the 24th
Marines finished its conquest of
Namur, and the island was declared
“secured.” In the final moments of
combat, however, Lieutenant Colonel
Aquilla J. Dyess, commander of the
1st Battalion, was standing to direct
the last attack of his men. A burst
of machine gun fire riddled his body,11
and he became the most senior
officer to die in the battle. For his superb
leadership under fire he was
awarded a posthumous Medal of
Honor.

Marine Corps Art Collection

A watercolor by combat artist LtCol Donald L. Dickson depicts members of a
Marine fire team in a close-in attack on a Japanese defensive position on Namur.

Across the sand spit, on Roi, it had
been a different story. This island was
nearly bare, for it was mostly covered
by the airfield runways. When
the 23d Marines hit the beaches on
D plus 1, the fierceness of the pre-landing
bombardment prevented the
Japanese defenders from mounting a
coordinated defense. Small groups of
Marine riflemen joined their regiment’s
attached tanks in a race across
to the far side of the island. This
charging style caused considerable
confusion as to who was where. Reorganized
into more coherent units,
the men made a final orderly drive
to finish the job.

In spite of the rapid progress on
Roi, there were still some major enemy
strongpoints which had to be
dealt with. An after-action report of
the 2d Battalion described one example
of this perilous work in matter of
fact terms:

[There] was a blockhouse
constructed of reinforced concrete
approximately three feet
thick. It had three gunports,
one each facing north, east, and
west, another indication of the
enemy’s mistaken assumption
that the Americans would attack
from the sea rather than
the lagoon shore. Two heavy
hits had been made on the
blockhouse, one apparently by
14-inch or 16-inch shells and
the other by an aerial bomb.
Nevertheless, the position had
not been demolished….

[The battalion commander,
Lieutenant Colonel Edward J.
Dillon] then ordered Company
G to take the blockhouse. The
company commander first sent
forward a 75mm halftrack,
which fired five rounds against
the steel door. At this point a
demolition squad came up, and
its commander volunteered to
knock out the position with explosives.
While the halftrack
continued to fire, infantry platoons
moved up on each flank
of the installation. The demolition
squad placed charges at
the ports and pushed bangalore
torpedoes through a shell hole
in the roof….

“Cease fire” was then ordered,
and after hand-grenades were
thrown inside the door, half a
squad of infantry went into investigate.12
Unfortunately, the engineers
of the demolition squad
had not got the word to cease
fire, and had placed a shaped
charge at one of the ports while
the infantry was still inside.
Luckily, no one was hurt, but
as the company commander
reported, “a very undignified
and hurried exit was made by
all concerned.” Inside were three
heavy machine guns, a quantity
of ammunition, and the bodies
of three Japanese.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70241

One of the very few Japanese finally persuaded to surrender
in the Roi-Namur operation, this stripped-down soldier is
well covered by suspicious Marine riflemen as he leaves his
hiding place in a massive but shell-shattered blockhouse.

Many Japanese had to be flushed
out of or blown up in the airfield’s
drainage ditches and culverts, but by
1800 that day, D plus 1, Roi had been
secured. (“Secured” seemed a somewhat
flexible term when the first
service of Mass, held the next day,
was interrupted by Japanese shots.)
By 6 February, however, the ground
elements of a Marine aircraft wing
were ensconced at the airfield,
preparing for the arrival of their
planes in five more days. For the entire
remainder of the war these planes
pounded the by-passed atolls with
such power that the Japanese on
them were eliminated from any further
role in the war. (There was one
surprise Japanese air raid on Roi,
staged from the Mariana Islands, on
12 February. This caused a number
of casualties and major damage to
material.)

The repair of the airfield and its
quick return to action was a tribute
to the skills of both the 20th Marines,
an engineer regiment, and the 109th
Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees).
This achievement was one
more illustration of the vital role
played by a dizzying list of units that
supported the assault rifle battalions.
Besides the vast armada of naval
planes, ships, and landing craft, there
were Navy chaplains and corpsmen
(two specialties which are always
Navy). In addition to the Marine air,
artillery, and engineer units, there
were the tanks, heavy weapons, motor
transport, quartermaster, signals,
and headquarters supporting units.
An amphibious operation, to be successful,13
must be a finely tuned, highly
trained juggernaut that depends on
all its parts working smoothly
together and this was clearly demonstrated
in the Marshalls.

This watercolor by LtCol Donald L. Dickson, USMCR, portrays Marines reviving
themselves and taking it easy after the fighting near blockhouse skeleton.

The conquest of Roi-Namur had
been a relatively easy operation
when compared to some of the other
Marine campaigns in the Pacific. (At
Tarawa, for example, more than
3,300 men had been killed or wounded
in 76 hours.) The 4th Division’s
victory came at a cost of 313 Marines
and corpsmen killed and 502 wounded.
By contrast, the defeated Japanese
garrison numbered an estimated
3,563—with all but a handful of
them now dead.

Two more tasks remained for the
4th Division; the first was mopping
up the rest of the islets in the northern
two-thirds of the atoll. The 25th
Marines, which had supported the
attacks of the 23d and 24th, took off
on a series of island-hopping trips on
board their LVTs. The regiment
checked out more of the exotically
named islets such as Boggerlapp,
Marsugalt, Gegibu, Oniotto, and
Eru. The 25th found no resistance
and by D plus 7 it had covered all 50
of the islets that were its objectives.
This assignment was a total change
from what the regiment had experienced
around Roi-Namur. One
writer, Carl W. Proehl, described the
expedition this way:

It was on this junket that the
men of the 25th got to know the
Marshall Island natives, for it
was these Marines who freed
them from Japanese domination.
On many islets, bivouacking
overnight, the natives and
Marines got together and sang
hymns; the Marshall Islanders
had been Christianized many
years before, and missionaries
had taught them such songs as
“Onward Christian Soldiers.” K
rations and cigarettes also made
a big hit with them. And more
than one Marine sentry, walking
post in front of a native
camp, took up the islander’s
dress and wore only a loin
cloth—usually a towel from a
Los Angeles hotel.

The final task that remained for
the division was a miserable one. Roi
and Namur were littered with dead
Japanese; the stench was overpowering
as their bodies putrefied in the
blazing tropical sun. All hands,
officers and enlisted, were put to
work day and night on burial details.
“Hey, I just finished two days of brutal
combat! We don’t have any gloves
or equipment for this!”—“Too bad, just
start doing it anyway!” Health conditions
were so bad that 1,500 men
in the division were suffering from
dysentery when the troops finally reboarded
transports for the journey
back to their rear base at Maui in the
Hawaiian Islands.

The Army Attack: Kwajalein

In accordance with the overall
campaign plan for the seizure of the
Marshall Islands, the Army’s attack
on Kwajalein Island at the south end
of the atoll began in exact synchronization
with the Marine assault in the
north. The same softening-up process14
was used on D-day, 31 January, with
a large force of warships and planes
pouring on a blanket of high explosive.
The Navy, for instance, fired
7,000 shells. Because of the location
of the islets immediately surrounding
its main objective, the 7th Infantry
Division was able to follow a plan
identical to the Marines, with the
17th Infantry Regiment clearing the
way for placement of close-by supporting
artillery. The 145th Field Artillery
Battalion then proceeded to
inundate the target with 28,000
rounds.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 71920

Using palm fronds for concealment, two Marines carefully scout out the terrain
ahead of them on Roi in a firefight with the Japanese forward of their position.

Then, on D plus 1, the riflemen of
the 32d and 184th Infantry Regiments
landed on Kwajalein Island itself.
Because of previous joint
rehearsals held in Hawaii the amtracs
carried in the assault troops
with smoothness and efficiency. In
addition, Major General Charles H.
Corlett, the division commander,
had an assemblage of DUKWs (amphibious
trucks always called
“ducks”) available, and it proved
valuable in ferrying priority supplies
ashore to the fighting men.

Once ashore, the assault units
found widespread devastation from
the preinvasion bombing and shelling.
Smashed seawalls, uprooted
trees, demolished buildings, scarred
pillboxes were everywhere. Dug in
amidst all this debris, the Japanese
fought resolutely. This kind of close
combat usually forced the issue down
to the individual level. An Army
officer, Lieutenant Colonel S. L. A.
Marshall, who later interviewed the
troops, gave this account of how they
dealt with the deadly Japanese
“spider holes” they encountered:

The holes were everywhere.
Each one had to be searched
from close up. Every spot where
a man might be hiding had to
be stabbed out. So greatly was
the beach littered with broken
foliage that it was like looking
through a haystack for a few
poisoned needles….

The fire which cut the men
down came from the spider
holes farther up the line. It was
the kind of bitter going that
made it necessary for the junior
leaders to prod their men constantly.
The leader of the 3d
Squad had been trying to get his
men forward against the fire.
Private First Class John Treager
got up, rushed forward about
ten yards, hit the dirt, fired a
few shots with his BAR [Browning
Automatic Rifle] and crumpled
with a bullet in his head.

Somewhat farther along, a
bayonet was seen sticking up
through a patch of fronds. The
Jap crouched within it hadn’t15
room to draw in the whole
length of the weapon. Private
First Class Edward Fiske fired
his BAR at the hole; the dried
fronds caught fire from the
tracers. At that point Fiske ran
out of ammunition.

Private First Class Julian
Guterrez then took up the fire
with his M1 [rifle]. He stood
directly above the hole and
fired down into it. Then the
hole exploded; the Jap inside
had turned a grenade on himself.
A man’s shattered arm
came flying out of the hole and
hit Guterrez on the shoulder,
splattering blood all over his
face and clothing. The arm
bounced off and fell to the side.
As Guterrez looked at it, fascinated
and horror-stricken, he
saw another bayonet rising out
of a patch of fronds just beyond
the outstretched and still-quivering
fingers. He yelled to
a man behind him. The man
relayed a grenade and Guterrez
pitched it with all of his might
into the patch of fronds. It
erupted in a shower of palm
leaves and blood and flesh.

Guterrez reeled over toward
the lagoon to cleanse himself of
the blood. Before he could
reach the water, in sight of all
the other men, he vomited all
over the beach. Minutes passed
before he could gather himself
together again.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70650

The American flag is raised on Roi on 2 February 1944 to signify the end of the fighting.
In the background is the shattered hulk of a three-story concrete blockhouse.

As the two Army regiments began
their third day of combat, it was
dirty and dangerous work. One Marine
historical summary of the Marshalls
operation told their story:

Resistance during the day
was continually stiffer as the
enemy took advantage of every
possible uncertainty of the terrain,
and concentrated the fire
of such mortars and artillery as
were left to them. Despite the
havoc wrought by the bombardments,
there was still much
cover available and positions
were concealed with great
adroitness. Many of the concrete
installations still stood in
partial ruin even though they
had received direct hits from
heavy naval guns, and the fire
from 75mm [cannon] had little
effect on them.

It was necessary to employ
heavy demolition charges to
breach emplacements sufficiently
for the employment of flamethrowers
and grenades. In the
utter turmoil, it was nearly impossible
to maintain contact.
Nothing was any longer recognizable.
The situation was
made doubly uncertain from
the fact that fire might come
from almost any direction at
the flanks, frontally, or from
the rear. The going was tough.

Weird things can and do happen
in such fighting. A Japanese officer
charged a U.S. tank with just his bare
saber. In the dusk one evening
Japanese riflemen tried to walk into
the American lines carrying palm
branches in front of their bodies so
they would not be seen. A U.S. infantryman
carrying a flamethrower
approached a pillbox, and out
through its door bolted a Japanese
officer in counterattack. He was16
squirting a fire extinguisher towards
the flame gun. The liquid doused the
American soldier as he let the flame
go. The Japanese officer dropped
dead at his feet, burned to a crisp.

National Archives Photo 127-N-88477

Named “Dyess Field” in honor of the deceased battalion commander
who earned the Medal of Honor, the Roi airstrip was
quickly converted from Japanese use to become a new base for
Marine aircraft as the Central Pacific drive moved westward.

And so it went for four long days
until the far tip of Kwajalein had
been reached and the island was
declared secured.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 36034

LtCol Aquilla J. Dyess was posthumously
awarded the Medal of Honor for his
heroic personal leadership on Namur.
Known affectionately as “Big Red,”
he was the only person to have been
awarded both the Medal of Honor and
the Carnegie Medal for Heroism (in
1928). He was honored in 1945 by having
a Navy destroyer named after him.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 302952

PFC Richard B. Anderson was posthumously
awarded the Medal of Honor for
sacrificing his life when he threw himself
upon a live Japanese hand grenade,
in order to protect his fellow Marines.

The successful battle for both ends
of Kwajalein Atoll had been concluded,
and a series of conclusions were
drawn from it. Japanese deaths
reached a total of 8,122, some 27
times the number of Americans
killed. The relatively small scale of
U.S. casualties gave Admiral Chester
W. Nimitz the ready forces he needed
to push forward rapidly with
plans for further action: first, one
more atoll in the Marshalls, and then
quickly on to the vital Mariana Islands,
the linchpin of Japan’s inner
line of defense. Kwajalein would provide
the air base from which the B-29
bombers would conduct their raids
on the Marianas, and the Army 7th17
Infantry Division and the 4th Marine
Division would play key roles in
those future operations.

Tactically, there were a variety of
innovations in the twin battles at
Kwajalein, and these would continue
to prove valuable in the future. There
was the first use of Navy underwater
demolition teams; the first use of
DUKWs in combat; the first use of
command ships with special communications
equipment to control the
battle; the first use of airplanes to
control naval gunfire; and the first
use of armored amphibian tractors
(LVTAs). In addition, the two battles
saw the debut of new units designed
to facilitate crucial communications
during combat. These were the Joint
Assault Signal Companies. The official
Marine history of the Marshalls
campaign described their complex
responsibilities:

The primary mission of this
unit was to coordinate all supporting
fires available to a Marine
division during an
amphibious operation. In order
to carry out this function, the
company was divided into
Shore and Beach Party Communications
Teams, Air Liaison
Parties, and Shore Fire Control
Parties…. During training,
the various teams were attached
to the regiments and battalions
of the division. Thus each assault
battalion could become
familiar with its shore and
beach party, air liaison, and fire
control teams.

Another new element was the way
rockets were used. This was a
centuries-old technique of bombardment,
but in the Marshalls the 4th
Marine Division was the first American
division to use rockets mounted
on jeeps, pick-up trucks, and Navy
gunboats in combat.

One other Marine resource was
unique: the use of Navajo Indian
“code talkers” in battle. They proved
a perfect foil for the Japanese ability
in previous battles to understand
Marine voice-to-voice communications
and Morse Code. To prevent
this a group of Navajo Indians had
been recruited and trained in special
code words they could use in combat.
When they were talking in the
Navajo’s exotic language, no Japanese
would ever decipher the message! At
Roi-Namur their walkie-talkie portable
radios carried the urgent instructions
back and forth between ship
and shore, as well as between higher
echelons and subordinate units, and
did it so quickly that previous delays
of up to 12 hours (intercepting, transmitting,
and deciphering messages)
were eliminated.

18
Finally, the two battles for
Kwajalein Atoll proved incontestably
the effectiveness of prolonged and
massive preinvasion naval gunfire
and aerial bombing. The U.S. planes
and warships had so thoroughly
scoured not only the target islands,
but also the other Japanese air bases
in the Marshalls, that not a single
Japanese plane was able to attack the
American surface forces in the
campaign.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70200

Resolute and fanatic Japanese defenders who were not previously killed by the
Marines very often committed hara-kiri, as did the two soldiers in the foreground.

The Final Attack: Eniwetok

With Kwajalein Atoll now in
American hands, a review of the next
operation immediately took place.
Admiral Nimitz flew there from Pearl
Harbor and met with his top commanders.
The 2d Marine Division,
tempered in the fires of Tarawa, had
earlier been alerted to prepare for a
May attack on Eniwetok Atoll, 330
miles northwest of Kwajalein. The
planners decided to use instead the
22d Marines (under the command of
Colonel John T. Walker) and two
battalions of the Army’s 106th Infantry
Regiment, since they had not
been needed in the quick conquest of
Roi-Namur and Kwajalein. In addition,
the date for the attack was
jumped forward to mid-February.

The softening-up process had begun
at the end of January, and the
carrier air strikes increased the following
month. Japanese soldiers
caught in this deluge were dismayed.
One wrote in his diary, “The American
attacks are becoming more furious.
Planes come over day after day.
Can we stand up under the strain?”
Another noted that “some soldiers
have gone out of their minds.”

On D-Day, 17 February, the Navy’s
heavy guns joined in with a
thunderous shelling. Then, using
secret Japanese navigation charts
captured at Kwajalein, the task force
moved into the huge lagoon, 17 by
21 miles in size. Brigadier General
Thomas E. Watson, the Marine in
overall command of some 10,000 assault
troops, had the responsibility
for conducting a complex series of
successive maneuvers. As at
Kwajalein Atoll, the artillery was
sent ashore on D-Day on two tiny islets
adjacent to the first key target,
Engebi Island. The Marines’ 2d
Separate [75mm] Pack Howitzer Battalion
went to one islet, and the Army’s
104th Field Artillery Battalion
went to the other. There they set up
to provide supporting fire for the
forthcoming infantry assault.

The landing on Engebi came the
next morning, D plus 1, 18 February,
as the 1st and 2d Battalions of the
22d Marines headed for the beach in
their amtracs. At this time there occurred
“one of those pathetic episodes
incident to the horrible waste of war.”
As one Marine report described it:

One tank was lost in the
landings. It was boated in an
LCM [Landing Craft, Medium]19
on which, unfortunately, only
one engine was functioning. By
some mischance the lever
depressing the ramp was operated
with the result that the
craft began to flood rapidly
while still 500 yards offshore.
The tank crew had “buttoned
up” and could gain but [a] small
idea of the accident. Despite the
frantic efforts of the LCM’s crew
to warn the occupants, the
desperate urgency of the situation
was not appreciated. The
LCM gradually filled, listed,
and finally spilled her load into
the lagoon, turning completely
over. At the last possible moment,
one of the crew of the
tank managed to escape as the
tank actually hit bottom forty
feet down.

Department of Defense Photo (Army) 324729

Troops of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division make the tricky
transfer from their landing craft to the amphibian tractors
which will now carry them in across the reef fringing
Kwajalein, for the final leg of their assault of the island.

Once the two battalions hit the
beach, they found the core of the
enemy defenses to be a palm grove
in the middle of the island. This area
was riddled with “spider holes,” and21
the American shelling had added
fallen trees to the cover provided to
the Japanese by the dense underbrush.
Thus their positions were extremely
difficult to locate. It was
dangerous work for the individuals
and small groups who had to take the
initiative, but they did and the assault
ground ahead against enemy
defenses.

Department of Defense Photo (Army) 212590

The 37mm gun provided invaluable direct fire support
throughout the campaigns of the Pacific War. Here, one of the
guns takes on a stubborn Japanese position on Kwajalein,
reinforcing the ability of riflemen to deal with the enemy.

With these advances and some
direct fire from self-propelled 105mm
guns against concrete pillboxes, the
whole of Engebi had been overrun by
the Marines by the afternoon of D
plus 1. On the following morning the
American flag was raised to the
sound of a Marine playing “To the
Colors” on a captured Japanese bugle.
An engineer company, however,
spent a busy day using flamethrowers
and demolitions to mop up by-passed
enemy soldiers. More than
1,200 Japanese, Koreans, and Okinawans
were on Engebi, and only 19
surrendered.

The main action now shifted
quickly on D plus 2 to the attack on
Eniwetok Island. This mission was
assigned to the 1st and 3d Battalions
of the Army’s 106th Infantry Regiment.
When they landed, their advance
was slow. Only 204 tons of
naval gunfire rounds (compared to
the 1,179 tons which had plastered
Engebi) hit Eniwetok. “Spider hole”
defenses held up their advance. A
steep bluff blocked the planned inland
advance of their LVTAs, resulting
in a traffic jam on the beaches.
Less than an hour after the initial
landing, General Watson felt obliged
to radio Colonel Russell G. Ayers,
commanding the 106th, “Push your
attack.”

Things were clearly not going as
planned, for General Watson had
hoped to secure Eniwetok quickly,
and then have the battalions of the
106th immediately ready for an attack
on the final objective, Parry Island.
To speed the progress on
Eniwetok, the reserve troops, the 3d
Battalion of the 22d Marines, were
ordered to land early in the afternoon.
Moving forward, they were
soon in heavy combat. Japanese soldiers
who had been by-passed kept up
their harassing fire; permission to
bring the battalions half-track 75mm
cannon ashore was flatly denied
Colonel Ayers. The Marines had to
take responsibility for clearing two-thirds
of the southern zone on the island.
Tanks were ashore but “not
available,” and coconut log emplacements
provided the Japanese with
strong defensive positions.

Department of Defense Photo (Army) 233727

Victorious Army soldiers relax by the ruins of a Japanese
plane, smashed by the preinvasion bombardment of one of
the islets adjacent to Kwajalein. One enterprising man still has
the energy and the curiosity to climb on board for a look.

Nevertheless, the attack inched
forward with the repeated use of
flamethrowers and satchel charges.
Halting for the night several hundred
yards from the tip of the island, the
Marines were greeted the following
morning (D plus 3) by an astonishing
sight. The Army battalion supposed
to be on their right flank had,
without notifying the Marines,
pulled back 300 yards to the rear during
the night and left a large gap in
the American lines. The Marines
then had to stem a small but furious
Japanese night counterattack. When
the soldiers returned in the morning,
the American attack began again,
and by mid-afternoon the Marines22
and the Army battalion had secured
the southern part of the island.

Department of Defense Photo (Navy) 218615

A crater from U.S. Navy gunfire marks the left end of a series
of Japanese trenches designed to provide mutually supporting
enfillade fire against attackers. The shattered trunks of the
palm trees show the effects of the Navy’s bomdardment.

Progress was still very slow in the
northern sector, so Marine tanks and
engineers moved in to assist the other
Army battalion there. Finally, in the
afternoon of D plus 4, 21 February,
the northern area was also declared
secure.

With the elapse of all this time (96
hours instead of the 24 hours expected),
General Watson was forced to
alter his plans for the final phase of
the operation: the assault on Parry.
He brought down from Engebi the
1st and 2d Battalions of the 22d Marines,
pulled that regiment’s other
(3d) battalion off Eniwetok, and
designated them for the landing on
Parry.

Amidst all of this purposeful activity,
the ludicrous side of war
emerged in one episode. A U.S. float
plane moored in the lagoon, and a
boat was sent to take off the crew.
Coming alongside, the boat cleverly23
managed to capsize the plane.

Department of Defense Photo (Navy) 217679

Waves of amtracs, each one crammed with Marines uncertain
of what they will find when they hit the beach, churn in for
the assault of Engebi on 18 February 1944. They are hoping
to find an enemy dazed by the preparatory artillery fire.

The exact timing of an amphibious
assault is a crucial decision based
on a delicate balancing of a host of
factors, such as the condition of the
troops and their equipment, provision
of fire support, etc. General Watson
decided to hold off the landing
on Parry until D plus 5 (22 February).
An official report explained the
reasons for the delay:

(a) To rehabilitate and reorganize
[the battalion of the 22d
Marines] which had been in action
for three successive days.

(b) To reembark, repair, and
service medium tanks and rest
their crews.

(c) To make light tanks,
which were still engaged on
Eniwetok, available for the assault
on Parry Island if required.

(d) To provide one [battalion]
of the 106th Infantry as support
reserve in the event it was required.

(e) To allow additional time
for the air and surface bombardment
of Parry.

Awaiting the amtracs of the 22d
Marines, the Japanese commander
on the island issued a very succinct
order to his troops:

At the edge of the water scatter
and divide the enemy infantry
in their boats—attack and
annihilate each one. Launch
cleverly prepared powerful
quick thrusts and vivid sudden
attacks, and after having attacked
and having destroyed
the enemy landing forces, first24
of all, then scatter and break up
their groups of boats and ships.
In the event that the enemy succeeds
in making a landing annihilate
him by means of night
attacks.

The enemy plans to “annihilate”
failed. For two days before the Marine
assault, the Navy had moved its
big guns in as close as 850 yards offshore
and pounded the defenders
with 944 tons of shells. This was supplemented
by artillery fire from the
neighboring islands and rocket fire
from the gunboats as the Marines
went in. This rain of shells crept
ahead of the tanks and infantrymen
as they tenaciously slogged their way
across the island.

ENIWETOK
(DOWNSIDE)
ATOLL

The capture of this atoll followed a carefully planned sequence, using a variety of
geographic points: (1) entrance of U.S. ships into the lagoon through Wide Passage
in the south and Deep Entrance in the southeast; (2) artillery set up on “Camellia”
and “Canna” in the northeast; (3) landing on Engebi in the north; (4) landing
on Eniwetok in the south; and, finally (5) landing on Parry in the southeast.

As always, there was the unexpected.
When a shell from a U.S. warship
hit directly on top of an underground
bunker, all the Japanese inside
poured out and ran—of all places—into
the sea. Another shell hurled a
coconut tree aloft and catapulted the
body of an enemy sniper from its
branches through the air to his death.

For the assault troops, it was a continuing
story of “spider holes,” tunnels,
underground strong points, and
enemy resistance to the death.
Another young Marine, Second Lieutenant
Cord Meyer, Jr., in his first
combat fought on both Eniwetok and
Parry. The grueling experiences he
had were typical of everyone who
took part in these battles. He was
landed with his machine gun platoon
in the second wave of assault troops,
three minutes after the first men to
hit the beach on Eniwetok. Moving
quickly inland, the platoon came to
the edge of a blasted coconut grove.
Then, as the lieutenant later wrote
home:

We were hard hit there, and
with terrible clarity the reality
of the event came home to me.
I had crawled forward to ask a
Marine where the Japs were—pretty
excited really and enjoying
it almost like a game. I
crawled up beside him but he
wouldn’t answer. Then I saw
the ever widening pool of dark
blood by his head and knew
that he was dying or dead. So
it came over me what this war
was, and after that it wasn’t fun
or exciting, but something that
had to be done.

Fortune smiled on me that
day, or the hand of a Divine
Providence was over me, or I
was just plain lucky. We killed
many of them in fighting that
lasted to nightfall. We cornered
fifty or so Imperial [Japanese]
Marines on the end of the island,25
where they attempted a
banzai charge, but we cut them
down like overripe wheat, and
they lay like tired children with
their faces in the sand.

That night was unbelievably
terrible. There were many of
them left and they all had one
fanatical notion, and that was
to take one of us with them. We
dug in with orders to kill anything
that moved. I kept watch
in a foxhole with my sergeant,
and we both stayed awake all
night with a knife in one hand
and a grenade in the other.
They crept in among us, and
every bush or rock took on
sinister proportions. They got
some of us, but in the morning
they all lay about, some with
their riddled bodies actually inside
our foxholes. With daylight
it was easy for us and we
finished them off. Never have
I been so glad to see the blessed
sun.

With that battle over, the lieutenant
and his men were hustled back
on ship. For a day and a night they
were “desperately trying” to get their
gear into proper shape to go right
back into combat. The following
morning, they went in on the attack
on Parry.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 72434

Poised in a shallow trench, riflemen of the 22d Marines await
the order to attack an enemy coconut-log strongpoint on
Eniwetok. While the most of the men are carrying M1 rifles,
the flamethrower in their midst may well prove crucial.

They found the beach was swept
with machine-gun and mortar fire,
but they surged inland over ruined,
shell-blasted soil rocked by the continual
mortar bursts. Then their captain
suddenly pointed, and above the
brush line they saw 150 or so men
bending forward, moving on a
parallel course about 50 yards away.
The Marines, however, waved,
thinking that they must be fellow
Marines. The men paid little attention
to the Marines and seemed to be
setting up machine guns. The realization
struck home: they were
Japanese.

The lieutenant by now had just
half a platoon of men and two
machine guns. They set the guns up
and started firing at the enemy. One
gun jammed, so they buried the parts
in the sand, because they thought
that the Japanese would charge and
they couldn’t possibly stop it or prevent
the capture of the gun. When
they didn’t attack, the Marines
moved in against them. The two
sides threw grenades back and forth
for what seemed like hours. Many
were killed on both sides. Finally the
lieutenant and his men threw a whole27
volley of grenades and charged in
and got to the beach. Down it they
could see a whole group of Japanese,
so all 12 of the Marines, standing,
kneeling, or lying prone, fired their
rifles and carbines. The enemy fell
like ducks in a shooting gallery, but
still they closed in on the little group
of Marines who then had to back
away.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 149144

In one of the classic photographs of the Pacific War, dog-tired
and battle-grime-coated Marines, thankful to be off the island
and still alive, relax with a hot cup of coffee on board ship
after victoriously ending the bruising fight for Eniwetok.

Now the lieutenant continued his
story:

But we got some tanks and
reinforcements some half hour
later and moved through them
in skirmish line, which brings
this tale to the most extraordinary
incident of all. I was following
some ten yards behind
the tanks, when a Jap officer
came out of a hole pointing his
pistol at me; so instinctively I
shot my carbine from the hip
and hit him full in the face. I
walked forward and looked into
the trench and saw another
with his arm cocked to throw a
grenade. He didn’t see me. I was
only six feet away. I pulled the
trigger but the weapon was
jammed with sand. I had to do
something, so I took my carbine
by the barrel and hit him with
all my might at the base of the
neck. It broke his neck and my
carbine.

Finally we killed them all.
They never surrender. Again
the night was a bad one, but
with the dawn came complete
victory, and those of us who
still walked without a wound
looked in amazement at our
whole bodies. There was not
much jubilation. We just sat
and stared at the sand, and
most of us thought of those
who were gone—those whom I
shall remember as always
young, smiling, and graceful,
and I shall try to forget how
they looked at the end, beyond
all recognition….

The lieutenant’s letter went on to
praise his men:

They obeyed with an unquestioning
courage. One of my section
leaders was hit by a bullet28
in his arm. It spun him clear
around and set him down on
his behind. A little dazed, he sat
there for a second and then
jumped up with the remark,
“The little bastards will have to
hit me with more than that.” I
had to order him back to the
dressing station an hour later.
He was weak with loss of blood
but actually pleaded to stay.

My runner was knocked
down right beside me with
three bullet holes in him and
blood all over his face. Stupidly
I said, “Are you hit, boy?” He
was crying a little, being just a
kid of eighteen, and said, “I’m
sorry, sir. I guess I’m just a sissy.”
I damn near cried myself at
that.

And so it went all through the day,
but by evening it was nearly all over.
Early the next morning (D plus 6, 23
February) Parry was completely in
American hands, and the conquest of
Eniwetok Atoll’s vital objectives was
complete. Some 3,400 Japanese had
been eliminated there at a cost of 348
American dead and 866 wounded.

Mopping up operations on many
of the tiny islets in the Marshalls continued
until 24 April. The troops encountered
a few scattered Japanese
soldiers—quickly dispatched—and
an oddity. On one atoll they found
a German who had married a native
woman and had lived there since he
had originally been shipwrecked in
1891. One of the obscure atolls was
later to become famous as a U.S.
nuclear testing ground, and as a
name given to a sensational new
woman’s bathing suit: Bikini.

The 22d Marines had performed
superbly. Recognition of their
achievements came in the form of a
Navy Unit Commendation, which
praised its “sustained endurance, fortitude,
and fighting spirit throughout
this operation.”

Thus the Marshall Islands operations
were successfully concluded.
With relatively light American
casualties, a big step had been taken
in the Central Pacific campaign. U.S.
forces were now within 1,100 miles
of their next objective, the Mariana
Islands. The timetable for that leap
was moved up by at least 20 weeks.
The 2d Marine Division and the remainder
of the Army’s 27th Division
were now free for that operation,
since they were not needed in the
Marshalls. The basic techniques for
victorious amphibious assaults were
now clearly proven. Another large
contingent of American troops had
received its baptism of fire, and the
Americans had broken the outer ring
of Japan’s Central Pacific defenses
with impressive skill and courage.

Sources

All of the basic Marine histories for
World War II contain detailed accounts of
the Marshalls operation. This monograph
represents a summary, supplemented by
individual experiences drawn from the Personal
Papers and Oral Histories Collections
in the Marine Corps Historical
Center, Washington, D.C.

Among the most useful were: 1stLt John
C. Chapin, USMCR, The 4th Marine Division
in World War II (Washington:
Historical Division, HQMC, 1945); LtCol
Robert D. Heinl, Jr., USMC, and LtCol
John A. Crown, USMC, The Marshalls:
Increasing the Tempo (Washington: Historical
Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1954);
Historical Division, HQMC. “The Marshall
Islands Operations.” Unpublished
draft, n.d. World War II—Marshall Islands
Records File. Marine Corps Historical
Center, Washington, D.C.; LtCol S. L. A.
Marshall, AUS, Island Victory (Washington:
Infantry Journal Press, 1944); Carl W.
Proehl, ed., The Fourth Marine Division
in World War II (Washington: Infantry
Journal Press, 1946); Henry I. Shaw, Jr.,
Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh,
Central Pacific Drive—History of
U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World
War II, vol 3 (Washington: Historical
Branch, G-3 Division, HQMC, 1966).

In the Personal Papers Collection Unit,
Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington,
D.C., the following files have been
useful: First Lieutenant John C. Chapin
(PC 671); Master Sergeant Roger M. Emmons
(PC 304); Private First Class Robert
F. Graf (PC 1946); Princeton University
Collection (PC 2216).

Transcripts of interviews in Oral History
Collection, Marine Corps Historical
Center, Washington, D.C.: BGen William
W. Buchanan; BGen Melvin L. Krulewitch;
Col William P. McCahill; MajGen William
W. Rogers; LtGen James L. Underhill.

Other Titles

The following pamphlets in the Marines
in World War II Commemorative Series
are now in print: Opening Moves: Marines
Gear Up For War; Infamous Day: Marines
at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941; First
Offensive: The Marine Campaign for
Guadalcanal; Outpost in the North Atlantic:
Marines in the Defense of Iceland; A
Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle
for Wake Island; Across the Reef: The Marine
Assault of Tarawa; Up the Slot: Marines
in the Central Solomons; Time of the
Aces: Marine Pilots in the Solomons,
1942–1944.

About the Author

Captain John C. Chapin earned a bachelor of
arts degree with honors in history from Yale
University in 1942 and was commissioned later
that year. He served as a rifle-platoon leader in
the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division, and was
wounded in action during assault landings on
Roi-Namur and Saipan.

Transferred to duty at the Historical Division,
Headquarters Marine Corps, he wrote the first
official histories of the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions.
Moving to Reserve status at the end of World War II, he earned a master’s
degree in history at George Washington University with a thesis on “The Marine
Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1922.”

Now a captain in retired status, he has been a volunteer at the Marine Corps
Historical Center for 10 years. During that time, he wrote History of Marine Fighter-Attack
(VMFA) Squadron 115. With support from the Historical Center and the
Marine Corps Historical Foundation, he then spent some years researching and
interviewing for the writing of a new book. Uncommon Men—The Sergeants Major
of the Marine Corps. This was published in 1992 by the White Mane Publishing
Company.

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the
World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by
the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,
Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance
of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by
a bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband,
Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple
Heart.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR Of MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Brigadier General Edwin K. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
George C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information
Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1994

PCN 190 003124 00