Battle of Tarawa: A Lesson Written in Blood sofrep.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sofrep.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Japanese lost nearly 4,700 hundred men, including Korean slave laborers, and just 17 of the islands defenders were captured.
Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands chain in the middle of the Pacific near the equator, was viewed as a necessary stepping stone in the war against the Japanese, a critical launch point into the Marshall islands and into Japan s recently accrued defensive perimeter.
As critical as the American brass thought of it, the Japanese military knew it to be even more significant.
A loss here would punch a massive hole into the defensive line they had established across the Pacific, from the Aleutian islands in Alaska to the Philippines. The island had to be held at all costs.