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Page 1: Marines In the Marshalls - pacificamilitary.compacificamilitary.com/books/pdfSample/MarinesInTheMarshalls.pdf · Marines In the Marshalls 1 ... By early 1944 the Americans’ westward

Marines In the Marshalls

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Marines In the MarshallsA Pictorial Record

Eric Hammel

By early 1944 the Americans’ westward drive across the Pacific requiredairfields in the Marshall Islands at Kwajalein and Eniwetok atolls. In late

January, the 4th Marine Division and U.S. Army troops wrenched control ofKwajalein Atoll in three days of heavy fighting. Then, beginning February18, the reinforced 22d Marine Regiment landed on three islands in EniwetokAtoll. The three newly rebuilt former Japanese airfields at Kwajalein andEniwetok would support operations in the Mariana Islands as the MarineCorps continued its island-hopping campaign to victory in the Pacific.

Military historian Eric Hammel has delved deeply in government photoarchives and discovered a treasure-trove of rare, many never-before-pub-lished combat photos taken during the Pacific War. Covering the brief butviolent battles on five tiny islands in the Marshalls has yielded this record ofmore than one hundred seventy photos and captions alongside Hammel’sconcise narrative. As such, Marines In the Marshalls serves both as thecampaign’s best visual record and an enduring tribute to the Marines whofought their way ashore at Kwajalein and Eniwetok atolls.

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Chapter 6Eniwetok Atoll

PLANNING ENIWETOK

Next up was a bold 350-mile jump to Eniwetok Atoll, at the western edge ofthe Marshall Islands. Eniwetok was one of only a few firm targets developedfrom a long list of potential bases drawn up before the Marshalls invasion.The seizure of Eniwetok had been penciled in for May, but several factorscontributed to an immediate landing in the wake of the Kwajalein coup demain. These were the complete vindication of the tactics of the Kwajaleinoperation; the ease of the operation; the capture of charts of Eniwetok Atollthat would otherwise have taken months to compile; and the availability ofall the troops, equipment, and ships needed for an immediate invasion.

The naval elements were drawn from portions of the Kwajalein invasionfleet, and ground troops were mainly the reinforced independent 22d Ma-rines and two-thirds of the 27th Infantry Division’s 106th Infantry Regi-ment, both of which had been the Kwajalein reserve; they were all well-trained troops, ready to go.

Planning was done on the fly based on remarkably accurate ad hoc intel-ligence estimates. As with the use of heavier naval firepower, the landingplan was able to incorporate valuable immediate lessons from Kwajalein.

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Three of Eniwetok Atoll’s four main islands were targeted for amphibi-ous assaults: Engebi and Parry by Marines, and Eniwetok by the army troops.It was estimated that three thousand fresh Japanese troops held these is-lands, about a third of the total on each. Engebi was the site of a newly builtairfield, never used by the Japanese; it was the atoll’s primary strategic ob-jective, followed by the anchorage.

The 22d Marines had served eighteen months of garrison duty in Samoaand thus was considered well trained and cohesive to the lowest organiza-tional levels. Its organization was a hybrid first fielded by the 2d Raider Bat-talion in 1942: infantry squads were divided into three four-man or fourthree-man fire teams. This meant that the regiment fielded an extra level ofcommand at its lowest level—corporals and privates first class with hands-on authority that would offset the natural balkanization of infantry units onthe modern battlefield.

An aerial view of Engebi,looking north to south.(Official USMC Photo)

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ENGEBI

As at Kwajalein, the decision was taken to land first on several tiny islandsfrom which Engebi—the first target—could be interdicted by artillery fire.Thus, on February 17, 1944, the V Amphibious Corps Reconnaissance Com-pany went ashore on five of these islands, and the 2d Separate Pack Howit-zer Battalion and an army 105mm howitzer battalion were emplaced on twoof the islands by nightfall. Also on February 17, Navy underwater demoli-tions teams (UDTs) made their combat debut to examine the beaches offEngebi, and that night the 4th Marine Division reconnaissance company(Company D, 4th Tank Battalion) landed by rubber boat on two more smallislands off Engebi to seal the Japanese on Engebi to that island.

Following a massive artillery, naval gunfire, and air bombardment downto only minutes before the landing, 1/22 and 2/22 landed abreast on thesouthwestern side of triangular Engebi shortly after 0800 on February 18.The movement to the beaches was so smooth that the final air attacks had tobe truncated. Nevertheless, one Marine medium tank was lost when an LCMcrew inexplicably lowered the bow ramp five hundred yards from shore andthereby sank the LCM. Four Marine tank men drowned.

Carrying the first waves was an army amtrac battalion that included afull company of LVT(A)1s, which the soldiers called amtanks. There wereseveral minor dislocations, but the amtrac crewmen, who had landed atKwajalein Island, knew what they were about, and organizational mixingwas kept to a minimum.

Much of the ground was heavily wooded and quite tangled, but the Ma-rine infantry seized a lodgment and relentlessly worked outward from it.M4A2s of the 2d Separate Tank Company landed in good order, just in timeto help the infantry take out Japanese tanks dug in as pillboxes. By 1030hours, 2/22, on the left, had seized the airfield and all its other objectivesexcept the island’s western and northern points, Weasel and Newt.

On the right, 1/22 ran into tangled underbrush that was more heavilydefended than the hard-topped airfield. Progress was slower and less cohe-sive. When a gap in the battalion front developed, a company of 3/22 ad-vanced to fill it. The fighting here was especially difficult, but in the mean-time one of 1/22’s companies, aided by a pair of army M7 105mm self-pro-pelled assault guns, overcame the defensive key point in the battalion zone,a cluster of concrete pillboxes on the southern point.

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As the heavy fighting in the 1/22 zone gobbled up the regimental re-serves, 2/22 took the last defensive positions on its part of the island by 1322hours. The ground commander declared the island secure at 1450, and at1456 hours 1/22 overcame the last defensive sector in its zone. Almost im-mediately, 3/22 and the 2d Separate Tank Company were ordered toreembark to serve as the reserve for landings the next day on EniwetokIsland by army troops.

As three assault waves of Marinesapproach Engebi’s southwest coast

in army amtracs, the final pre-landingbombardment strikes the island. Notethe immense number of shell craters

throughout Engebi. (Official U.S. NavyPhoto)

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Official U.S. Navy Photo

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The Engebi beachhead viewed from a second-wave amtrac. (Official USMC Photo)

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Members of the 22d Marines move inland. (Official USMC Photo)

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A hospital corpsman must keep his head low as he treats a woundedMarine on the beach. Japanese fire is passing low overhead. (Official

USMC Photo)

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These Marines were killed as they advanced inland. (Official USMC Photo)

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As the main bodies of 1/22 and 2/22 advance inland, patrols work thebeachhead to clear out bypassed Japanese fighting positions. (Official

USMC Photo)

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Official USMC Photo

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Sherman tanks of the 2d Separate Tank Company, supporting 2/22, can beseen at the bottom of this panoramic view—taken by a carrier fighter pilotduring a rocket attack—as they sweep around the northeastern end of the

airfield. (Official U.S. Navy Photo)

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A close-up of the same scene, taken moments later. (Official U.S. Navy Photo)

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A Marine (at right) has been killed in the same shellhole as a Japanesesoldier. (Official USMC Photo)

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A squad leader at far left admonishes his men to spread out even more asthey advance across flat, open ground. (U.S. Coast Guard Photo)

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A Marines passes adead Japanese

soldier as hehustles toward

cover ahead.(Official USMC

Photo)

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Mopping up. (Official USMC Photo)

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Official USMC Photo

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3/22 and the 2d Separate Tank Company reembarked for a trip to EniwetokIsland almost as soon as Engebi was declared secure. (Official USMCPhoto)