Authors: Leon Uris
“I want to tell you something,” he whispered.
“What?”
“I’ve had the red ass all this trip. I was pissed off because I had to leave New Zealand.”
“Shut up.”
“Let me finish. I was glad when I heard we were going to be reserve. I wanted to be able to write to Pat and tell her, so she wouldn’t worry. I don’t feel like that no more, Mac. We should be on that beach. I don’t know nothing about farms and wives and nothing like that. I just know I want to get in there and kill some Japs.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, Andy.”
“I don’t know what it is, but I know that sometimes there is something more important than just two people. I…I don’t rightly know what I mean. Only this waiting is getting me….”
On the beach Pfc. Mazoros repeated his instructions for the tenth time to the rifleman on how to operate the radio. His voice became weaker. He had been badly wounded and life ebbed from him. He rolled over to the ground, dead. The rifleman slowly lifted the earphones from Mazoros’ head and placed them on his own.
Over the seawall, thrice wounded Lieutenant Roy was leading his Scouts and Snipers from pillbox to pillbox with dynamite. At last he fell dead from his fourth wound.
A white moon hung low. It lit up the wreckage. The long pier shone like a silver ray through the breezeless, sticky night. The tide crept up on the Marines crouching behind the seawall until there was no beach left. They lay in water. For a hundred yards, side by side, the wounded lay, speaking only to refuse aid or whisper a last prayer. No one cried out. Beyond the seawall, littered among machine gun nests and bunkers, a hundred more lay bleeding to death. Yet none of them moved or cried for help to come and get them. For they knew that a cry would bring a dozen mates recklessly to the rescue and perhaps to their deaths. No one cried the anguish of the hot burning in his belly or the unbearable pain of a ripped limb. The wounded lay in silence with thoughts of a land far away…no one cried.
Landing craft moved for the pier with life-giving blood and death-dealing ammunition. They dumped their loads on the pier’s edge, five hundred yards into the lagoon. There was no call for volunteers as each man silently assigned himself to wade out and bring supplies in through the rattle of sniper fire from the pilings, and through the storm of bullets and shells that other desperate men, the Japanese, turned on them from the bunkers.
Sitting in water, with his back propped against the seawall, a newspaper correspondent squinted as he held his paper toward the moon’s light and wrote with a pencil stub:
It is hard to believe what I see about me. As I write this story I do not know whether you will ever read it, for tomorrow morning will find me dead. I am on the island of Betio, on a coral atoll named Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands. Like the men around me, I await a counterattack. We all know we are going to die, yet there is no confusion, no shouting, no outward sign of nervous strain or of a crack in our mental armor. I didn’t realize that men could show such courage. Never have men, and boys, faced sacrifice so gallantly. Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, the Alamo, Belleau Wood…well, today we have a new name to add: TARAWA. For this is the hour of the Second Marine Division, the Silent Second.
An aide led a small, dark and grimy sailor into the operations room on the
Maryland.
The bleary-eyed, depressed commanders paid small notice as they waited desperately for word from Carpe.
“Sir,” the aide said to General Philips, “this man is a coxswain from the
Haywood.
He has a plan you might be able to use.”
Philips looked up at the pilot of the landing craft which had made fifteen runs to Blue Beach during the day. “What is it, son?”
“Sir,” the sailor said, “the supplies aren’t getting in.”
“We know that.”
“I have an idea that might be able to clear the snipers from under the pier and let us use it as protection.”
Tod Philips had long ago learned that wisdom and improvisation can often come from the lowest ranks. He invited the worn sailor to sit and asked his plan.
“I have found a spot in the barrier reef that is slightly lower than the rest of the reef. I think I can get a shallow draft boat over it if it is lightly loaded. The tide is up to the seawall and that will give an extra lift. If I had a crew of flamethrowers I could make a couple of quick passes right next to the pier, burn the snipers from under the pilings, and give the Marines a chance to move in.”
“They’ll rip your boat to pieces, sailor. How about an alligator?”
“An alligator would be too slow. If you have an old type Higgins’ boat or a skipper’s craft with just three or four men in it, sir, I’m sure I’d be able to get enough speed up. With a break we can make it.”
“It’s worth a try,” General Bryant said.
“The ammo and plasma aren’t getting in now. We can’t gun them from under the pier and they’re picking off the Marines as fast as they wade out for supplies,” the sailor argued.
“What about the Jap fire from land?” Philips asked.
“It’s wild, sir. They’re pouring it into the pier but if we have control of the pilings we’ll be able to get most of the stuff through underneath.”
“Snipes! Get the Eighteenth Marines. Have a flamethrower team stand by. Have an alternate team in ready in case something goes wrong with the first pass.”
The sailor arose and extended his hand. “Thanks for the opportunity, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“By the way,” Bryant said, “what is your name, sailor?”
“Bos’n’s Mate Herman Rommel, sir.”
“Not any relation to Rommel the German Field Marshal by any chance?” Philips asked, half amused.
“The sonofabitch is a cousin, sir.” The little sailor left.
For a moment everyone looked at the tired general. The butts of twenty cigars lay dispersed about the table and floor. Tod Philips sat there, slumped down in his chair. Each tick of the clock brought the red-rimmed eyes up for a look. They had been there for six hours.
“No counterattack yet. Carpe has the new radio,” Foul Ball spoke. His nervous hands reached for a cigarette.
“They’ve got something up their sleeve, Tod. Or they are rubbing it in and waiting for the Kill.”
“Any report on Jap mortar fire?”
“Sporadic.”
Some thought the General had lifted his head and said, “Thanks, God.” But it must have been a mistake, for this was Foul Ball Philips and he knew no God except the Marine Corps. He rose and gave an order.
“Contact the Eighth Marines. Have them move in at zero six hundred. Contact Carpe and tell him I want every man to go over the seawall when the Eighth hits the barrier reef. He’ll have to move or we’ll never make it. Snipes, you go in on the first wave and relieve Carpe. Tell him he’s due for a Congressional Medal—come on, you people! I need a cigar.”
On Blue Beach One the stench of death was everywhere. No wind, not the slightest zephyr to drive away the smell. The odor of rotted bodies, gangrened limbs and dried blood. Caked with layers of coral dust, cut, bleeding, thirsty, worn beyond endurance, the living clutched their rifles in disbelief as the first rays of a new dawn crept to the edge of the horizon.
The silent wounded lifted their gory heads to the lagoon.
The Eighth Marines were coming in!
Dawn brought new life to the Second Marines. They poised their battered bodies for a surge over the seawall. Colonel Carpe lifted himself, reeling to his feet. His aide phoned the order along Blue Beach: “Fix bayonets…prepare to advance.”
The Tenth Marines, who still had workable artillery, clattered and rumbled a weak and insufficient covering fire.
Carpe drew his pistol and shouted down the line of men crouched behind the seawall, “Let’s get the yellow sons of bitches!”
Like the dead arisen from the graves on Allhallow’s Eve, the remains of the Second Regiment burst over the wall to the attack. Admiral Shibu had been killed in the night, his plan of counterattack locked in his mind. After hours of futile argument, the Japanese had been caught off guard. Their fire was concentrated on the reinforcements coming through the lagoon. Before they could shift the hailstorm of lead, the Second had cut across the arced fantail of the island which was designated as Green Beach. With extraordinary energy the Marines slugged forward for a hundred yards and cut off the fortifications in that zone. Then the momentum of their surge petered out and they were unable to advance further. They dug in on the precious new ground and waited for the Eighth to fill the holes in their blasted lines.
A slug had ripped Colonel Carpe’s tough hide. This time he dropped, unable to rise. He was dragged back to the CP, protesting. At last he consented to accept aid if it could be given to him near the phone where he could maintain control of the battle. It was in this condition that General Snipes limped up to him.
“Hello, Carpe.”
“Get hit, Snipes?”
“Stepped into a pothole coming in, twisted my ankle. What’s the situation?”
“We made a few yards, got control of Green Beach. How are the reinforcements coming?”
“Lousy. They’re giving them hell again.”
By midday, what was left of the Eighth Marines was ashore and only fifty more blood-drenched yards had been gained against the paralyzing fire of the enemy. Reports of stiffer opposition came in to the command post with each grueling yard gained. Locked in close combat, the men of Japan and America fought and killed each other with the fury and hatred and passion of bereaved animals. At last Snipes radioed to the
Maryland:
V
IOLET TO
R
OCKY
:
THE ISSUE IS IN DOUBT
.
The drive had run out of gas. Snipes, the ex-Raider, master of hand-to-hand death, snarled and spat at the vicious courage of his foe. Cursing and hoping for a sudden reversal, he finally admitted, “We’ll have to ask them to release the Sixth Marines.”
A salty old gunner nearby snarled, “Them goddam pogey baits will come in now and swear they won the battle all by themselves.”
“Listen, you bastard,” Snipes growled, “I don’t care if it takes a bunch of Zulu headhunters throwing spears. We need help.”
“Have you heard from Paxton at Makin?” Philips asked.
“Yes, sir. They are proceeding slowly against heavy sniper fire. They estimate six hundred Japs.”
“Well, we’ve got six thousand here. Radio him that he’s on his own. We’re sending the Sixth Marines in.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Tod,” Bryant said, “we’d better land them through Green Beach. I’m afraid to try that lagoon again.”
“What do you think, Parks?”
“There are minefields and barbed wire and tank traps,” the Admiral said.
“If we take another bath in the lagoon we may be beaten,” Bryant argued. “This is the last thing we’ve got. If we don’t get the drive rolling quick we’re done. We can’t count on help from Paxton.”
“You’re right!” Philips snapped. “The Army will be farting around on Makin for a week. Send Lincoln Red in through Green Beach. Hold Lincoln Blue in ready.”
A message from an aircraft carrier fell on the General’s desk: A
IR TO ROCKY
. S
EVERAL HUNDRED
J
APS SEEN WADING FROM
H
ELEN TO
S
ARAH
.
“We’d better land Lincoln White on Bairiki, clear it and set up the rest of artillery. If the other two battalions of the Sixth make a breakthrough, the Japs might pull a retreat to Bairiki. Besides, we’ll need every piece of artillery we can get into operation.”
“I hope opposition on Bairiki is light. Whose outfit is Lincoln White?”
“Huxley’s…Sam Huxley’s.”
“Oh, the hiking fool.”
“Right. Contact Lincoln Red. Move to Green Beach at once. Get Huxley and tell him to clean out Bairiki and stop any further retreat. As soon as he clears the island have all remaining artillery move in and set up to blast. Don, this is it…the blue chips are down. The pogey baits had better be on the ball!”
“NOW
hear this, now hear this. Marines, man your landing stations.”
Huxley’s Whores scrambled up the ladder topside. Nervous chatter filled the crowded deck of the
J. Franklin Bell
in the high-noon heat.
“O.K., goddammit,” I ordered. “Fall in and cover down. Answer up when your name is called.”
“I hope they saved something for us.”
“Did you hear? The First Battalion is going wild.”
“Quiet down, you people.”
Sam Huxley paced the steel deck to our station. Without a word he looped his long legs over the rail and jumped into the landing craft which hung from the davits. Ziltch, with much more difficulty under the load of Huxley’s maps, plopped in after.
“O.K., girls,” I said. “First rank move in. Hang on to those guidelines until we are lowered into the water. On the double!”
There was confusion as to our destination. For an hour we circled about the control boat. It wasn’t long before the bumpy ride had rocked us green-gilled.
“If you got to puke, puke inside. Puke outside and it blows back in your face.”
The landing craft plodded into the lagoon and chopped and bounced over the waves. We huddled in close to try to duck the splashes of spray that splattered over the ramp. It seemed we moved at a drone’s pace for mile after mile.
I was in the front of the boat. It continued past the smoking island of Betio till I caught sight of the slanted outline of Sarah or Bairiki, on a downward dip. She was a sharp contrast to the hell in back of me. Palms and white sands beckoned almost lovingly.
Crouched up front, a sudden paralyzing thought shot through my mind. These might be my last minutes on earth. Another ten minutes might find me dead. As the boat dropped I caught a glimpse of the treetops on Sarah and I was struck with a vision of a cross on the coral shore with my name on it. I got queasy all over and for a moment wanted to jump out into the water and get away. I felt the palms of my hands sweat and wiped them against my dungarees just in time to catch a deluge of salt water down the back of my neck. What if a thousand Japs were waiting for us on Bairiki? What if we caught the same thing the Second and Eighth got? We’d be dead ducks…we had nothing in back of us!