Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories · Evergreen Podcasts | The Honor Project

Amphibious Assault in the Pacific: From the Archive

·1 hr 4 min·2 clips

A Navy captain steps onto a coral spit under rifle fire and spends 15 minutes checking 20-25 Marines.

1. Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories presents an archive episode on the 20 November 1943 amphibious assault on Tarawa Atoll, a roughly 300-acre island held by about 5,000 Japanese troops. 2. The narrator frames the account, and the first-person speakers are Ed Moore, a Marine sergeant who drove one of 175 amphibious tractors, and Tommy Reed, a staff sergeant who landed in the fourth wave. 3. The episode sets the "first amphibious assault against heavily defended beaches in U.S. history" against the speakers' recollections of how the plan broke down after the first waves. 4. Moore describes two rehearsals on November 6 and 9 in the New Hebrides, then three assault waves 300 yards apart steering on the minesweeper USS Pursuit and signaling a left flank with semaphore flags held by platoon sergeant Lester H. Harrison. 5. He recounts crossing a reef 500-600 yards out and a sandbar 100 yards from the Bird's Beak, then reaching the seawall, where machine-gun rounds knocked out the dashboard wiring and the infantry bailed out of his vehicle. 6. Without a weapon, Moore ferried ammunition to machine gunners, was hit by mortar shrapnel and bandaged by Andrew Garcia, and refused evacuation for about two hours until a tank silenced an anti-boat gun. 7. On the way out aboard an LVT-2 bound for the USS Middleton, Moore watched an unidentified Navy captain get out onto a coral spit and spend 15 minutes confirming that every Marine there was dead. 8. Moore says that with vehicles knocked out, infantry waded ashore on their own, and he cites a Japanese prisoner (one of only 17 taken from about 4,800) who "couldn't understand what they had to gain by it." 9. Reed explains how 32 malaria attacks, a missed ship home, and a transfer into a band led him to command 14 men at Tarawa, where he was hit within 5-10 minutes of landing at Red Beach 1 and describes Eddie Cojohn pushing him out on debris after being wounded in the face. 10. Suited to listeners of Pacific War history and unfiltered veteran testimony.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories