Battle of Makin
Battle of Makin | |||||||
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Part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign of the Pacific Theater (World War II) | |||||||
Soldiers of the US Army's 2nd Battalion, 165th Infantry, struggle to shore on Yellow Beach on Butaritari Island. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States Gilbert and Ellice Islands | Japan | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Richmond K. Turner Ralph C. Smith | Seizo Ishikawa | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
27th Infantry Division | Gilberts Invasion Special Landing Force | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
6,470 soldiers 3 escort carriers 4 old battleships 4 heavy cruisers 16 destroyers 9 transports & landing ships |
400 soldiers 400 Japanese and Korean labourers 3 light tanks 4 anti-tank guns 1 submarine | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
763 killed (697 Navy, 66 Army) 185 wounded 1 escort carrier sunk 1 battleship lightly damaged |
395 killed 17 soldiers captured 129 Korean labourers captured 1 submarine damaged |
The Battle of Makin was an engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought from 20 to 24 November 1943 on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.
Background
Japanese invasion and fortification
On 10 December 1941, three days after the
Heavy aircraft losses and the disabling of four heavy cruisers during the bombing of Rabaul meant that the original Japanese plan of a strike at the American invasion fleet by forces based at Truk in the nearby Caroline Islands was scrapped. The garrisons at Tarawa and Makin were left to their fate.
Marine raid on Makin
On 17 August 1942, 211
After Carlson's raid, the Japanese reinforced the Gilberts. Makin was garrisoned with a single company of the 5th Special Base Force (700–800 men) in August 1942, and work on both the seaplane base and coastal defenses of the atoll was resumed in earnest. By July 1943 the seaplane base on Makin was completed and ready to accommodate Kawanishi H8K "Emily" flying boat bombers, Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplane fighters and Aichi E13A "Jake" reconnaissance seaplanes. Its defenses were also completed, although they were not as extensive as on Tarawa Atoll—the main Japanese Navy air base in the Gilberts. The Chitose and 653rd Air Corps were detached and deployed here. While the Japanese were building up their defenses in the Gilberts, American forces were making plans to retake the islands.
U.S. plans to attack
The end of the Aleutian Islands campaign and progress in the Solomon Islands, combined with increasing supplies of men and material, gave the United States Navy the resources to make an invasion of the central Pacific in late 1943. Admiral Chester Nimitz had argued for this invasion earlier in 1943, but the resources were not available to carry it out at the same time as Operation Cartwheel, the envelopment of Rabaul in the Bismarck Islands. The plan was to approach the Japanese home islands by "island hopping": establishing naval and air bases in one group of islands to support the attack on the next. The Gilbert Islands were the first step in this chain.
In June 1943, the
On 4 September, the
The 27th Infantry Division was tasked to supply the landing force, with one regimental combat team (the 165th Infantry Regiment, the famed
Planning for the 27th Infantry Division's role in "Galvanic" (the Army portion was codenamed "
However, in September 1943 the 27th's objective changed. The difficulty of providing adequate naval and air support of simultaneous operations at Tarawa and the much more distant Nauru, plus lack of sufficient transport to carry the entire division required to take the larger, more heavily defended Nauru, caused Admiral Nimitz to shift the 27th's objective from Nauru to Makin Atoll, in the northeast Gilberts. The 27th Infantry Division staff learned the change of target on 28 September, scrapped the original Nauru plan, and began planning to capture Makin.[3]
Prelude
The invasion fleet, Task Force 52 (TF 52) commanded by Rear Admiral
On the eve of invasion, the Japanese garrison on Makin Atoll's main island,
The number of trained combat troops on Makin was not more than 300 soldiers.Butaritari's land defenses were centered around the lagoon shore, near the seaplane base in the central part of the island. There were two tank barrier systems: the west tank barrier extended from the lagoon two-thirds of the way across Butaritari, was 12 to 13 feet (4.0 m) wide and 15 feet (4.6 m) deep, and was protected by one anti-tank gun in a concrete pillbox, six machine gun positions, and 50 rifle pits. The east tank barrier, 14 feet (4.3 m) wide and 6 feet (1.8 m) in depth, stretched from the lagoon across two-thirds of the island and bent westward with log antitank barricades at each end. It was protected by a double apron of barbed wire and an intricate system of gun emplacements and rifle pits.
A series of strongpoints was established along Butaritari's ocean side, with 8-inch (200 mm) coastal defense guns, three 37 mm anti-tank gun positions, 10 machine gun emplacements and 85 rifle pits. The Japanese expected the invasion to come on the ocean side of Butaritari, following the example of Carlson's raid in 1942, and established their defenses two miles (3.2 km) from where the raid had taken place. Without aircraft, ships, or hope of reinforcement or relief, the outnumbered and outgunned defenders could only hope to delay the coming American attack for as long as possible.
Battle
Invasion
Air operations against Makin began on 13 November 1943, with B-24 bombers of the
Troops began to go ashore at two beaches at 08:30 on 20 November. The initial landings on Red Beach went according to plan with the assault troops moving rapidly inland after an uneventful trip on the ocean side of the island. Their progress off the beach was slowed only by an occasional sniper and the need to negotiate their way around the debris and water-filled craters left by the air and naval bombardment. The craters in particular stymied tank support of the Red Beach forces by the light tanks of the 193rd Tank Battalion when the lead M3 Stuart light tank became partially submerged in a shellhole and blocked passage of all the vehicles behind it.
As the landing craft approached Yellow Beach from the lagoon, they began to receive small-arms and machine-gun fire from the island's defenders. The assault troops were also surprised to discover that even though they were approaching the beach at high tide as planned, a miscalculation of the lagoon's depth caused their small boats to go aground, forcing them to walk the final 250 yards (230 m) to the beach in waist-deep water. Equipment and weapons were lost or water-soaked, and three men were killed approaching the beach, mainly because the defenders chose to make their final stand farther inland along the tank barriers.
The U.S. invasion plan was conceived in the hope of luring the Japanese into committing most of its forces to oppose the first landings on Red Beach and thereby allow the troops landing on Yellow Beach to attack from the rear. The Japanese, however, did not respond to the attack on Red Beach and withdrew from Yellow Beach with only harassing fire, leaving the troops of the 27th Division no choice but to knock out the fortified strongpoints one by one. Reduction operations were hampered by the frequent inability to use heavy support weapons, including tanks, because of the danger of cross-fire. The commander of the 165th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Gardiner Conroy, was killed in action by a Japanese sniper on the afternoon of the first day and was succeeded by Colonel Gerard W. Kelley.[6]
Capture of Makin
Two days of determined fighting reduced Japanese resistance. After clearing the entire atoll, Smith reported on the morning of 23 November, "Makin taken, recommend command pass to commander garrison force."[7]
The most difficult problem capturing Makin was coordinating the actions of two separate landing forces, made more difficult because the defenders did not respond as anticipated. The unsuitability of the narrow beaches for supply landing operations—which went undiscovered by pre-invasion reconnaissance—was also a severe handicap.
Sinking of USS Liscome Bay
In the early hours of 24 November the escort carrier and flagship
The loss of the Liscome Bay on the eve of
Aftermath
The complete occupation of Makin took four days and cost considerably more in naval casualties than in ground forces. Despite possessing great superiority in men and weapons, the 27th Division had difficulty subduing the island's small defense force. One Japanese Ha-Go tank was destroyed in combat, and two tanks placed in revetments were abandoned without being used in combat.
Against an estimated 395 Japanese killed in action during the operation,[9] American ground casualties numbered 66 killed and 152 wounded. U.S. Navy losses were significantly higher: 644 deaths on the Liscome Bay, 43 killed in a turret fire on the battleship USS Mississippi, and 10 killed in action with naval shore parties or as aviators, for a total of 697 naval deaths. The overall total of 763 American dead almost equalled the number of men in the entire Japanese garrison.[10]
Notes
- ^ USMC History Division webpage for James Roosevelt, accessed 8 December 2009
- ^ Bruce F. Meyers, Swift, Silent, and Deadly: Marine Amphibious Reconnaissance in the Pacific, 1942–1945, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004).
- ^ The Capture of Makin (20–24 Nov 1943) Archived 21 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Center of Military History, U.S. Army, p. 6.
- ^ The Capture of Makin Archived 2011-05-21 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 107–108. Unit identifications here were sourced from actual documents recovered during the battle.
- ^ The United States Army in World War II: Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls, p. 71. This source lists the number of troops of the 111th (which the previous source omitted) but shorts the aviation units. The total listed is the result of itemized personnel from both sources.
- ^ The Capture of Makin Archived 2011-05-21 at the Wayback Machine p. 78.
- ^ The Capture of Makin Archived 2011-05-21 at the Wayback Machine, p. 124.
- ^ "USS Liscome Bay: Hit By a Torpedo Near Makin Atoll During World War II"
- ^ Japanese survivors continued to the U.S. garrison for more than a month after the battle, and except for 104 prisoners, all but 3 of whom were Korean, the entire Japanese force was annihilated. The Capture of Makin Archived 2009-04-28 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 124, 130.
- ^ The Capture of Makin Archived 2011-05-21 at the Wayback Machine, p. 131.
References
- ASIN B0007FBB8I.
External links
- Cagney, James (2005). "Invasion of Tarawa and Makin". Pacific War. HistoryAnimated.com. Archived from the original on 20 July 2008. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
- United States Army Center of Military History (1946). "The Capture of Makin (20–24 November 1943)". American Forces in Action. Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. Archived from the original on 14 December 2007. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
- Newell, Lt. Col. Clayton R. (2003). Central Pacific 1941–1943. The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II. United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-4. Archived from the original on 2 February 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
- Crowl, Philip A.; Edmund G. Love (1955). "Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls". United States Army in World War II – The War in the Pacific. Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. Archived from the original on 22 January 2007. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
- George C., Dyer, Vice Admiral, USN (RET) (1956). "The Amphibians Came to Conquer". The Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, Chapter 17, The Pushover – Makin. Director of Naval History, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. )