Battle for Makin
The Battle of Makin took place during the Pacific War in World War II, held from November 20 to November 23 1943rd It was part of Operation Galvanic and its goal was to occupy the Butaritari Atoll, which at the time was called Makin Atoll by the Americans and belongs to the Gilbert Islands .
background
With an improved supply of troops and equipment, the end of the Battle of the Aleutian Islands and the progress made in the Solomon Islands , the United States Navy was in a position to prepare for an invasion of the Central Pacific by the end of 1943. Admiral Chester Nimitz had already pleaded for this invasion in the spring of 1943, but the military resources did not allow it to be carried out at the same time as Operation Cartwheel .
The plan was to approach the Japanese islands using the so-called island hopping method : this meant setting up naval and air bases on one group of islands to prepare for the attack on the next. The Gilbert Islands formed the first link in this chain.
Japanese occupation of Makins in 1941
On December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor , 300 Japanese soldiers and additional workers of the so-called Gilbert's special invasion force landed on the Makin Atoll and occupied it without resistance. Due to its location east of the Marshall Islands, the Makin Atoll represented an excellent seaplane base , expanding the airspace monitored by flight patrols in the direction of the Allied- occupied Howland Island , Baker Island , Phoenix Islands and Ellice Islands in order to protect the eastern flank of the Japanese sphere of influence from Allied attack protect.
Navy attack on Makin 1942
On August 17, 1942, 211 Marines of the Second Marine Raider Battalion, under the command of Colonel Evans Carlson and Captain James Roosevelt , landed by two submarines, the USS Nautilus and the USS Argonaut . The Japanese garrison, on the other hand, had only 83 to 160 men under the command of just one officer on watch. The Raiders killed at least 83 Japanese soldiers, annihilated the entire garrison and destroyed military facilities on the island, with 21 Americans mostly killed by air strikes and 9 captured. The Japanese took their captives to Kwajalein Atoll , where they were later beheaded. One aim of the attack was to confuse the Japanese about the US intentions in the Pacific, but the opposite effect was achieved: The Japanese were made aware of the strategic importance of the Gilbert Islands, which led to their further reinforcement and fortification.
After Carlson's attack, the Japanese increased their crews on the Gilbert Islands, which had originally been too lightly guarded. Makin became a garrison town in August 1942 with a single company of the 5th Base Special Forces (700-800 men), and work on both the seaplane base and the coastal defense of the atoll continued in earnest. In July 1943, the seaplane base on Makin was completed and ready for landing for aircraft of the types Kawanishi H8K (allied code name Emily ), Nakajima A6M2-N ( calls ) and Aichi E13A ( Jake ). Defense measures were also completed, although they were not as extensive as those at Tarawa Atoll, the archipelago's main Japanese naval air base . The Japanese aircraft carrier Chitose and the 653rd Air Corps were stationed on Tarawa. While the Japanese were building their defenses for the archipelago, plans were being made by the American forces to retake the islands.
American attack plans
In June 1943, on the orders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Chester W. Nimitz , the Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC), a plan for the occupation of the Marshall Islands was to be presented. Initially, Nimitz and Admiral Ernest J. King , the Chief of Naval Operations, wanted to attack directly into the heart of the Japanese outer defense ring. However, any plan that included the attack on the Marshalls directly from Pearl Harbor would have required significantly more troops and transports than the Pacific Fleet could muster at that time. Given these disadvantages and the limited combat experience of the US forces, King and Nimitz decided to take the Marshalls over the Ellice Islands and Gilbert Islands in a step-by-step process . The Gilbert Islands are within 200 miles (300 km) south of the Marshalls and were within range of United States Army Air Forces long- range B-24 bombers stationed on the Ellice Islands. They should carry out the bombing, support and long-range reconnaissance for the offensive operations on the archipelago. With these advantages in mind, on July 20, 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to attack the Tarawa Atoll and Abemama Atolls of the archipelago and the nearby island of Nauru . The operation was codenamed Operation Galvanic .
On September 4, the amphibious troops of the 5th US Fleet were combined to form the 5th Amphibious Corps under Marine Corps Major General Holland M. Smith . The V Amphibious Corps had only two divisions, the 2nd Marine Division, based in New Zealand , and the US Army 27th Infantry Division , based in Hawaii . The 27th Infantry Division was a unit of the New York National Guard before entering federal service in October 1940. She was transferred to Hawaii and stayed there for a year and a half before being selected for the invasion of the Gilbert Islands by Lieutenant General Robert C. Richardson, Jr., the commanding general of the Army in the Central Pacific. Captain James Jones (father of former Commandant of the Marine Corps James L. Jones ), commanding officer of the Amphibious Reconnaissance Company of the V Amphibious Corps, conducted a prior periscope survey of the Gilberts aboard the USS Nautilus for the most accurate information possible to get about the establishment of beachheads for the impending invasion.
The 27th Infantry Division was assigned to carry out the landing with the 165th Infantry Regiment , the famous "Fighting 69" of the New York National Guard, reinforced by a battalion from the 105th Infantry Regiment , the 105th Field Artillery Battalion and the 193th Tank Battalion . The landing operation was commanded by Maj. General Ralph C. Smith, a World War I veteran who had taken command of the division in November 1942. He was one of the most respected officers in the US Army at the time. In April 1943, the 27th Infantry Division began preparing for amphibious operations.
Planning for the 27th Division's role in Operation Galvanic (that part of the army was code-named "Kourbash") began in early August 1943, with the original target being the capture of the island of Nauru in the western Gilberts. Unlike other destinations, Nauru was an entire island, much larger and occupied by strong troops. In September 1943, however, the objectives of the 27th Division changed. Difficulties in providing adequate sea and air support with simultaneous operations on Tarawa and the distant Nauru Island, as well as a lack of sufficient transportation needed to land the entire division on the more fortified Nauru Island, prompted Admiral Nimitz to do the original Aim to relocate from Nauru to the Makin Atoll. The soldiers of the 27th Infantry Division learned of the change in their objective on September 28th. The Nauru plan was rejected and plans to conquer the Makin Atoll began.
Heavy aircraft losses and the elimination of four heavy cruisers in the Solomon Islands meant that the original Japanese plan to attack the American invasion fleet by forces stationed on Truk and the Caroline Islands was abandoned. The garrisons on Tarawa and Makin were left to their fate.
Course of the battle
Beginning
The Invading Fleet Task Force 52 (TF 52) under the command of Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner left Pearl Harbor on November 10, 1943. The Landing Force Task Group 52.6 consisted of units from the 27th Infantry Division under the command of Maj. Gen. Ralph C. Smith carried by the ships USS Neville , USS Leonard Wood , USS Calvert , and USS Pierce , as well as by the cargo ship USS Alcyone , the dock landing ship USS Belle Grove, and the task group's LST-31, LST-78 and LST-179 armored drop ships 52.1 .
On the eve of the invasion, the Japanese garrison on the main island of Makin Atoll, Butaritari , numbered 806 men: 284 naval ground forces, 108 aviation personnel from the 802 and 952nd Air Units, 138 men from the 111th Engineer Unit and 276 men from the Construction Department 4th Fleet and the Makin 3rd Panzer Special Force, all under the command of Lt.jg Seizo Ishikawa. The number of trained combat troops on Makin did not exceed 300 soldiers.
Butaritari's land defense was installed around the lagoon bank, near the seaplane base in the center of the island. There were two tank barrier systems: The western tank barrier extended two-thirds the length of Butaritaris from the lagoon and was 13 meters wide and 15 meters deep. It was protected by an anti-tank cannon in a bunker , flanked by six machine gun positions and 50 trenches. The eastern tank barrier was 14 meters wide and 6 meters deep. It extended from the lagoon, in a semi-arc to the west, over two-thirds of the island, and had anti-tank barricades at each end. It was protected by a double apron of barbed wire and a complicated system of gun emplacements and trenches.
Along the sea side of Butaritari, several places were reinforced with 200 mm coastal guns, three 37 mm anti-tank guns, 10 machine gun positions and 85 rifle pits. The Japanese anticipated the invasion of the seaside of Butaritari, modeled after the Carlson attack of 1942, and reinforced their defenses two miles (3 kilometers) from where the attack took place. With no planes, ships, or hope of reinforcements or evacuation, the defenders, outnumbered, could only hope to delay the coming American attack for as long as possible.
invasion
Air operations against Makin began on November 13 with Seventh Air Force B-24 bombers from the Ellice Islands . F4F "Wildcat" fighters escorted Douglas SBD - "Dauntless" - dive bombers and Grumman TBF "Avengers" from carriers Liscome Bay , Coral Sea and Corregidor ; supported by the 203mm guns of the Minneapolis heavy cruiser and other Navy warships. The troops landed on two beaches at 8:30 a.m. on November 20.
The first landing on RED Beach went according to plan. After landing without a fight on the sea side of the island, the troops quickly advanced inland. Their progress from the beach was only occasionally slowed down by snipers and the destruction and water-filled bomb craters of previous bombings. The bomb craters in particular hindered the tank support for the RED Beach forces. The light tanks of the 193rd Panzer Battalion were stopped by their lead tank which had fallen into a water hole and prevented them from continuing.
As the landing craft approached the YELLOW section of beach from the lagoon, they were hit by the anti-machine gun fire of the island defenders. The attacking troops were particularly surprised when they realized that, although they landed at high tide as planned, they were subject to a misjudgment of the lagoon depth and even their small LCVP landing craft ran aground. As a result, the troops had to walk the last 250 meters to the beach in waist-deep water.
Equipment and weapons were either lost or soaked in the water, but only three men fell as the soldiers neared the beach. This fortunate circumstance was due to the fact that the defenders had set up their line of defense further inland, along the anti-tank traps.
The plan of attack provided for the majority of the Japanese troops to be tied up with the first landing on RED beach and thus to relieve the troops of the second landing on YELLOW beach and to enable them to attack the defenders from behind. However, the enemy did not react to the attack on the RED beach and withdrew only a few forces from YELLOW. The troops of the 27th Division had no choice but to take out the individual fortified gun emplacements one after the other. The commander of the 165th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Gardiner Conroy, was killed by a Japanese sniper on the afternoon of the first day. Colonel Gerard W. Kelley succeeded him.
Taking Makin
Two days of determined struggle gradually diminished enemy resistance. After the conquest of the entire atoll, the commander of the 27th Division, Major General Ralph C. Smith, reported on the morning of November 23: "Makin has been taken". In the end, the most difficult problem with capturing Makin was coordinating the two landing forces, who fought in separate actions, especially since the defenders had not responded to the attack as expected. The inadequacy of the narrow beaches for the support, supply and landing of the troops also turned out to be a severe hindrance to a quick capture of the island.
In the early morning hours of November 24, the escort carrier Liscome Bay was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-175 , which had reached Makin just a few hours earlier. I-175 fired a single torpedo that hit the bomb load on Liscome Bay , causing a violent detonation and the immediate sinking of the ship. The attack on Liscome Bay caused the majority of American casualties in the attack on Makin.
Battle exit
The complete occupation of Makin lasted four days and cost significantly more losses in marines than in infantry ground troops. Despite the great numerical superiority of soldiers and weapons, the 27th Division had difficulties conquering the relatively small and poorly defended island. A Japanese Ha-Go tank was destroyed in combat and two other tanks that had been buried were abandoned by their crews.
It is estimated that 395 Japanese were killed during the operation. 66 men were killed and 152 wounded by the US Army. With 697 dead, the US Navy lost significantly more men, 644 of whom died in the sinking of Liscome Bay , 43 in the explosion of a turret of the battleship USS Mississippi and 10 in combat operations on landing or as an air support pilot. The total of 763 American deaths was almost equal to the number of men in the entire Japanese garrison.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ USMC History Division webpage for James Roosevelt, accessed December 8, 2009
- Jump up ↑ 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 (Nov 20-24, 1943) , Middle of Military History, U.S. Army, p. 6.
- ^ The Capture of Makin , pp. 107-108. The identification of the listed units was only made possible by the original documents of the battle plans.
- ↑ The United States Army in World War II: Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls , p. 71. This source lists all the troops of the 111th Engineer Unit (which is missing on the other). The total listed is the result of the broken down staff from both sources.
- ↑ The Capture of Makin p. 78.
- ↑ The Capture of Makin , p. 124.
- ↑ The US garrison found Japanese survivors more than a month after the battle, and all Japanese defenses were wiped out with the exception of 104 prisoners, all but three of whom were Koreans. The Capture of Makin , p. 124 and 130.
- ↑ The Capture of Makin , p. 131.