 of the Second Marine Division. We're now embarking on a full-scale amphibious operation after many months of intensive training. In sports, our combat loaded. The ships of the Navy and Coast Guard form our convoy. Squadrons of carrier planes cover us in the sky. Several days from our destination, the destroyer brings us sealed orders. Don't belong now before we know who we're bound. The relief map of our objective is broken out. A fortified island of Betio and the Taro Airtel. A very important Jap air base on the outer fringe of their Pacific defenses. Our platoon leaders started explaining the terrain to us. By the time they were finished, we knew that island and its reefs as well as we knew our own backyards. We built more machine gun ammunition. Check and test fire all weapons. Exercise helped to relieve the tension. Navy and Coast Guard coxons received last minute instructions on formations, rendezvous areas, and departure times. Services are held in the last evening before D-Day. We liked listening to Father Kelly. He'd been with us at Guadalcanal. He had a way of saying what we wanted to hear. And we're killed the following morning. We are ready. Before daylight, we're over the side into amphibian tractors and landing boats. Vessels open fire for four solid hours. They pound Taroa with high explosives. When the ship stopped firing, the Navy planes would take over, bombing. And again, according to plan, the planes withdraw and the ship's batteries open up again. Over four million pounds of explosives have been dropped on the island. It didn't seem possible that anyone could live through that environment. Machine guns constantly strafed our assault waves. Each time a new crew took over, one of our planes scores a direct hit. The island, we have the feeling that the show is just about over. There doesn't seem to be any organized resistance. However, we're taking no chances. Suddenly, we're met by a heavy machine gun and mortar fire. It takes a heavy toll of our boats and men. It doesn't stop us. Across the fringing reef gives protection to a lot of our boys on the way in. Pretty good toehold on the beach, but jet fire pins us down for hours. The facilities are pretty high. But as we found out later, blood plasma saves a lot of lives. Reinforcements arrive. We start moving up. It's easy knocking those jabs out of their positions. They're hidden in trees behind revetments, buried pillboxes, bomb proofs, bunkers. Our rifle fire is deadly. And the mortars getting them out of places like this, we can never be sure where their snipers are placed. We take it slow, easy. This bunker is giving us plenty of trouble. We have orders to clean it up. Swim out to our wrecked amphibians and set up machine guns. The officer of the assault troops confers with his staff. One of our medium tanks remains in operation. At the end of the second day, D plus 1, we breathe a little easier. Motor squads continue to hammer enemy points of resistance. It's time we know the jabs are licked. They must know it too. They're still strong resistance. Nip suicide snipers tie themselves up in the trees and take pot shots at us. We hit them, but they don't fall. Just die and hang there. We're going to attack on the airfield. Another Marine goes out after him in a jeep under heavy machine gun fire. There's constant activity. Amphibians tow in fresh supplies, food, ammunition, guns. As the battle moves across the island, the chaplain's assistants tend the dead, removing the lower identification tag and leaving the duplicate on each Marine so there'll be no mistake later on. Generals Holland Smith and Julian Smith commanding the force and division. Admiral Harry Hill commanding the task force. Sometimes we actually have to dig the jabs out of their holes. The island is infested with buried pillboxes. Many of them still crawling with jabs. These bunkers were so constructed that heavy shelling and demolition charges failed to crumble them. Many of them were over 20 feet deep. Our first prisoners were then carried by stretcher to the boats. With them always at the Navy Hospital Corman and Navy doctors and surgeons. Transport, the steel litters are lifted from the barges and lowered into the hold. They're taken to the ship's hospital. Not a second is lost. Our Marine dead. This is the price we have to pay for a war we didn't want. And before it's over, there'll be more dead on other battlefields. Board ship for Marines killed in action. Just to make sure they're not concealing weapons, the prisoners are lined up in their clothes cut away. New ones later from their own dumps. Everyone's defending force is dead. None escaped. Tokyo once boasted that it would cost 100,000 of our men to take terror. We lost less than 1,000. But jabs over 4,000. A wounded Jap soldier. We took very few of these. Most of our prisoners were Korean laborers. One of our officers captured these jabs from a disabled landing boat. Prisoners carry their own wounded to the pier for evacuation. Captured Jap water. This is the first chance the boys have had to war since they got on the island. Gunfire from our warships knocked these big guns out early in the bombardment. These were English vickers guns captured by the Japs in Singapore. One of their many light tanks. This was the Jap command post, built of reinforced concrete several feet thick. That building was built to withstand plenty and did. We finally took it with TNT and flamethrowers. The fighting was still going on at one end of the island when the sea bees landed with their heavy equipment. They set to work clearing the airstrip even while we were fighting for it. It was just 24 hours after the sea bees had started to work. The second one lands one minute later. We welcomed the pilot to our new home. It was our first chance to thank those guys for the swell job they did for us before and during the attack. The E-plus-4, our relief came in. Maybe you think we weren't glad to see them. It was new from the first no matter how tough the going was that we take the island. Just the same the day the colors were run up on this palm tree and flew for the first time over Tarawa. We got all up in our throats. We were mighty proud.