HEAVY U.S. LOSSES

Grey River Argus, 29 November 1943, Page 5

HEAVY U.S. LOSSES

ON GILBERT ISLANDS 6000 Enemy Casualties [Aust, w N.Z. Press Assn.l WASHINGTON, Nov. 26. American losses in operations on Tarawa Island in the Gilbert Group, were very heavy, said the Secretary of the United States Naw (Colonel Frank Knox), at a press conference in Washington to-day. He added that it was bitter, -hard fighting. Colonel Knox said that he was unable to estimate the total casualties, but' the Japanese suffered heavier losses. The entire Japanese garrison of 4000 men was believed to havebeen lost. American casualties on Makin Island was very slight. The first wounded soldiers from Makin Island who have arrived at Hawaii by air transport, said that very few Japanese were taken prisoner. The Americans landed tanks and artillery without air opposition. The Japanese force was not large, but it sniped from the tree tops and redoubts with deep tunnels, from which it was necessary to wipe them out singly. That is why the conquest of the main island took three days. (Rec. 7.35.) WASHINGTON, Nov. 26. Only a few hundred out of between two thousand and three thousand United States Marines escaped death or injury in the first landing at Tarawa atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Colonel Knox has warned that, although the Gilbert Islands have been occupied after only four days of fighting, the public should be prepared for heavy American losses. ■ Colonel Knox estimated the Japanese casualties there at six thousand men. There were few of the Japanese taken alive. The landings were made on November 20 on the Tarawa, Abemana and Makin Islands. One war correspondent says: -‘The stiffest price in human life per yard ever exacted in the history of the United States Marines was paid for Tarawa.” Lieut-Colonel Evans Carlton, a well-known commando leader, said that the Japanese had been warned in advance of the impending American invasion. He said: “The position on the Tarawa atoll at the end or the first day was so critical that any Japanese counter-attack might have exterminated the Americans, who held only three narrow beach-heads, one hundred and fifty yards deep.” He said that the heaviest American naval shell-fire failed to wipe out strong enemy defence installations. There were pill-boxes five feet thick, which could not be penetrated by the seventy-five millimetre guns, the Marines had to storm their way ashore through treacherous coral reefs and high surf, which upset their light invasion craft. Wave after wave of the Americans had to struggle for five hundred vards through water that was neck deep. They did this under a murderous fire They met General Tojo’s Imperial Marines, the elite of the Japanese forces. "Nowhere can the smell of death, lineerino- over shell-pocked beaches and shattered block-houses be escaped,” writes one correspondent. “Dead Japanese lie in the rums or burned-out pill-boxes, in the. suri, and scattered among palm fronds, where they had perched as snipers; Japs Hard to Beat (Rec. 11.0.) NEW YORK, Nov. 28. The ‘‘New York Times’s” correspondent at Pearl Harbour says: in a momentary pause before the next lean in the direction of Tokio, trained U.S. Navy observers are passing on lessons that have been learned in the costlv invasion of the * s a lands, particularly of the Tarawa atoll. There is no question mat we learned a great deal in our first mXof a*coral atoll For example, the next invaders will have blue prints of ingenious Japanese revetments, whose, walls are made of coco nut trees, with sand coral and stone packed into the walls to form bar Sers four and five feet thick The Japanese also successfully used Jnfiltration tactics and trickery to de ay their eventual elimination. But one thin°- is certain. In spite of our co - tinned successes and steady advance~ into the enemy « arc of k g n - fences the Japanese are not weaken inn- They still die crymp- ban J a -, In the Gilberts the Japanese cha g laughing and crying hysterici c eJ.. hopeless It s saw to keep this m mind. A bacmc Advance will be costly against the doZS. fanatical resistance of a foe who does not know how- to sur render.” ———