JAPAN SENT ITS BEST COMMANDER TO TARAWA. 4,500 OF HIS MEN WENT IN. 17 CAME OUT
In November 1943, Japan sent its most experienced commander to Betio — a two-mile island in the Pacific that he spent a year turning into the most fortified position in the war. Rear Admiral Keiji Shibazaki told his men it would take one million men one hundred years to take it.
It took the United States Marines 76 hours.
4,500 Japanese defenders went in. 17 came out.
This is the story of the Battle of Tarawa — told through the men who were there, the decisions that shaped it, and the 350 American Marines still missing today. If your father or grandfather served in the Pacific, leave their story in the comments. Those stories deserve to be remembered.
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