Chapter 32 Mountain of Swords and Sea of ​​Swords

On November 20, at 8:45 in the morning, the crawler landing vehicle transported the marines into the lagoon in three groups, and then waded towards the shore.Soon, they came under fire from Japanese guns.These firepowers are very scattered and do not pose much threat to the landing vehicle, which shows that after being bombarded for a long time, the Japanese army's fear has not been relieved immediately. But from the fourth wave, the situation is not so good, because they are in landing craft. For general landing craft, it must have a water depth of at least 1.2 meters to sail. However, when the US military landed, it encountered the low tide of Betio Island, and the beach reef (that is, coral reef) area connected to the beach happened to be at the shallowest time of the day. The water depth is no more than 0.6 to 0.9 meters at best.

What some commanders worried about before finally happened. The landing craft ran aground outside the reef and could not move forward.The Marines had to jump into the water, hold their weapons high above their heads, and wade toward the shore on foot. At this time, there were still 700 yards (about 640 meters) away from the shore, and all the marines were carrying heavy equipment. Even if they marched on an ordinary beach, it would be enough to exhaust a strong person to death, not to mention that it was a reef—— The bottom of the sea is full of solid coral reefs, like a mountain of swords and a sea of ​​swords.

It's a snail's pace.Some people even fell into a particularly deep depression while walking and accidentally drowned.The marines walking in the shallow water had a hard time. In addition to guarding their feet, they also had to avoid the rain of Japanese guns in front of them. Before, the U.S. military thought that after such a long period of heavy shelling, the Japanese army on Betio Island must have lost its defense capabilities.Someone judged: "It seems that there are no living things on the island, and the troops are close to the coast. It seems that they only need to go to the island." Others speculated: "The marines will go in standing, and there will be no more than 50 Japanese soldiers alive on the island. "

In fact, the Japanese command posts, bunkers, and concealed artillery positions in the bunker were almost not seriously damaged, and most of the Japanese soldiers were also safe and sound. They could still use small-caliber artillery and machine rifles to seal off the beach and attack the American landing troops. to shoot. What was in front of us was no longer a landing on the beach, but an extremely tragic massacre, and the sea water above the reef turned from blue to red.There are some lucky ones who miraculously landed on their own strength, but they are only a few, and most of them sank to the bottom of the sea or fell on the beach.

Due to the fierce Japanese artillery fire, neither the wounded nor the dead could be transported down in time.If the crawler landing vehicles that have not landed on the shore do not want to run over the dead and injured, they can only retreat into the sea and make a detour. As a result, four crawler vehicles sank, and all the occupants were suffocated inside. It became a living target for Japanese artillery. After hearing the news, Major General Julian Smith, the commander of the Second Marine Division, had to order the suspension of the attack after the sixth wave to avoid more unnecessary losses.This means that the disembarked troops must fight on their own until follow-up reinforcements are restarted.

According to the different positions of the landing beaches, the U.S. military named "Red First Beach", "Red Second Beach" and "Red Third Beach".The 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Marine Regiment who landed on the "Red Beach" was caught in the side fire from both sides of the Japanese army. Most of the crawler landing vehicles lost their mobility after being shot, and only a few barely made it to the shore.In addition, the second battalion of the second marine regiment that landed from "Red Second Beach" and the second battalion of the eighth marine regiment that landed from "Red Third Beach" all rushed to the beach.

The situation for the landed troops was very dangerous.As an old unit that participated in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Second Marine Division is no stranger to the Japanese and their tactics, but on this coral island, they have to be the same as the fledgling rookie unit - the 27th Infantry Division Learn from scratch. If the coastline of an island is long enough, even if the defenders use magic tricks, they will not be able to fortify all the points. As long as you find a suitable point, it will not be too difficult to stand on the beach. Both Guadalcanal Island and Bougainville Island That's right.Betio Island is different. The coast here is only one and a half miles long. After 15 months of construction by the Japanese army, it has almost become an iron wall.

The troops who went ashore could only lie on their stomachs, and when they stood up, they would become the target of shooting from several directions, thus becoming ghosts under the gun.Everyone knows that if the beachhead defenses are not organized quickly, the Japanese army only needs to launch a major counterattack to wipe them out on the beachhead. The U.S. forces in the first, second, and third attack waves were organized in a relatively orderly manner, but due to the large losses in the fourth, fifth, and sixth attack waves, the remaining troops were defeated and disorganized when they reached the beach.Some junior officers and veterans took the initiative to take responsibility and organized the people around them, regardless of which unit they belonged to, to fill in the beachhead defense line.

It was after Xiao Pu's arrival that they really condensed into an organic fighting whole.At 10:30 am, Colonel Shoppe, commander of the assault force and head of the Second Marine Regiment, landed and set up a command post in an occupied Japanese stronghold. It was also a coincidence that Xiao Pu came to the front line to command operations.He used to be the chief of operations at the division headquarters, and it happened that the former head of the Second Marine Regiment was injured during the exercise, so he was temporarily assigned to this position a week ago. Xiao Pu is not a simple staff member. He is a regular marine and has many years of experience in leading troops to fight.Another advantage was that when the Second Marine Division was drafting the combat plan, he was still in charge of the division's operations section, so he had a clear understanding of the island's terrain, the Japanese army's fortifications, and the Second Marine Division's attack plan.It can be said that no one in the whole division knows better than him about the attack on Betio Island.

There are about 2,600 Japanese marines on Betio Island, all of whom are the same elite soldiers as the Second Marine Division.In addition, there were 1,000 Japanese engineers and 1,200 Korean laborers on the island. Some of the engineers had received military training and were equipped with weapons. Therefore, the number of combat-capable Japanese troops on the island should be estimated at 3,000.The Second Marine Division is a strengthened division with about 16,000 men, but according to the original plan, the division left one regiment as a reserve team, and the remaining two regiments also left reserve teams, which made the actual number of troops participating in the battle seriously insufficient.

It is a basic military principle that the strength of the assault landing force should be at least twice that of the defenders.After Xiaopu went ashore, he quickly established a telephone network with the combat troops that had already landed, and ordered the regiment reserve team to go into battle immediately. At the same time, he requested the division headquarters to provide naval artillery and air fire support immediately through radio. Division commander Julian Smith not only complied with Shope's request, but also drew half of his troops from the division reserve to reinforce the heavily damaged Marines.After that, Holland Smith, who was commanding the battle in Butaritari, also responded to their request and allocated a reserve force from the Fifth Amphibious Army under his command for reinforcements, which greatly enhanced the attack power of Shope's troops. Critics of war history believe that all the decisive decisions made by Shope in the Betio Island landing battle have been proved to be very reasonable and effective in practice.He almost commanded the entire landing battle alone. His calm command style and keen military genius saved the fate of the Second Marine Division in this landing battle at the most critical moment.