Yanks ashore on third isle in mid-Pacific
Marines invade Apamama, widening offensive in Gilberts
By William F. Tyree, United Press staff writer
Yanks widen invasion of the Jap-held Gilbert Islands, with Marines storming ashore on Apamama (inset map) as heavy fighting raged on Makin and Tarawa Islands to the north. U.S. bombers attacked Nauru Island, near the Gilberts. In the Solomons, to the south, Jap forces were reported trapped on Bougainville. In the New Guinea area (lower left), Australian troops were closing in on the Japs at Sattelberg, 10 miles from Finschhafen.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii –
Marine veterans of the Solomons expanded the American mid-Pacific offensive today by storming a third Gilbert Islands atoll as other forces slowly crushed the bitterly resisting Japs on Tarawa and Makin.
The invasion of the Gilbert Islands marks the beginning of a new drive aimed directly at Japan across the Central Pacific, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said in Washington.
Bringing an increasingly heavy weight of men, ships and planes to bear on Japan’s cracking ocean outpost system, U.S. commanders sent Marines of the 2nd Division to win a landing on Apamama, 80 miles south of Tarawa.
Statement brief
Their success was announced by the unadorned statement, “we have landed on Apamama Atoll,” included in Adm. Chester W. Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet headquarters communiqué.
The report was equally blunt on other operations in the 72-hour-old invasion drive through the island-studded seaways protecting Japan’s broad empire conquests.
Improve positions
It said:
Our troops have improved their positions on Tarawa and Makin Atolls, but are still encountering considerable enemy ground resistance.
Tokyo radio today began making extravagant claims of success off the Gilberts. A broadcast quoted a communiqué as claiming a medium-sized aircraft carrier and a destroyer were sunk and 125 planes shot down around the Gilberts since last Friday. Loss of 15 planes was admitted. “Severe” fighting on the islands is continuing, especially on Tarawa, the Japs said.
While the fighting raged, Army Liberator bombers operating nonstop from undisclosed bases raided Nauru, phosphate mining island 500 miles west of the Gilberts, and the Marshalls, to the north, to prevent the Japs from sending air fleets from their nearby bases.
New Yorkers in action
Scene of the new landing by Marines who learned to whip the Japs at Guadalcanal was a coral islet 12 miles by five which had a pre-war population of 841. Wording of the communiqué indicated resistance was less on Apamama than on the other two islands, which were the most powerfully-developed in the chain astride the equator.
Other units of the 2nd Marines handled Tarawa while infantrymen of the 27th Division – New Yorkers – invaded Makin, it was announced, Lt. Col. James Roosevelt, son of the President, who accompanied Col. Evans F. Carlson’s Marine Raiders in a sweep of Makin in August 1942 aided the Army forces by landing with them.
The Marines were under Maj. Gen. Holland McT. Smith of Montgomery, Alabama, and Maj. Gen. Julian C. Smith of Elkton, Maryland, while a third Smith, Maj. Gen. Ralph Smith of Tucson, Arizona, was in charge of the 27th Division.
Other commanders of the operations were revealed as VAdm. John H. Hoover of Great Falls, Montana (chief of land-based air operations which preceded the attacks), VAdm, Richmond K. Turner of Carmel, California, Solomons veteran (commander of amphibious forces), and VAdm. Raymond A. Spruance of Indianapolis, Indiana, chief of all the invasion forces.
Berlin radio, quoting Tokyo, added to the Jap claims two large aircraft carriers damaged, one of which was presumed sunk, a medium-sized carrier damaged and presumed sunk; a battleship, a heavy cruiser and a transport damaged or set afire.
At the same time, reports carried from Tokyo by Berlin gave the first hint the Japs may be planning to give up the Gilberts, Berlin said that it was:
…stated in Tokyo that the invasion of the Gilberts was viewed without alarm since the Gilberts are of no importance for Japan as far as her defenses is concerned.
Ready for naval battle
While there was no indication the Japs were trying to send in reinforcements to save their positions, the strong fleet sent to back the invasion was believed waiting to repel any enemy effort – even to fighting a major sea battle.
CBS correspondent Webley Edwards, broadcasting from Honolulu last night, said the forces may “plow on through” toward Truk, the great Jap sea-air base 1,300 miles northwest.
It can now be revealed that the Army, Navy and Marine forces, in a move to coordinate all operations, set up a joint board for the Pacific with representatives of the services planning together the procedure for training and attack.
Hard fight forecast
Even while training was in progress, the commanders expressed belief the Japs would be hard to push out of the Gilberts, where they have had two years to develop airfields and defenses along the narrow sand beaches fringed by coconut trees.
Adm. Turner said:
They are probably out there waiting for us. But we are going to get them. They are wise to the ways of taking advantage of terrain and they’re probably dug in. We will dig them out.
During the training he expressed belief some losses must be expected. Gen. Holland Smith said he “never saw” such cooperation between forces.
May last week
While military experts refused to comment, observers believed the battle would not last longer than a week among the 16 islands in the Gilberts chain, the first two of which were invaded at dawn Saturday.
The choice of the two strongest islands in the group 2,400 miles southwest of Hawaii for the initial invasion indicated that the leaders believed conquest of those pinpoints would collapse the Japanese elsewhere in the group quickly.