Japan's Take on Battle of Tarawa

The Battle of Tarawa, a component of Operation Galvanic, was the U.S. Marines’ first bold amphibious assault against a Japanese stronghold in World War II. Many lives were lost and many lessons learned, on both sides.
There have been many accounts of the battle, the strategic and tactical considerations and the logistics of staging a major battle on a coral atoll in the center of the Pacific. But all of the accounts have been written in English from the American perspective. This article tells the story of the Battle of Tarawa from the Japanese perspective.
Few of the Japanese who took part in the battle survived to tell their stories, and our information comes largely from one person, Taniura Hideo. A lieutenant in the 6th Defense Force at Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, he led a Special Naval Landing Party (SNLP) to occupy Tarawa in August 1942. He then returned to Tarawa in March 1943 as commander of the Sasebo 7th SNLP, which had been formed in February, and was involved in the base development work on the islet of Betio at Tarawa atoll.
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