Kiribati was home to one of the pivotal battles of WW2. After the “day that shall live in infamy”, the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the Japanese forces on land and sea secured breathtakingly rapid victories overrunning all of South East Asia and the Pacific. Tarawa was their southernmost base in the Pacific.
In May 1942 the Battle of the Coral Sea was a turning point. The Japanese fleet was heading to invade Moresby and were met by an Allied force. The resulting naval battle was a brutal affair with the Allies sustaining greater casualties and losses but the Japanese, while inflicting greater damage could not pass and were forced back for the first time.
As an alternative the Japanese decided to take Moresby overland along the Kokoda track and between July and November 1942 were resisted by and eventually repelled by a smaller Australian force inflicting the first on land defeat on Japan. The Australian soldiers who fought in Kokoda arguably changed the course of the war. They are somewhat unfairly overshadowed by the equally gallant ANZACs but a loss in Kokoda would have been a prelude to a Japanese invasion of Australia.
Fast forward to November 1943. The Americans are ensconced in Ellice Islands and the Japanese are here in the Gilbert Islands. On the island of Betio here the Japanese built an airfield and an extensive network of bunkers and gun emplacements. The Japanese commander boasted that “it would take 1 million men 100 years to conquer the island”
The Americans attacked at dawn on 20 November. Mistakes reading the tides and the long mudflats rendered the amphibious vehicles useless and the Japanese guns initially mowed down the first wave of marines. Eventually a few made it ashore to establish a beach head. The Allied cause looked forlorn for the first 36 hours when serendipity intervened a random shell from offshore naval gunfire took out all of the senior Japanese officers meeting together in what was a random “pot shot”. With no one issuing orders the Japanese soldiers were rudderless and the battle was won by the Allies in 3 days. Of 4000 Japanese troops only 17 survived. 1000 Americans out of a force of 5000 died. It was the first of what would become many Pacific Islands retaken by the Allies.
Betio today still has a number of bunkers and gun emplacements to explore. Hardware is rusting in the sea and there is a moving memorial to those who lost their lives here.
