The Battles of Makin (Butaritari)

One day during our time on Tarawa, we flew up to the Makin Atoll to visit the island of Butaritari where two battles took place during World War II. The first took place on August 17-18, 1942 when Colonel Evan Carlson’s 2nd Raider Battalion landed at night in rubber rafts delivered by two submarines. Their mission was to kill all the Japanese, secure any intelligence they could find, and, hopefully, divert attention away from the battle on Guadalcanal that began on August 7, 1942.

The second battle took place concurrently with the battle on Betio in the Tarawa Atoll. This was the Battle of Makin. This involved the 165th Infantry of the 27th Infantry Division under the command of MajGen Ralph Smith. The battle on Makin would be far less costly than the battle on Tarawa. Two days of determined fighting reduced Japanese resistance. After clearing the entire atoll, Smith reported on the morning of November 23, “Makin taken, recommend command pass to commander garrison force.”

Carlson’s Raid

In Mid-December 1941 the Japanese had occupied the Gilberts.  At first the only military installation that the Japanese constructed on the Gilberts was a seaplane base on Butaritari Island of the Makin Atoll. Seaplanes there could harass shipping lanes to Australia.  The Americans had little information about Makin in 1942.  It appeared that the atoll’s main island, Butaritari, was as a weather station and seaplane base, defended by force estimated between 50 and 350. Actually it was garrisoned by no more than a platoon of the 62^nd Guard Unit, fewer than 50 men in all, commanded by Sgt. Maj. Kanemitsu.

Two large submarines, Nautilus and Argonaut, carried Carlson’s 221-man raiding force, including Maj. James Roosevelt, the President’s son and Carlson’s executive officer, to the island.  The raiders went ashore at dawn on August 17 and attacked the Japanese garrison. That morning Capt. Gerald Holtom, who read, wrote and spoke fluent Japanese and served as the battalion’s intelligence officer, was killed by a sniper. By the end of the morning the Japanese had been pressed into a last-ditch defense at the shore.  The Japanese were unable to adequately reinforce their garrison, adding no more than 35 soldiers to the existing forces. The Japanese were wiped out in suicide attack or subsequently killed or killed themselves. During the remainder of day and the next the raiders picked up important documents at the headquarters and from the bodies of the dead and destroyed enemy weapons and equipment.  Around 11 pm August 18 almost all of raiders still on the island reached the submarines and just before midnight they set sail for Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, by accident, nine raiders were left behind. They would be subsequently captured and executed at Kwajalein, on October 16, 1942.  The Nautilus arrived on the morning of August 25 and the Argonaut the following day.  The press was initially informed that an estimated eighty Japanese were killed during the raid. About a week later the number was raised to 350. In the official report Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet/Commander in Chief Pacific Ocean Area, subsequently sent Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, the number pared down to between 100 and 150.

It is has been debated whether the diversionary attack on Makin diverted any Japanese forces from Guadalcanal.  But there is no debate about the captured documents.  Although Makin was a minor outpost it had been supplied with major documents.   This Ellis M Zacharias, a naval intelligence officer, would call a “grave intelligence blunder.”  The documents were quickly brought back to Pearl Harbor on board the submarines. They included plans, charts, air defense details on all Japanese-held Pacific islands, battle orders, one top-secret map that provided the air defense capabilities of all Japanese-held Pacific islands, the strength of all Japanese-held Pacific islands, the strength of the air forces on them, and the forces’ radius of operations, methods of alert, types of aircraft, and operation plans for future emergencies.  It is also likely that Japanese weather code books were also captured.

The Battle of Makin

Having won the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz desired to make a thrust into the central Pacific. Lacking the resources to strike directly at the Marshall Islands in the heart of the Japanese defenses, he instead began making plans for attacks in the Gilberts. These would be the opening steps of an “island hopping” strategy to advance towards Japan.

Another advantage of campaigning in the Gilberts was that the islands were within range of U.S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberators based in the Ellice Islands. On July 20, plans for invasions of Tarawa, Abemama, and Nauru were approved under the code name  Operation Galvonic.  As planning for the campaign moved forward, Major General Ralph C. Smith’s 27th Infantry Division received orders to prepare for the invasion of Nauru. In September, these orders were changed as Nimitz grew concerned about being able to provide the needed naval and air support at Nauru.

As such, the 27th’s objective was changed to Makin. To take the atoll, Smith planned two sets of landings on Butaritari. The first waves would land at Red Beach on the island’s western end with the hope of drawing the garrison in that direction. This effort would be followed a short time later by landings at Yellow Beach to the east. It was Smith’s plan that the Yellow Beach forces could destroy the Japanese by attacking their rear (Map).

Departing Pearl Harbor on November 10, Smith’s division was carried on the attack transports USS Neville, USS Leonard Wood, USS Calvert, USS Pierce, and USS Alcyone. These sailed as part of Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner’s Task Force 52 which included the escort carriers USS Coral Sea, USS Liscome Bay, and USS Corregidor. Three days later, USAAF B-24s commenced attacks on Makin flying from bases in the Ellice Islands.

As Turner’s task force arrived in the area, the bombers were joined by Wildcats, SBD Dauntlesses, and TBF Avengers flying from the carriers. At 8:30 AM on November 20, Smith’s men commenced their landings on Red Beach with forces centered on the 165th Infantry Regiment.

Meeting little resistance, American troops quickly pressed inland. Though encountering a few snipers, these efforts failed to draw Ishikawa’s men from their defenses as planned. Approximately two hours later, the first troops approached Yellow Beach and soon came under fire from Japanese forces.

While some came ashore without issue, other landing craft grounded offshore forcing their occupants to wade 250 yards to reach the beach. Led by the 165th’s 2nd Battalion and supported by M3 Stuart light tanks from the 193rd Tank Battalion, the Yellow Beach forces began engaging the island’s defenders. Unwilling to emerge from their defenses, the Japanese forced Smith’s men to systematically reduce the island’s strong points one by one over the next two days.

On the morning of November 23, Smith reported that Makin had been cleared and secured. In the fighting, his ground forces sustained 66 killed and 185 wounded/injured while inflicting around 395 killed on the Japanese. A relatively smooth operation, the invasion of Makin proved far less costly than the battle on Tarawa which occurred over the same time span.

The victory at Makin lost a bit of its luster on November 24 when Liscome Bay was torpedoed by I-175. Striking a supply of bombs, the torpedo caused the ship to explode and killed 644 sailors. These deaths, plus casualties from a turret fire on USS Mississippi (BB-41), caused U.S. Navy losses to total 697 killed and 291 wounded.

The next six photos are of our approach to the airstrip on Butaritari. Click on the top left photo and advance to the next by clicking on the > on the right.