Researched at Tarawa
(2 of 2)
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The Invasion. Then it was time for the foot soldiers to go in. Against Kwajalein on the south, "Terrible" Turner sent troops of Nebraska-born Major General Charles H. Corlett's Seventh Army division, battlewise veterans of Attu. Against Roi and Namur on the north went Nebraska-born Major General Harry Schmidt's new Fourth Marine Division.
Tarawa had shown the high price of frontal assault. This time the Army troops landed first on Kwajalein's flank, on the islet of Gea (which they mistook in the dark for Ninni). They dragged their artillery through the water with them. Then they crossed to Ninni, Ennylabegan and Enubuj.
The Marines and their artillery landed on Mellu and Boggerlapp, southwest of Roi; then on Ennugarret, Ennumennet and Ennubirr, southeast of it. Thus Roi and Namur were all but surrounded by big guns, land-based and deck-based.
Only after another day's pounding were the main island targets assaulted. When the troops got ashore, there was some machine-gun and sniper fire from debris and coconut trees. There were a few stubborn pockets of real resistance. But mostly there were only twisted remnants of coastal guns, shattered pillboxes, charred and broken Jap bodies. The defenders who survived the bombardment seemed dazed, frightened.
North Battle. The Marines captured Roi in a little over 24 hours. As on Betio, the Japs who still lived crawled back at night into pillboxes filled with their own dead. The pillboxes had to be cleaned out again with flamethrowers, blocks of TNT and rocket guns. Namur, separated from Roi by a 200-yd. causeway, was the Japs' last retreat from the Marines.
Reported United Pressman George E. Jones for the combined U.S. press: "Even the toughened, battle-hardened [by now] Marines were disgusted with the task of wiping out Japanese troops who hovered on the borderline of insanity as the result of the Allied bombardment." From Roi and Namur the Marines dashed southward, wiping out scattered Japs on other, smaller islands.
South Battle. The Army found the going slower on Kwajalein Island, whose strong pockets held out until battleships and bombers were recalled to help the land-based artillery and bazookas. Kwajalein's pillbox-to-pillbox struggle ended after four days, and Corlett's soldiers rushed northward to capture Ebeye with its seaplane base, Loi and Gugegwe.
Before week's end, surprised and delighted Kelly Turner could speculate: "Maybe we had too many men [30,000] and too many ships [2,000,000 tons—greater than the entire prewar Navy] for this job." But he was glad he had force on his side: "I prefer to do things that way. It was many lives saved for us."
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