CHARGING UP MISSIONARY RIDGE

11/25/1863 - On this day in Tennessee, in 1863, just outside the railroad hub that was the city of Chattanooga, one of most dramatic battles of the American Civil War takes place on the 400-500 foot heights that stretch from the Tennessee River and arc around the town on the northeast, east, and southwest ... a high filled with roughly 44,000 Confederate troops called Missionary Ridge.

       

View From The Ridge

The result of North and South battling for control of the border state of Tennessee for two years, after the loss of the Battle of Chickamauga in September of 1863, the defeated Union Army of the Cumberland finds itself encircled within Chattanooga ... and so Lincoln gives the heave-ho to General William Rosecrans and puts command of the region in the hands of its rising star, the recent victor of Vicksburg, Major General Ulysses S. Grant.  By November, Grant is ready to orchestrate a breakout, positioning himself to attack by taking 2,389 foot Lookout Mountain on 11/24/1863.

Rosecrans

Grant

View From Lookout Mountain

Missionary Ridge Ahead

Spread out atop the ridge are 44,000 combat veterans of the Southern Army of Tennessee ... there is a problem though, the Confederate force has a much less skilled general at its head, one that is deeply disliked by his officers and men for his extremely cantankerous nature (many in his command believe that with proper leadership the Northern army would have already be defeated and a petition asking for his replacement is sent to Confederate President Jefferson Davis), 46-year-old General Braxton Bragg.

Bragg

Battle plan ready, Grant's intention is to break Bragg out of his formidable defensive position by launching a double envelopment of the Confederate line ... Major General William Tecumseh Sherman and elements of the Union Army of the Tennessee will attack the northern end of the line, and XI Corps of Major General Joseph Hooker (the loser against Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville and the man who gives his name to the occupation of prostitute!) will strike the southern end of the ridge.  And as these things seem to often go, the plan does not work well at first, with both pushes blunted.

Sherman

Hooker

Seeking to help Sherman's halted men, at around 2:30 in the afternoon, Grant decides to put the Army of the Cumberland, under the command of Major General George H. Thomas (now nicknamed "The Rock of Chickamauga" for saving the Union army at that disastrous engagement) into action by sending the division's of Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood (a classmate of Grant at West Point) and Major General Phillip H. Sheridan against the Confederate fire pits at the center and base of Missionary Ridge.  Grant then seethes as it takes until 3:40 for the men of the Cumberland army to move forward against the 9,000 soldiers manning the firing pits (there are approximately 14,000 men in the center of the Confederate line).

Thomas

Wood

Sheridan

Dome Of The Union Guns

Revenge shouting "Chickamauga!  Chickamauga," the Union troops quickly swamp the Southern firing pits, but the victory brings them under the 100 Confederate artillery pieces on the crest of the ridge. Blown to pieces by cannon balls or covered in mud, without orders, in ones and twos, and then masses of men, the troops of Thomas rise and charge up the hill at their tormentors.

The Battle of Missionary Ridge

Suicide expected storming up a hill to attack an adequately manned defensive position, Grant is both shocked and livid when he sees a major portion of his command charge up the hill.  "Who ordered those troops forward?" he asks first Wood, and then nearby Major General Gordon Granger of the IV Corps.  "When those fellows get started, all hell can't stop them," Granger answers his commander.  

Battle of Chattanooga by Thure de Thulstrup

                                           Grant watches the charge through glasses and is 

                                           joined by Granger (L) and Thomas

But the attack does not produce a slaughter as the Union troops quickly discover that the Confederate defensive line has holes and blind spots ... with no reinforcements behind it.  Alive and atop the ridge, officers take control of the charge and turning right and left, roll up the Southern line until panic results and the Army of Tennessee is in full flight, saved only thorough the leadership of Major General Patrick Cleburne (known as the "Stonewall Jackson of the West" with good cause), whose troops hold the road to Tunnel Hill, Georgia open as Bragg's force retreats from the Chattanooga area.  By evening the battle is over and the town is encircled no more at a cost of 5,824 Union casualties (753 dead) and 6.667 Confederate casualties (361 dead). 

Major General Cleburne

Charge Of The 2nd Minnesota

Battle

Unordered, but the charge does not also go unrewarded.  Leading the way, a Congressional Medal of Honor will be awarded to an 18-year-old youth from Wisconsin who inspires others to follow him up the ridge by planting the regimental flag at the crest and yelling, "On Wisconsin!"  The young man's name is Lt. Arthur MacArthur (he will eventually retire from in 1909 as Lt. General), and because of the awarded medal, his son Douglas will be allowed to attend West Point and go on to become one of the most famous figures in American military history.  Also rewarded for the victory is the man that didn't order the charge ... having seen enough in the victories at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, and now Missionary Ridge, Lincoln calls Grant to Washington D.C. to take command of all the Union forces ... a decision that will bring doom to Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the entire Confederacy by 1865!

MacArthur

Climbing Missionary Ridge

At The Crest!

After

11/25/1863 ... why today mattered ... over a 150 years ago on this day, the Battle of Missionary Ridge takes place outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee!

Battle Diorama

Now

BUTCH'S OTHER BEST BUDDY

11/25/1869 - The strange life of Wild Bunch rider William Ellsworth "Elzy" Lay begins in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, when he is born into the family of James Landon Lay and his wife, Mary Jane Bellew (the family also consists of Elzy's brother, Encil, and his sister, Maggie).

Lay

Still just a young pup, Lay and his family move from Ohio to the town of Wray in northeastern Colorado in the early 1870s, and purchase a farm there with all the varied hours and bad-breaking toils such an endeavor comes with.  Not the life the youth was seeking, when Elzy is eighteen he concocts a plan to move about the West seeking adventure as a cowboy with his best friend of over a decade, William McGinnis.  Soon homesick, McGinnis will find his way back to Wray (the lad will decide to return to his family and after attending school in Denver, will eventually become Colorado's State Treasurer and Auditor, with the pair never seeing each other again), leaving Lay with his pal's name as his favorite alias once his criminal career is under way.  Still seeking his own path, Lay also makes his way to Denver, where for a time, he earns his food and rent by driving a horse-drawn streetcar over the streets of the Mile high City.  Wanting thrills and adventure, they finally come Lay's way when on the job, he sees a man attempting to molest a woman passenger and takes immediate action by throwing the individual off the streetcar and on to the pavement, an action he believes has killed the man, an action which causes him to flee the city.  Drifting west, in the wildest regions of Utah, Lay begins cowboying, meets one of the two women he will marry (the daughter of a rancher with a small spread near the town of Maeser, Maude Davis, who will bear him a daughter, Marvel Matilda, before divorcing the outlaw while he is in prison), a paramor with whom he will become involved with from time to time over the years, the wild daughter of a cattle rancher, Josie Bassett, a Utah rancher who isn't adverse to robbery when the bills get too big, Matt Warner, and while working for Warner, the Mormon gentleman that will become Lay's best friend, Robert LeRoy Parker, aka Butch Cassidy.     

Maude

Josie (Next To Window And Kids)

Warner

Parker/Cassidy

Intrigued by the stories of easy money Warner and Cassidy tell of running a racehorse named Betty and being loose with rebranding rides and cattle, Lay begins his criminal career by agreeing to join Warner and Warner's nephew, Lew McCarty, in robbing a local shopkeeper of a considerable amount of cash ... enough for Lay to open up a very profitable gambling house and saloon in the town of Vernal, where Elzy enjoys entertaining many shady friends and customers (the business will eventually be closed by Uintah County Sheriff John T. Pope).  Now in his twenties, Lay is tall and slender, makes friends easily with his very agreeable personality, is extremely intelligent (those in the know will later state that the early jobs of the Wild Bunch are planned by Lay as much as Cassidy), and can sit a horse and shoot as well as any man in the West.  Looking for something to replace the income of the closed saloon, Lay joins a recently released from prison Cassidy (where he had been serving time for cattle rustling) at a cabin along the Green River, but any ranching plans the pair might have are dashed in 1896 when Matt Warner gets in a gunfight trying to intimidate two men off a mining claim that his employer, E. B. Coleman, a prospector and mining promoter, covets, kills the two prospectors on the property, and is arrested and placed on trial ... a trial that could result in his hanging if Warner can not procure a good lawyer.  Asking his friends for help, Lay and Cassidy saddle up, and joined by a Brown's Park cowboy named Wilbur "Bub" Meeks, head for the mountains of southwestern Idaho and the town of Montpelier to gain the funds they will need to hire lawyer Douglas Arnold Preston (the future head of the Democratic Party in Wyoming, where he will also become a state senator and state attorney general) to defend Warner (defended by Preston, Warner will not be hung, but he will be sentenced to five years of prison hard labor for involuntary manslaughter).  A smooth operation only marred by Lay having to take a pistol to the head of a recalcitrant teller, the bandits arrive at the bank just before closing time on Thursday, August 13, 1896 and go into action.  Pistols drawn, Meeks watches the trio's horses, Cassidy covers outside and inside from the door of the bank (it is the first such institution to be chartered in the state of Idaho), and Lay gathers up the money.  Bank robbed with no shots fired, the trio saunter out of town, and using relays of escape horses, beat a posse into Wyoming, fifteen miles away, in possession of between $6,000 and $16,500.

Preston

Meeks

The Montpelier Bank

Robbery successful and Warner saved from the noose, Cassidy and Lay headquarter themselves in another cabin north of Vernal with their women, Cassidy with Jossie Bassett's wild younger sister, Ann, and the now married Elzy with Maude (who later admits to falling in love at first sight with the young outlaw), but soon transplant to Brown's Park when they find out they are suspects in the Montpelier robbery.  At Brown's Park, the men are able to assume somewhat normal lives, become popular in the local community, often visit the nearby family and ranch of Bassett, and in formal dark suits with white starched collars and black bow ties, serve as waiters at an elaborate Thanksgiving party for over thirty  regional celebrants.  Law remorseless though, shortly after the celebration the foursome are forced once more to find safer shelter, this time in a desolate portion of northern Wayne County, Utah's Robber's Roost, near a place called Horseshoe Canyon.  There, the pair plans the next robbery of the Wild Bunch, a heist of the payroll of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company of Castle Gate, Utah.

Ann Bassett

In Horseshoe Canyon

Winter snow melting, in April of 1897, Cassidy and Lay ride into Castle Gate on horses that have been trained not to startle at train whistles.  One of the largest mining operations in Utah, with payroll times changed at randown to defeat outlaws, the men make themselves as inconspicuous as possible as they wait for a week for the train bringing the payroll into town.  Lingering over, at noon on Wednesday, April 21, 1897, passenger train No. 2 of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad arrives from Salt Lake City with the coal company's payroll, which paymaster E. L. Carpenter and clerk T. W. Lewis carry seventy-five yards from the train depot to the foot of the outside stairway leading up to the offices of Pleasant Valley Coal ... payroll in the form of a cloth sack containing $1,000 in silver, another cloth sack with $860 in silver and $1,000 in cash, and a leather satchel with $7,000 in gold inside, a handsome total of $9,860 in coal company assets.  At the foot of the stairway, Butch Cassidy is waiting, while across the street at the horse rail of a saloon, Lay sits astride his ride with Butch's horse at the ready.  Revolver pulled and shoved into the paymaster's face, Cassidy grabs what he can take of the payroll (the frightened assistant has run into the nearby Wasatch Company store with the sack containing $1,000 in silver), makes his way across the street, and tosses the plunder to Lay ... who in grabbing the loot out of the air, loses control of Butch's horse.  Forced to keep irate miners at bay with his pistol while Lay regains the escaped mount, in a matter of moments the pair are on their way out of town with $7,000 (to lighten the load on their horses, the outlaws discard the sack containing currency and silver) ... this time escaping posse retribution again by using relays of horses to flee into the wilderness, and a new trick, cutting the town's telegraph wires before the robbery so word can not get out to nearby towns (compliments of Wild Bunch rider, Joe Walker)  

Company Headquarters  - Note The Stairs

Another View

In 1897, Lay also becomes a father as Maude gives birth to a little baby girl the couple will name Matilda Maud.  But instead of being a joy to the couple, the new member of the family becomes the source of the breakup of the relationship when Maude insists Elzy give up his criminal adventures.  When Lay refuses, Maude and daughter leave and move in with her parents.  Bachelor again, moving to new digs, Lay rides to New Mexico with Cassidy, where the pair find work as cowboys on the WS Ranch (just across the border from Arizona, near the town of Alma, in a valley along the San Francisco River) run by its part owner, a former professional soldier in England (though the man is Irish) named William French.  Only concerned with the work of the ranch getting done, no questions are asked when the pair prove to be excellent workers, as do the motley group of men Cassidy brings out to New Mexico to work for French too (Cassidy becomes foreman of the ranch under the alias of Jim Lowe) ... even when the men often leave for days without saying where they are going, like when Elzy and Butch show up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado in 1898 to discuss with Harvey and Lonie Logan, the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan) and other desperadoes, whether they should become Army Rough Riders and for paroles, go off to fight the Spanish in Cuba (the Army is not interested when the subject is broached).  Butch and Elzy are also missing from the ranch on a rainy night in early June of 1899, when members of the Wild Bunch hit the westbound Union Pacific No. 1 Overland Flyer Limited just outside Wilcox, Wyoming (Cassidy does not participate in the robbery but does help with the planning and escape).  One of the group's most famous capers (six members participate, but the mix of outlaws is never totally resolved), the robbery features a clerk named Woodcock who refuses to open the door to the express car, Wild Bunch dynamite that blows the car apart and covers much of the loot (somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000) in a raspberry paste (the fruit being a casualty of the gang's excessiveness with explosives), and an escape into the Hole-in-the-Wall country of Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains during which Harvey Logan kills Converse County Sheriff Josiah Hazen (leading a fourteen man posse that gives up the chase after Hazen's death).   

Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan

Wilcox - True West Magazine

Too Much Blow

Returning to New Mexico and ranch life, Lay is interested in experiencing more outlaw adrenaline as quickly as possible, rather than the chores he is assigned and soon offers his services to a group of outlaws that ride with the Ketchum Brothers of Texas ... Sam and Tom (who becomes known as Black Jack).  Causing a rift among the friends because Cassidy does not trust Black Jack's leadership (correctly so as the Ketchums and their associates will hit the Colorado & Southern Railroad at the same location three times, the first in 1897 ... with deadly consequences), Lay leaves his wrangler duties and later in July of 1899, is a member of a foursome (no Black Jack after he is kicked out of his own gang by his brother for being drunk and crazy too often) consisting of Sam Ketchum, Will "News" Carver, and Kid Curry (Harvey Logan) that hits a Colorado & Southern train at a spot between the towns of Folsom and Des Moines called Twin Mountain, where the tracks of the railroad cross an old wagon trail.  A successful robbery that features Wild Bunch traits of separating the express car from the rest of the train, a blown safe, $30,000 in booty, and an escape off into the nearby wilderness.  The gang however is not prepared for how quickly a posse locates its hiding place (an informer has been involved and some of the men have responded previously to a train being robbed at Twin Mountain).   Five days after the robbery, in the early morning, at remote location in the mountains of New Mexico called Turkey Creek Canyon, a half-dressed Elzy is about to fill his canteen from a pool of water when he discovers lawmen have arrived at the bandit's camp (a posse of seven out of the town of Cimarron led by Huerfano County Sheriff Ed Farr ... three lawmen have taken up positions on a ridge left of the camp and the other four deploy to the north side of where Lay has gone to get water).  No shouts to identify himself or surrender, Lay is shot in the shoulder and back and drops unconscious to the ground.  Waking a short time later he crawls back to the camp (each time he tries to stand he falls), grabs a rifle and makes his way to a place fifty yards below where an outlaw (the man will be described as either being Harvey Logan or Will Carver) fires on the posse with deadly accuracy using smokeless powder.  In the all-day exchange of lead between the lawmen and the outlaws that follows, from 200 yards away, Deputy Frank Smith is struck in the calf of his left leg, Ketchum is hit by a bullet that breaks his left arm just below the shoulder, Sheriff Farr is crazed near his right wrist, then is struck by a round that goes through the tree he is hiding behind and hits him in the chest (a mortal wound that causes him to collapse on the wounded Smith), and Deputy Henry M. Love is wounded in the leg (a wound that will prove fatal, the outlaw bullet that hits Love strikes the knife he is wearing and drives its blade into his leg, a blade he has recently used to skin a diseased cow with that causes blood poisoning to set in).  When darkness finally arrives, the bandits put Lay and Ketchum on their horses and then flee the area in the heavy rain that begins to fall (Ketchum will not be unable to stay in the saddle and is left at a ranch house near Ute Creek where he is arrested before being transported to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he dies of blood poisoning on July 24 ... a death which his brother Tom will seek to avenge by robbing the Twin Mountain train a third time by himself ... a bungled job that will get Black Jack shot in the arm and arrested, with the arm having to be amputated and Ketchum found guilty, being hung ... with the botched execution taking off the outlaw's head).  Bandits for sure, the next day a relief posse searches the camp and finds bedding rolled up in tarps, a slicker, a bloody hat, provisions, frying pans, a large coffeepot, numerous empty .30-.40 cartridge cases, a dead horse with its saddle still on, a wounded horse that will have to be shot, an empty valise, and a box containing close to forty pounds of dynamite.        

Ambush At Turkey Creek Canyon - True West Magazine

Elzy Gets Hit - True West Magazine

Fighting Off The Posse - True West Magazine

Sam Ketchum

Still recuperating from his wounds, while Carver watches through binoculars and Logan is in Carlsbad gathering supplies for the trio, on August 14, 1899, Lay rides into the Chimney Wells cow camp of rancher Virgil Lusk, where he has been invited to have breakfast the day before, unaware that a posse is waiting for him.  Eating his breakfast in the cook tent, Lay hears footsteps running in his direction and guesses the authorities are on hand.  "Did you do this, you old son-of-a-bitch?" he screams at Lusk as he pulls his pistol and fires at Lusk, hitting the rancher in the wrist.  Running out of the tent, he fires on his attackers and hits Deputy Rufe Thomas in the left arm   Then Lay is dropped by a shot from the gun of Eddy County Sheriff Cicero Stewart that comes so close to the outlaw's head that he is stunned and drops to the ground (the first two times the sheriff shoots at Lay his gun misfires).  Rushing forward, Stewart disarms Lay, but has to bust the outlaw over the head when the bandit try to grab the lawman's pistol out of his holster.  Arrested, Lay (who for days will claim he is not the notorious outlaw, but actually a cowboy named William McGuinnis) will be put on trial and found guilty of the murder of Sheriff Farr (even though he might have been unconscious at the time when either Logan or Carver did the actual firing), receiving a life sentence for the crime.

Will Carver

Lay Rides In For Breakfast - True West Magazine

Arrested

Behind bars at the New Mexico State Penitentiary in Santa Fe, Lay becomes the last member of the Wild Bunch to not die with his boots on ... Lonie Logan is shot to death while visiting his aunt in Missouri in 1900, Flat Nose Curry is killed rustling horses and turned into skin souvenirs by the posse that brings him down in 1900, Will Carver loses a 1901 gunfight with Sheriff E. S. Briant in Sonora, Texas, Harvey Logan commits suicide outside of Parachute, Colorado after a failed train robbery and wounding in 1904, Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are said to be gunned down San Vincente, Bolivia by soldiers of the Bolivian Army in 1908, and Ben Kilpatrick has his head bashed in by an express clerk during a failed train robbery in 1912.  Story seemingly over with Lay serving a life sentence, Elzy manages to get out after spending only seven years behind bars ... not causing trouble, he is made a prison trustee to the warden, driving the man into Santa Fe on occasion, and taking care of his horses.  Returning to the prison on one such day, the men discover the convicts have rioted and taken the warden's wife and daughter hostage, a life threatening situation in which Elzy is able to talk the rioters down and gain the release of their captives, for which he is granted a pardon in June of 1906 from New Mexico Governor Miguel Antonio Otero (there are also rumors that his release might lead authorities to hidden outlaw plunder).  No more law breaking, out, Lay spends several months in the town of Alma, then rides north to Baggs, Wyoming (a small ranching community just north of the state's border with Colorado) where he runs a saloon, marries for a second time (to Mary the couple will have two children,  James Walker, born in 1910, and Mary Lucille, born in 1912), and searches the region for oil deposits.  It is also said that he digs up over $58,000 in hidden bandit loot, often takes rides into the mountains with Matt Warner (the pair actually raise funds to send a friend to Bolivia to find out if Butch and Sundance are really dead), and is said to reunite one more time with his friend, Butch Cassidy, in 1928.  Using his education and intellect, Lay transforms himself into a mining and oil geologist that supervises the building of the Colorado River Aqueduct system through the Riverside and Imperial Valleys.  Moving his family to Los Angeles after he retires from working for the All-American Canal Company, Elzy suffers a heart attack and dies on November 10, 1934, at the age of 65 (his wife will outlive her husband by thirty years).  The former outlaw is buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California under a tombstone bearing his real name ... Elzy Lay.

Prison

Prisoner

Building The Canal

The Adventure Seeker - Young Lay

THE CRIMSON CORAL OF BETIO

11/20/1943 - 2,400 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, advancing towards Japan, continuing the island hopping campaign that has seen the United States Navy and Marine Corps advance from the island of Guadalcanal through the South Pacific to the island of Bougainville, as part of Operation Galvanic, the Fifth Amphibious Corps of Major General Holland "Howlin' Mad" Smith (the nickname comes from his hard-driving command style and use of colorful language when angered), featuring the 2nd Marine Division of Major General Julian C. Smith (about 18,000 men), invades a tiny, bird-shaped island within the Gilbert Islands' Tarawa Atoll only two miles long, and only 800 yards across at its widest point called Betio (just big enough for a Japanese airfield) that its defending commander, Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki (in command of almost 5,000 men) has transformed into a fortress that he claims "... would take a million men one hundred years" to conquer.  For all concerned, the battle that follows will be a bloodbath.

Tarawa With Betio At Center

Made aware of the inadequacies of the region's inadequate defenses following Colonel Evans Carlson's raid of August 1942 on Mankin Island (100 miles to the north of Tarawa), Shibasaki (he replaces Rear Admiral Tomonari Saichiro in July of 1943) upgrades the Betio's defenses (his men are still working on various defensive positions when the U.S. invasion fleet shows up off the island) for almost a year, creating a fortress (Rear Admiral Harry Hill, in command of one of the task forces attacking Tarawa will call Betio "a little Gibraltar") of fourteen coastal guns (with four being Vickers 8-inch guns purchased from the British before the war) that cover approaches from the ocean or the island's lagoon, concrete bunkers (one, two stories tall), 500 pillboxes of logs and sand reinforced with cement, 62 heavy machine guns, 44 light machine guns, 9 anti-tank guns, 40 artillery pieces (many pre-registered on landing locations), trenches connecting all defensive positions, steel tetrahedrons to channel landing craft and men into firing lanes, dense acres of barbed wire, minefields, tank traps, and 14 dug-in Type 95 Japanese light tanks, all surrounding an airstrip down the center of Betio, with supplies brought on to the island from a long pier stretching beyond the island's surrounding coral reef.  The island has an elevation of only 8 to 10 feet above sea level, no cover other than brush and palm trees here and there, a seawall of coconut logs banded and stapled together about twenty feet from the water, and has tides that can drop multiple feet in only a matter of hours.  The island is an abattoir just waiting for butchery victims. 

Shibasaki

Gun Position

Taking the challenge of besting the Japanese commander's "conquest' boast are the men of the Marine Corps 2nd Division ... the Second and Eighth Marine Regiments and attached troops ticketed for the invasion, with the Sixth Marine Regiment in reserve.  Commanding the Marine portion of the operation is 61-year-old Holland McTyeire Smith, an brillant Alabamian born in the town of Hatchechubbee in 1882 who climbs a ladder to leadership of the Fifth Amphibious Corps (he will come to be called "The Father" of modern amphibious warfare) that includes a BS degree from Auburn University, first sergeant of a cavalry company in the Alabama National Guard, a law degree from the University of Alabama, joining the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant in 1905, completing officer training at Annapolis in 1906, duty stations that move from the Philippines to the Dominican Republic and cover the West Coast and East Coast of the United States, in addition to the Gulf of Mexico, WWI service in France (during which he becomes the first Marine, of only six, to graduate from the Army General Staff College), post war duties include serving aboard the battleships USS Wyoming, USS Arkansas, and USS California, command of the 1st Marine Division, and overseeing the formation and training of the newly created 2nd and 3rd Marine divisions.  58-year-old Marylander Julian Constable Smith's road to command of the 2nd Marine Division includes a degree from the University of Delaware, taking part in the 1914 occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico, passing a course of instruction at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, command of a machine gun battalion in Cuba, graduation from the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, captain of the Marine Corps Rifle and Pistol Team in 1928 and 1930, becoming the Naval Attache in London, and command of the Fleet Marine Force Training School in North Carolina.  Created in San Diego, California in 1941, the men of the 2nd Division of the Marine Corps are a mix of veterans and newbies, some with the combat experience of becoming the first Americans of the war to land on enemy soil (a company splashes ashore at Florida Island eighty minutes before Guadalcanal is invaded), a platoon makes the first American bayonet charge of the war, the division's artillery fires the first offensive land cannons of the war, and participate in the taking and defense of Guadalcanal and Tulagi during the Allies Solomons Campaign, including mop-up actions that keep the division on the infamous island a month longer than its more famous brothers of the 1sr Division. 

   

The Two Smiths - Holland (L) & Julian (R)

Ashore At Tulagi

At Efate in the New Hebrides, the division practices its invasion, and Julian Smith makes a command change when the leader of the Second Regiment, Colonel William W. Marshall suffers a nervous breakdown, replacing the ill warrior with his operations officer from Indiana, a man who has helped planned the details of the invasion, 38-year-old Lt. Colonel David Monroe Shoup (Shoup will eventually become the Commandant of the whole Corps).  Weighing anchor, the invasion force (the largest to ever be assembled at the time ... 17 carriers, 12 battleships, 8 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, 66 destroyers, 2 minesweepers, and 36 transports, and an assortment of landing craft that includes shallow draft Higgins boats and non-armored LVT "Alligators" (enough to bring in three waves of Marine invaders).  Tons of bombs dropped on the island in November, with the arrival of the fleet off Tarawa on 11/20/1943 (a Saturday), three hours of ship gunnery also hits the island (the Marines request more pre-invasion bombardment, but it will be denied by the Navy who claim all targets have been hit, with Rear Admiral Hill stating, "It is not our intention to wreck the island.  We do not intend to destroy it.  Gentlemen, we will obliterate it."  Wrong, although the USS Maryland, one of the battleships to survive Pearl Harbor makes one of the great single shots of the war, placing a half-ton, 16-inch armor-piercing shell into the ammunition room of an 8-inch gun on Betio's western tip that blows up the ammo, the gun, and its blockhouse while killing hundreds of Japanese troops), along with attacks from carrier planes.  Loaded with steak and eggs, fried potatoes, and hot coffee, the Marines climb down nets to their boats and head to their staging positions at 3:30 in the morning   The plan is for the Marines to attack over three beaches designated Red 1 (on the far west of Betio), Red 2 (in the center, just west of the supply pier), and Red 3 (just to the east of the pier) on the northern, lagoon side of the island (and there is a contingency landing site on the western part of the island designated Green Beach).  At 9:00, thirty minutes behind plan, the Marines head for shore and immediately run into trouble when it is discovered the Higgins boats won't have enough water beneath them to cross the reef (500 yards off shore) and a horribly accurate fire begins hitting the invaders.

Invasion Beaches    

Shoreward - Island Totally Obscured By Smoke

On The Beach - Day 1 At Betio

Five minutes ahead of the main invasion force, to suppress flanking fire that could hit all three of the landing sites, a Scout-Sniper Platoon, under the command of 29-year-old 1st Lt. William Deane "Hawk" Hawkins of Kansas, attacks the Betio pier from three landing craft.  Using grenades, flamethrowers, rifles, and bayonets, Hawkins' men clear the pier and move on to the island, while oblivious to the bullets flying by him, Hawkins stands upright, in an LVT, directing the action (wounded, he refuses evacuation, stating to the corpsman who comes over to try to treat him, "I came here to kill Japs, not to be evacuated.").  Ashore, Hawkins continues to attack enemy positions with his men and on the second day of the invasion, he will be killed after taking out a bunker protected by five machine guns (with grenades and by firing into the structure's loopholes) and three pillboxes (despite being wounded a second time and again refusing evacuation), before being mortally wounded in the chest by an exploding Japanese mortar round (for his two days of fighting on Betio, Hawkins will be awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor and the airstrip the Marines are fighting for will be christened Hawkins Field).

The Pier

Hawkins

Hell on Earth (only about a third of the first wave of invaders will make it to the beaches), the lagoon turns into a small crimson sea as LVTs are blown apart and holed, and men are shot wading ashore (and many also drown when they are prematurely unloaded before reaching the reef where they can be shuttled ashore in LVTs (among the drivers of the landing craft is Coast Guard member, Coxswain Edward Albert Heimberger, soon to be the actor Eddie Albert of "Oklahoma" and "Green Acres" fame ... at Tarawa, for rescuing 47 Marines stranded offshore, and supervising the rescue of 30 other men, Albert will be awarded a Bronze Star with a Combat "V" for his actions)... by the end of the first day, half of the "Alligators" will be destroyed), with even more killing taking place as the first waves of the attack are stopped at the seawall (from within the LVT that brought him ashore, Corporal John Joseph Spillane, a hard throwing baseball prospect of the Yankees and Cardinals engages in game of catch and toss with nearby enemy soldiers, fielding five grenades and throwing them back at nearby Japanese ... a game that concludes with the sixth grenade goes off in his hand ... the Marine will survive, but missing his right hand, he will never play professional baseball).  Stuart and Sherman tanks designated to support the invasion sink and are blown up (by the end of the first day only two, one named Colorado and one named China Gal, will remain functional), but a few make it ashore and are able to help the Marines push forward a few hundred yards from the beach.  And trying to gain control of the chaos, despite a leg wound which becomes infected, Colonel Shoup sets up a command post near the pier from which he begins coordinating a defense of the thin beachhead the Marines establish on the island (under constant fire from artillery, rifle, and machine gun fire, without rest for two days, Shoup will direct the invasion ashore ... winning a Congressional Medal of Honor for his efforts).  

Albert

Pinned Down

At And Over The Seawall

Forward Under Fire

Walking Ashore

Despite for the most point being pinned down, here and there along the beachhead, individual Marines jump over the seawall and move forward ... and in small groups that sometimes include only a single man, men of the 2nd Division follow.  One of the Marines pressing forward is 22-year-old Staff Sgt. William Jennings Bordelon Jr. of San Antonio, Texas.  An assault engineer, the staff sergeant throws demolition charges he has prepared into positions blocking the advance of the Marines, destroying three pillboxes before being wounded by machine gun fire.  Ignoring his wounds, he covers men coming ashore near the pier, rescues two wounded engineers from the water, and creates a fourth demolition charge which he uses to blow up another pillbox just as he is being killed by Japanese fire from the position ... actions which win the young warrior a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor.

Bordelone

Transferring Wounded Back To The Reef

Finding themselves without the LVTs necessary to bring them ashore, men of the fourth, fifth, and sixth waves of the invasion waiting at the reef, clamber out of their boats and wade ashore through sheets of killing Japanese fire.  As brave as it gets, it is a walk that is never forgotten by those that made it, or by those that witness it.  But the valor of a handful of Marines is not enough to carry the invading force across the island and as night falls (bringing infamy on himself, when Major John Schoettel is told where to land his men on Betio, he responds in the Gettysburg speak of General George Pickett, staing, "We have nothing left to land.), the 2nd Division prepares for a banzai attack that can push them out of their small and vulnerable defensive perimeter and throw them into the water.  The attack never comes though because Rear Admiral Shibasaki is killed outside his command bunker by an American shelling that also tears apart the wiring of the Japanese communication system, negating the ability of the Japanese to give or receive assault instructions.  The first day a near debacle (messages have been sent to the fleet command that the issue ashore is in doubt), the Marines survive their first night ashore with some silver linings to hang on to ... knocked off line by fire that closes Red Beach 1, Major Michael P. Ryan is forced to land what remains of his company at Green Beach, and discovers the area is lightly defended and can be a site where reinforcements can be brought ashore relatively safely, and going into action immediately. the Marines are able to bring ashore a battery of 75mm Pack Howitzers (each gun weighs 900 pounds). 

Day One

Shoup's CP

At The Seawall With The Tide In

Dead Marines

Day two on Betio is more of the same of what had taken place the first day ... one by one, Marines advance across the island destroying Japanese defensive positions, with Green Beach getting cleared and becoming the location reinforcements can be landed at safely (advised as to what is happening on shore, Julian Smith will order in his reserves), and with only 18 amtracks left when dawn breaks, there is another murderous walk to shore from the reef (it lasts for five hours that take the lives of 108 men, wound 235, but put 600 more fighters on to the island with the Japanese now firing on the waders from a wrecked Japanese transport in the lagoon, Saida Maru (the position will eventually be reduced by Marine engineers throwing dynamite into the ship while they are protected by a squad of riflemen).  Inch by inch progress with naval gunfire called down on individual Japanese positions, the Marines establish a defensive line around most of the airfield, cross it, and set up positions on the south side of the island in positions abandoned by the Japanese.  And preventing Japanese from escaping Betio, Marines put ashore on the neighboring island of Bairiki and blow-up its only pillbox and the 12 machine gun positions protecting it.  With the exception of individual snipers, there are no enemy attacks on the Marine positions after night falls and before a weary and wounded Shoup is relieved by the division's Medal of Honor winning chief of staff, Colonel Merritt A. Edson (for his stand on Edson's Ridge at Guadalcanal), he sends a report to fleet that becomes famous in Marine Corps history, summing up the status ashore, Shoup states, "Combat efficiency: We are winning."

Rare Prisoner

Shoup

Area At West End Of Airfield

The Airfield - 11/21/1943

Day three on the island finds the Marines continuing to consolidate their hold on the island while fighting forward against still deadly fire as the Japanese begin to weaken under the rain of ruin that comes their way from the naval guns off shore and the firepower of the 2nd Division as more heavy equipment, tanks, and men come ashore at Green Beach.  Typical of the Marines effort and fighting spirit on 11/22 is the valorous performance of 33-year-old First Lt. Alexander "Sandy" Bonnyman Jr.  Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Bonnyman joins the Marines in Phoenix, Arizona as a private (despite being exempted from the service because of his role in running a business deemed vital to the war effort, a copper mining operation).  After recruit training in San Diego, Bonnyman serves with distinction leading a Marine pioneer unit on Guadalcanal (a combat engineer unit), receiving a battlefield promotion to second lieutenant.  At Betio, Bonnyman is Executive Officer of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines Shore Party, and as such, on his own initiative, he leads a group of Marines down the deadly pier to the beach, where he a five engineers arm themselves with flame-throwers and demolition charges and begin destroying Japanese positions shooting up the invading men of the 2nd Division.  Day two on the island finds Bonnyman crawling 40 yards forward from the Marine line to the two-story bunker (the dead Shibasaki's command post) blocking further advancement across the island.  After scouting the obstruction, the lieutenant crawls back to his men and then fights them forward to the base of the structure.  Out of ammunition before an assault can be launched, the men return to their line and make plans to destroy the bunker the following day.  Attacking on 11/22 with a command of 21 men (because of the danger in their mission, the group is dubbed "The Forlorn Hope,"13 of them will survive being on Betio), Bonnyman exposes himself to repeated firing by the Japanese as charges are placed on both entrance/exits of the structure, which blown, sends roughly 100 Japanese (150 are dead inside the bunker) out into the open trying to escape (they are instead cut down by Bonnyman and his men firing from atop the bunker in action that will be captured on film by 22-year-old Marine Staff Sgt. Norman T. Hatch in the Academy Award winning short documentary of 1944, "With The Marines At Tarawa").  No rest for the weary, Bonnyman and his men are immediately counterattacked by the Japanese ... and Bonnyman is in the thick of the action, and standing at the group's forward position, kills three charging enemy riflemen before being mortally wounded.  For his actions on Betio, Bonnyman is awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor (the award will be accepted from Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, by Bonnyman's 12-year-old daughter, Frances, in 1947 ... body lost in the confusion of combat, through DNA testing, the warrior's remains are located on Betio in May of 2015, and the lieutenant's remains are returned to his childhood home of Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is buried with full military honors and an overflight of Marine Cobra helicopters flying in a "missing man" formation on September 27, 2015).

   

Marine Firing On A Concealed Sniper

Bonnyman

Atop The Bunker - Bonnyman Is Figure Below Smoke At Right

Bonnyman Award Ceremony

Though Bonnyman's attack advances the position of the Marines 400 yards, on the third day of battle there are still Japanese on the island to be dealt with, but when night falls they finally launch the banzai attack the Marines having been expecting.  Holding the southern half of a 400-yard cross-island Marine line, the Japanese hit the soldiers of Major William Jones' First Battalion, Sixth three times (after the first attack, the men are supported by a reserve company under the command of Major Wood Kyle), the last coming at 4:00 in the morning (holding a portion of the line, Lt. Norman Thomas will telephone Major Jones that his men can't hold much longer and need reinforcements, to which Jones responds, "You've got to hold!").  Rifles, bayonets, machine guns, grenades, and fists on the front line, as guns of the destroyers USS Schroder and USS Sigsbee pump salvo after salvo into the Japanese assembly areas, while Marine artillery lobs shells within 75-yards of the 2nd Division's line ... the killing finally ends at 5:00 a.m. with the Japanese now down to only a couple hundred remaining soldiers (in the attacks, the Marines will have 45 men killed and 128 wounded, while the Japanese lose over 500 soldiers).  Sensing victory is within their grasp, after bombs from the carriers and Marine artillery softens up the remaining Japanese, the Marines go on the attack again, supported by the Sherman tanks Colorado (cutting off a Japanese retreat, the tank fires an enfilade round into the fleeing soldiers and kills between 50 and 75 men ... the bodies are too devastated by the round to make an accurate count) and China Gal, and seven freshly landed light tanks ... obstinate, the last Japanese fight back, but as the attack proceeds, begin killing themselves as Marines reduce a 600-yard area called The Pocket that divides Shoup's beach area from where Major Mike Ryan landed his men on the first day of battle, and another group of Marines assaults the Japanese remaining on the eastern tip of Betio.  76 hours after the battle has begun, the clash ends with the Marines in control of the island Shibasaki had said would take a million men a 100 years to take.

Banzai Dead

Grenade

The Colorado At Red Beach 3

Suicides

Five Japanese Prisoners

The cost for the island has come at a high price though (while the Marines are battling the Japanese on Betio on the last official day of combat, offshore, the Japanese submarine, I-175 torpedoes the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay, sending the ship to the bottom of the Pacific and costing the lives of 687 Americans), with the 2nd Marine Division losing 922 enlisted men and 56 officers to violent death (with another 2,188 men wounded ... shocked by the losses, the battle will be heavily censored to the American public, but wanting the public prepared for the even costlier battles coming at the fleet approaches Japan, President Roosevelt authorizes the release of stories, photos, and film of the battle).  The Japanese losses in the bloodbath basically consist of Betio's entire command ... of the garrison of 3,636 Japanese, only one officer and sixteen enlisted men will be taken prisoner, and of the 1,200 Korean laborers on the island at the time of its invasion, only 129 will survive.  Despite the losses, the highest ranks of the American military rate he seizure of the island a worthwhile success ... the next link on the island hopping campaign across the Pacific, Betio, has been taken and now fleet operations can move on to Marshall Islands (and from there to the Marianas and beyond ... Admiral Chester Nimitz will have his Marines invading the Marshall Atoll of Kwajalein ten weeks after Tarawa), lessons learned which will be included into invasion doctrine including improvement of communications between units on shore and the fleet offshore, making more amtracks available and improving their armor, improving pre-invasion knowledge of beach and lagoon obstacles by the U.S. Navy creating UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) which will one day morph into the United States SEALS, and naval pre-invasion bombardment being lengthened and improved.

After American "Improvements"

Tarawa Base

Kwajalein Invasion

Battle over, on November 24 the two Smith generals walk the island and are horrified at the defenses their Marines had to engage.  "How did they do it?" Holland Smith asks Julian Smith as the men examine a blasted pillbox containing American and Japanese dead, killed in hand-to-hand fighting.  Spying over a hundred dead Marines floating in the lagoon and covering the invasion beaches tears well in Holland's eyes as he answers his own question with a question.  "Julian, how can such men be defeated?' Indeed ... and they won't be all the way to Tokyo Bay!  Decades later, here is to all the men that advanced the American cause in the Pacific and took a tiny speck of sand, coral, and palm away from the Japanese during the 76 hours of Tarawa, which began on November 20, 1943 ... thank you!  

Part Of The Island From Spotter Plane

At The Water's Edge

Flamethrower

Sake Time!

Destroyed Alligator

A Silent Gun - Betio Now

        

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