Tarawa American Shrine Of Valor

r FHIS tiny Pacific island—now hot and desolate and treeless—is to Americans what Gallipoli is to Aus tralians, wrote Melbourne “Herald” correspondent, Denis Warner, on May

9, in the following description of

Tarawa, Gilbert Islands.

It should be noted, however, that the references to “Tarawa ” are geo graphically wrong. Tarawa Atoll is made up of several large islets, strung along the reef which encloses Tarawa Lagoon. The references are to Betio, the islet on which was the main settle ment, and on which the terrible Battle of Taraiva was fought.

SO long as this war is remembered, Americans will sneak of Tarawa. In three days of bitter fighting it cost almost 1,000 Americans their lives, wounded thousands of others. To-day it is important as an air base, a junction for planes going south and north and east. To-morrow, it will be just another back area to everyone but the Americans.

To all American Servicemen, whether from the Marines who fought and cap tured it, or from the Navy, or from the Army, Tarawa is a symbol of all that is best in American fighting jnen.

Tarawa will never lose its battle scarred appearance . . . the fighting was too terrible and the devastation too great.

The few palm trees left standing are dead. Along the beaches, still dangerous and ugly with barbed-wire and concrete and steel boat-destroyers and mines are the wrecks of many American amphibious tractors caught in the blast of Japanese eight-inch guns and field pieces.

Concrete blockhouses that withstood almost direct hits from the heaviest guns of the American fleet are blackened and scarred, but still standing. Twisted and broken gun emplacements from which the Japanese mowed down the Marines as they waded across wide stretches of the reef bear grim evidence of the fight.

Only one gun—a British naval gun brought from Singapore or Hongkong— remains unbroken. With its rusty snout pointed skywards it stands gaunt and derelict at the northern end of the island.

SURFACED entirely with coral, the now shadeless island (once covered with a dense growth of coconut and pan danus palms'* swelters in the heat and glare of the equatorial sun. Beneath the coral and the sand are tyie bodies of 4,000 Japanese, nearly 1,000 Americans.

Recruited from 3,000 natives in the atoll, the Gilbertese Labour Battalion, officered mainly by Englishmen from Fiji, has done much of the dirty work of cleaning up on the island. Apparently combining the best features of the Mela nesians, Polynesians and Micronesians, the Gilbertese are magnificent people. In telligent, honest and with wonderful physique, they have been of the greatest assistance to the American Seabees in constructional work.

The commanding officer, Lieut. -Colonel Fennon, and six other officers are British, but the Gilbertese have their own warrant officers and NCO’s. They are only too willing to strike a blow against the hated Jap invader, who occupied their island for eighteen months, destroying invalu able palm trees and commandeering food.

Betio will never again be capable of sup porting even one native.

A former Gilbertese school teacher and now a native clerk in the Labour Bat talion, told me something of life on Betio Island during the Japanese occupation Five Britishers remained to care for the

natives. This number was later raised to 22 by the addition of a number of New Zealanders taken prisoner on other islands. At first the Japanese treated both the Europeans and the natives well, allowing the British to continue the exist ing form of government. But after the first heavy air-raid, which caused con siderable damage' to important Japanese installations, the Japs ruled with a hand of iron.

The British were thrown into a prison compound and all liberty was taken from the natives. A native showed me a letter written by a Gilbertese wireless operator to the Japanese commander, asking that the Europeans and natives allowed to continue their normal life. The letter promised that all men on the island would guarantee not to cause trouble if the Japanese continued to treat them satisfactorily.

To-day members of the Labour Bat talion are paid £2/5/- a month, and a brisk trade in souvenirs is also carried on with the Americans.

Headquarters of the British Adminis tration are no longer on the islet of Betio. Control of the natives is carried on from an adjacent island (presumably, Bairiki).

AMERICAN Servicemen passing through the island make a tour that is almost a pilgrimage. When the war is over American fathers and mothers and wives of the men who died will want to do the same.

In the hearts of American people, Tarawa is a shrine to American valor.

Thefts of benzine from Defence Forces’ stocks have become a great nuis ance in Western Samoa. The Chief Judge recently issued a warning to the public that thiefs risk their lives in committing such offences: guards are instructed to fire at any persons who are challenged and refuse to stop. A Samoan was recently fired at and hit in the leg when trying to escape after such an attempt.