Military Milestones from Bloody Betio to Mao’s Death Warrant

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Chinese Premier Mao Tse-Tung: “The American Marine First Division has the highest combat effectiveness in the American armed forces.”

By W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Originally published at Human Events

This Week in American Military History:

Nov. 23, 1863:  The battles of the Chattanooga campaign begin between newly appointed commander of the Western armies, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg (yes, Fort Bragg, N.C. is named in his honor).

Within days, Union Army forces will attack and capture Orchard Knob, Lookout Mountain, and the Confederate works on Missionary Ridge. The “Gateway to the Lower South” will open, and within a year, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman will pass through the “gateway” enroute to Atlanta.

Nov. 23, 1943:  Japanese-held Tarawa — “an elongated, sharply curving chain of little islands with a heavily defended southwest tip” known to U.S. Marines as “bloody Betio” — falls to American forces despite the boast of its defending commander, Rear Adm. Keiji Shibasaki, that “a million men could not take Tarawa in a hundred years.”

In fact, it takes several thousand Marines and about 76 hours to seize Tarawa. But it is not without great cost. Marine casualties (including sailors) number over 1,020 killed and nearly 2,300 wounded. Many are lost during the first few hours of the fighting as the landing craft are unable to get ashore, and Marines (carrying all of their equipment) are forced to wade toward the beach, stumbling over jagged coral reef for several hundred yards — some falling into deep holes and drowning — all the time under withering fire.

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