Makin atoll plus#

Considering these drawbacks and the limited combat experience of the U.S. King, the Chief of Naval Operations, wanted to attack right into the heart of the Japanese outer defense perimeter, but any plan for assaulting the Marshalls directly from Pearl Harbor would have required more troops and transports than the Pacific Fleet had at the time. Initially both Nimitz and Admiral Ernest J. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet ( CINCPAC), to submit a plan to occupy the Marshall Islands. In June 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed Admiral Chester W. While the Japanese were building up their defenses in the Gilberts, American forces were making plans to retake the islands. The Chitose and 653rd Air Corps were detached and deployed here. Its defenses were also completed, although they were not as extensive as on Tarawa Atoll-the main Japanese Navy air base in the Gilberts. By July 1943 the seaplane base on Makin was completed and ready to accommodate Kawanishi H8K 'Emily' flying boat bombers, Nakajima A6M2-N 'Rufe' floatplane fighters and Aichi E13A 'Jake' reconnaissance seaplanes. Makin was garrisoned with a single company of the 5th Special Base Force (700–800 men) on August 1942, and work on both the seaplane base and coastal defenses of the atoll was resumed in earnest.

intentions in the Pacific, but it had the effect of alerting the Japanese to the strategic importance of the Gilbert Islands and led to their further reinforcement and fortification.Īfter Carlson's raid, the Japanese reinforced the Gilberts, which had been left lightly guarded. One objective of the raid was to confuse the Japanese about U.S. The Japanese moved their prisoners to Kwajalein Atoll, where they were later beheaded. The Raiders killed at least 83 Japanese soldiers, annihilating the garrison, and destroyed installations for the loss of 21 killed (mostly by air attack) and 9 captured. The Japanese garrison only posted 83 to 160 men under the command of a warrant officer. On 17 August 1942, 211 Marines of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion under command of Colonel Evans Carlson and Captain James Roosevelt were landed on Makin from two submarines, USS Nautilus and USS Argonaut. The Gilbert Islands were the first step in this chain. The plan was to approach the Japanese home islands by ' island hopping': establishing naval and air bases in one group of islands to support the attack on the next. Admiral Chester Nimitz had argued for this invasion earlier in 1943, but the resources were not available to carry it out at the same time as Operation Cartwheel, the envelopment of Rabaul in the Bismarck Islands. The end of the Aleutian Islands Campaign and progress in the Solomon Islands, combined with increasing supplies of men and materials, gave the United States Navy the resources to make an invasion of the central Pacific in late 1943. Lying east of the Marshall islands, Makin was intended as an excellent seaplane base, to protect the eastern flank of the Japanese perimeter from an Allied attack by extending Japanese air patrols closer to islands held by the Allies: Howland Island, Baker Island, Tuvalu, and Phoenix and Ellice Islands.

Makin atoll plus#

On 10 December 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 300 Japanese troops plus laborers of the Gilberts Invasion Special Landing Force had arrived off Makin Atoll and occupied it without resistance. The Battle of Makin was an engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought from 20 to 24 November 1943, on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.īackground Japanese invasion and fortification