Much has been made of Kelly Turner and Chester Nimitz’s seeming “indifference” to USMC losses at Tarawa (see below), but the truth of the matter is that it was part of the mathematics of World War II. The war in the Pacific was a naval war, and the Marines were just there to help prosecute it. They knew their role, to wage short campaigns in which high casualties were to be expected, and had accepted it since the 1920s. The cruel calculus is that sometimes you spend the lives of men to save the lives of others, or sometimes just to save crucial tactical advantages or resources. The long history of war is full of this. The overarching US strategy was to out-produce, to spend hardware and if necessary men, to win. The same complaints were even more rife in the ETO; read Belton Cooper’s book “Death Traps”, about tank warfare. But the simple truth was that US leaders had chosen there to produce lots of slightly inferior tanks, versus a handful of technological marvels like the Germans. The cruel calculus, clearly stated, was that we could lose four tanks to their one, and still have plenty left to win the war.
Leaders of both services were aware of the Japanese naval strategy of the yogaki – or “waylaying attack”. In a naval war the defensive role of their land forces was simply to fix the vulnerable American fleet - and particularly the slow-to-unload transports – to make them vulnerable to a naval counterstrike. This lesson was jammed down the throat of US leaders at the Battle of Savo Island, the worst wartime defeat in US naval history (Pearl Harbor was a “peacetime” defeat). This Japanese strategy was repeated throughout the long and bloody Solomon Islands campaigns, where naval casualties were typically heavier than land casualties. The Gilberts were a clear extension of this concern, since the tactic of seizing artillery firebases on adjacent islands was rejected since it would have required the transports to linger for several more days.
The issue was compounded by shortages of shipping; simply, transports were more valuable than men, since the USN suffered from a chronic shortage of transports, particularly LSTs, LSDs, and smaller landing craft. It’s why such relics as the converted ocean liners and the SPDs remained in service. It’s why, even in late 1944 at Peleliu the 1st Tank Battalion only took enough tanks to equip two companies, and critical engineer equipment remained at base. There just wasn’t enough transport space.
The decision to spend Marines to save ships and sailors was to some extent vindicated in the Gilberts. USMC losses on Tarawa were heavy: 1009 KIA, with no significant naval losses. In contrast on Makin the Army went slow and steady, with only 66 KIA. But the yogaki – they could muster only a single submarine, a fact US leaders did not know – sank the USS Liscombe Bay with 697 KIA and the loss of a crucial light aircraft carrier and its planes. Holland Smith was infuriated by the slow, deliberate performance of the 27th Division, and he eventually relieved Ralph Smith on Saipan.
By the Marshalls, the USN was confident enough to accept the challenge of the yogaki. By the Marianas the USN was eager for the yogaki, and the Japanese response there resulted in one of the decisive naval battles of the war.
In later years Holland Smith would criticize the Gilberts operations, but his criticism was leveled at the necessity for seizing as opposed to bypassing the islands, though most historians agree that they made a significant though not critical contribution to reducing Japanese air dominance over the critical Marshalls. His criticism was directed more at strategy than naval “indifference”.
It is easy to criticize the decisions made by others a half-century before, without putting yourself in their position. This is why a good staff ride, often used as a training tool, emphasizes what the commander knew at the time, NOT what you know long after the fact.