The Japanese were also recuperating, and although they looked badly beaten, the defenders retained 70% of their firepower and 75% of their strength, and the engineer battalion and Korean laborers rushed to repair the fortifications like crazy at night. Although the Japanese army's level of night fighting was not bad www.biquge.info he knew that the US army's automatic firepower was very fierce, and during the day, they built many fortifications on the spot, and the losses from the forced attack were not small. Practice has proved that the Japanese army's 38 big cover has no effect when defending the island, and the reason why it is now in a stalemate with the US army is that it relies on the power of machine guns and artillery shells and the accurate iron fist, and the use of the iron fist at night will drop several grades, and he does not want to take risks for the time being.

In order not to dampen the morale of the people, he came up with a good method: "Each unit can select clever soldiers to go out and harass the enemy with cold guns, and by the way, they can also pick up some equipment and supplies of the American army, and they must persist in the long-term war of resistance until the combined fleet arrives." Even if you fight to the last man, you have to hold back the American forces to the death, creating an opportunity for the Combined Fleet to destroy the enemy forces. ”

The other officers nodded one after another, and today was reimbursed for an arsenal, plus the consumption of ammunition in two days was staggering, and it really needs to be considered for the days to come. They think that the M1 rifle of the US military is good, except for the white-knuckle combat and the consumption of bullets, everything else is better than the rifle in their hands.

"Everyone has to be confident, the commander told us to hold out for a month, and now it's only 2 days, it's not a big deal, we will continue to fight the US military, and use actions to tell them that even if they occupy the beachhead, occupy the depth, and occupy the surface position, it is not a big deal!"

On the third day, the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Regiment landed at Hongsantan, and by noon more than half of them had suffered casualties. The communications corps managed to call on the destroyers and carrier-based aircraft to provide fire support and suppress the most threatening Japanese artillery fire on the east side of the beachhead. However, the Japanese army relied on the favorable terrain to launch a counter-charge, and the battalion commander, Major Steven, led the soldiers to engage in a brutal white-knuckle combat with the Japanese army, and finally repelled the Japanese counterattack, but the price paid was heavy enough - the wounded Japanese soldiers often had to pull the grenades hidden around them before they died, and the American troops died together, and the position was full of mass of flesh and mutilated corpses.

The biggest highlight of the day was the capture of the airfield, although the runway had been destroyed by artillery fire, but the surrounding fortifications were not seriously damaged, relying on the blasting operations of engineers and Spitfire tanks, the US troops approached the edge of the runway inch by inch. A platoon of American troops attempted to attack the fortified bunker group in front of them in a roundabout way, but was killed by Japanese troops emerging from the other flank.

What made the Marines even more demoralized was that a Japanese 95 tank suddenly appeared during the fierce battle, and the Marines who rushed in front were panicked for a while, and more than 20 people died under the tank's machine gun fire. Fortunately, the follow-up troops used recoilless guns to kill the tank, and finally the two sides launched a fierce attack around the wreckage of the tank, and the American troops finally relied on dense automatic fire to repel the enemy forces, and effectively blocked the Japanese counterattack route on the east side of the beachhead, completely controlling the airfield.

After the sun set, Colonel Connelly ordered the retraction of positions and preparations for the night. Based on the experience of seizing the island many times, he believed that the Japanese army would launch a fierce counterattack at night, and the slightest negligence of the American army might be driven into the sea. In the first two days, the US military and the Japanese army had not yet formed a dog-tooth situation, and it was normal that they did not encounter a counterattack at night, but on the third day, the two sides were completely fighting together, and it was necessary to guard against a night attack. In order to deal with the endless night attacks, the US military has summed up many ways to deal with these "nasty Charlies", and the most effective method is the "fire hour" -- everyone at night wields their weapons and fires aimlessly, so that the Japanese army thinks they are exposed and charges, and then destroys the opponent.

In the twilight, Betio presents a tragic scene: the once lush coconut groves have been bulldozed by artillery fire, and the scattered tree trunks are riddled with bullet marks. The ground was littered with sand dunes, stones, wreckage and corpses, and Japanese fire points were hidden in the dunes or under the rubble. The corpses were left unburied, the heat caused them to rot and stink, and the whole island was so stinking that people vomited. The US officers and men did not dare to slack off in the slightest, and in order to resist the pervasive stench, they were forced to put on gas masks in such hot weather, and in spite of their pain, thirst, hunger, and exhaustion, they vigorously dug fortifications and built defensive lines until they went deep into the ground -- no one dared to joke with their own lives.

The night of Tarawa was terrifying, as U.S. warships fired a barrage of flares that illuminated the entire Betio and illuminated the blood-soaked coral reefs. Many of the flares were of inferior quality, and the miserable yellow light reflected the sand a dull yellow. In order to ensure safety, half of the US troops were napping in the shelters they had dug up temporarily, while the other half were on high alert with guns, and their nerves were tense to the limit, and they shot at the slightest hint of wind and sand. On the other side, the landing craft crossed the reef and unloaded ammunition, food, fresh water, plasma and communications equipment on the trestle under their control. The long trestle made of coconut wood and the sand that connects the trestle are full of officers and soldiers who are hurrying to transport supplies.

In such a night, the Japanese army's "night attack" was launched as Connery had predicted, and the nervous American officers and soldiers heard the footsteps, saw the figures running in the night, and even the soldiers swore that they had seen the hideous faces of the Japanese soldiers. Occasionally, a few gunshots rang out, and the sound of machine guns and rifles on the US positions rang out, and there were Marine officers and men shooting indiscriminately everywhere, and the effect of such shooting was almost equal to zero. The more vigorously they fought, the more rampant the activities of the Japanese troops, who were tasked with harassing them—they did not come to attack at night, but to collect supplies and lure the American troops to waste ammunition.

The other Japanese soldiers had just recovered from the day's hard fighting, and were hurrying to rest, and the fire and sound on the ground seemed to be completely different worlds from theirs, and only the bored soldiers would shoot a few shuttles through the shooting holes, and then most of them would return fire dozens or even hundreds of times.

The U.S. destroyers shelled the eastern end of the island all night to prevent the Japanese from counterattacking, but they didn't realize that the enemy was just bluffing. The tropical night was short, and when the morning sun jumped out of the Pacific Ocean again, the Marines couldn't believe that the expected terrible night attack had not happened! The hungry and thirsty Americans gained a foothold and gained self-confidence that the Japanese were not yet capable of driving them out to sea at their weakest, and they were convinced that they would sooner or later take all of Betio, but they seemed to rejoice a little earlier.

On the 3rd, 4th, and 5th days, the 3rd Marine Division advanced the Tarawa beachhead, and every day there were no fewer shells, no fewer bombs, and no fewer deaths, but the distance of movement could only be calculated in yards. By the fifth day, the total number of U.S. casualties had exceeded 5,000, and the number of casualties exceeded 2,800. The 3rd Marine Division, which had 4 fully organized regiments, had almost defeated the first 2 regiments and was forced to withdraw to recuperate, and the 3rd Regiment had also lost nearly a quarter of its vital strength, and now the 4th Regiment had landed and continued to fight the Japanese.

The casualty rate of officers was also shocking, with the casualty rate of more than 60 percent of the officers at the company and platoon level participating in the front-line battle, and the first five battalion commanders who landed were either killed or wounded, and the seven battalion commanders who were dispatched later were killed in two. Especially on the 4th day, Colonel Connelly, who had drawn up all the battle plans and commanded from the front, was finally seen by the Japanese army that something was wrong because he was always accompanied by the signal soldiers, and a Japanese soldier who had been hiding and looking for an opportunity to do a ticket killed him with two iron fists...... Even Brigadier General Devon, who couldn't hold back his command from the ship, also suffered from the Japanese artillery fire, and if it weren't for the orderly soldiers who quickly pounced him to the ground, the commander of the 3rd Marine Division would have been with Betio's sand for life.

The U.S. forces immediately adjusted their chain of command, with Colonel McCott taking over the command of Colonel Connery, who relied on tanks and newly landed field artillery to resume the offensive. The resistance of the Japanese army did not weaken in the slightest, and the price of blood was paid for every inch of coral sand and every bunker. It was difficult for the U.S. troops to see the Japanese alive, so they had to rely on the instinct of the soldiers, using coconut stumps, craters, sand dunes, and abandoned fortifications to approach the firing point step by step, and finally stuff the explosive bag or grenade through, and if they were lucky, let the flamethrower come and fire -- that was the quickest solution.

Although the tanks were effective, the Japanese army's iron fist also found a place for large-scale use, and tanks were destroyed continuously, and by the evening of the fifth day, the cumulative loss of tanks had exceeded 100.

Nimitz and Halsey were so anxious that their mouths were bubbling up, but there was nothing they could do - this was still the weakly defended North Shore in their opinion, and what would they do now if they had fought the more heavily defended South Shore?

After a long silence, Holland proposed, "Shall we let another unit attack on the south bank and divert the attention of the Japanese?" ”

Nimitz thought about it for a while: "No, now there is a shortage of naval artillery shells, especially large-caliber shells, and the intensity of artillery fire has weakened a lot, if you land on the south bank again, there will be less firepower distribution, and there will be not enough fire cover, I am afraid that your losses on the south bank will be greater, unless you think that you can rely on destroyer firepower to suppress the enemy, there are still a lot of such shells on the ship!" ”

Holland was speechless for a while, those 127mm thin pipes on the destroyer are definitely not good, they can only deal with the general infantry fire of the Japanese army, and the destruction of permanent fortifications is very poor, after Dai Wen went up, he inspected the Japanese bunker on the spot, and found that it was extremely strong, and it was difficult to destroy it with a direct hit from the artillery below 155mm caliber, and many American soldiers hid directly in the bunker built by the Japanese army at night to rest - this did not make people feel any joy at all.

According to Holland's revised schedule, he was going to take the whole island on the fifth day, but with the current situation, he was not sure whether he could take it all on the seventh day, and he didn't know how to talk to Nimitz.

Unbeknownst to all, the main forces of the Combined Fleet had arrived only 900 kilometers from Perth, an important city on the west coast of Australia...... (To be continued.) )