The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944

by Ian W. Toll

When the question was put to him many years later, Julian Smith was philosophical: “Well, I think it was just one of those things. War is war.” Whether Tarawa could have been safely bypassed or not, it was a victory. The navy and marines had learned valuable lessons that would be put to profitable use in future operations. If the Americans had not made those mistakes at Tarawa, they would have made them in the Marshalls, suffering proportionally higher casualties in the latter as a result. And the bloody conquest of Tarawa had proved an important point to both sides in the conflict. Japan’s grand strategy rested on the supposition that the American people would not stand for the losses required in a long war. But Tarawa served notice to the enemy that no price was too high, “and every one of those islands that they were fortifying became a base for us to bomb Japan and to carry the war farther on.