Diorama of the Day: Battle of Tarawa by Paul Keefe

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Battle of Tarawa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of Tarawa was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, largely fought from November 20 to November 23, 1943. It was the first American offensive in the critical central Pacific region.
It was also the first time in the war that the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing. Previous landings met little or no initial resistance. The 4,500 Japanese defenders were well-supplied and well-prepared, and they fought almost to the last man, exacting a heavy toll on the United States Marine Corps. The US had suffered similar casualties in other campaigns, notably Guadalcanal, but never in such a short period of time. Nearly 6,000 Japanese and Americans died on the tiny island in 76 hours of fighting.
American casualties on the beach were so severe that over a hundred corpses were never repatriated. Staff Sgt Norman T. Hatch, a combat cameraman who filmed the bodies on the beach, produced images that were so disturbing that he had to obtain permission from President Franklin Roosevelt before they could be shown to the public. The footage was included in the 1944 short documentary With the Marines at Tarawa, and was the only film to contain gruesome scenes of American dead up to that date.