Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, is seen in a 2004 file photo. AP It was a fatal mistake. The island was so heavily fortified with concrete bunkers that a Japanese commander boasted ...

Map locating the Tarawa Atoll in the Gibert Islands in the Pacific Ocean, east of Indonesia. The map also locates the Marshall and Mariana Islands, which are northwest of Kiribati. 10 miles ...

The crosses come from lost cemeteries on the World War II battlefield of Tarawa, an atoll in the Pacific where more than 1,000 Marines were killed fighting the Japanese, and where hundreds may ...

The 18,000 Marines and sailors who landed on the island of Betio in the Tarawa atoll in the Pacific Ocean early on November 20, 1943, waded into what one combat correspondent called "the toughest ...

Pfc. Paul D. Gilman of Belen was 19 in 1943 when he died on the small island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands while serving with the 2nd Marine Division. RELATED.

Aboard one of the many troop transports plowing the long sea furrows to Tarawa, and later in the hell of Betio, ... the little bird-shaped island that was the main fortification of Tarawa atoll.

The brothers fought with the Marines in a fierce assault against the Japanese Army on Betio, part of the Tarawa atoll in the Pacific. Justin Lehew, a retired Marine, is now chief operating officer ...

Betio Island, white and wasted at the end of a palmy green bay, was more than ever a base of war. But elsewhere in the Tarawa Atoll the sturdy brown Gilbertese had picked up again an old, familiar ...

An F/A-18-fired anti-ship missile was used to sink the former amphibious assault ship on July 19 during Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2024. Named for a famous World War II battle, the Tarawa is the ...

While the Army’s 27th Division cleared the island of Makin to the north, U.S. Marines of the 2nd Marine Division aimed for Betio in the Tarawa atoll (It took a lot of Smiths to make it happen.

Kiribati is an island nation in the Pacific that's roughly halfway between Hawaii and French Polynesia. It's 119,000 people ...