Lt.-Col. Samuel L. A. Marshall - Island Victory: The Battle Of Kwajalein Atoll

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This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHINGwww.picklepartnerspublishing.com

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Text originally published in 1944 under the same title.

Pickle Partners Publishing 2015, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

ISLAND VICTORY: THE BATTLE OF KWAJALEIN ATOLL

From Official Interviews With All The Men Who Fought

BY

LT. COL. S. L. A. MARSHALL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER

MAPS

1. MARSHALL ISLANDS
2. SITUATION AS OF D DAY (JANUARY 31, 1944)
3. SOUTHEAST PORTION OF KWAJALEIN ATOLL
4. ISLANDS TAKEN BY THE RECONNAISSANCE TROOP
5. SHOWING THE ASSAULTS ON D DAY
6. GEA ISLAND
7. CHANCE ISLAND
8. CLOSE-UP OF THE AREA BEHIND THE MOUND
9. KWAJALEIN ISLAND
10. SHOWING THE FIRST DAYS ADVANCE ON KWAJALEIN ISLAND
11. COMPANY LS POSITION AT ABOUT 1900 HOURS, D PLUS 1 DAY
12. EXTENT OF THE ADVANCE ON THE SECOND DAY ON KWAJALEIN
13. ACTION BEFORE THE BLOCKHOUSE
14. SHOWING THE ASSAULT ON EBEYE ISLAND
15. EBEYE ISLAND LANDINGS
16. EBEYE ISLAND, FIRST PHASE
17. EXTENT OF THE ADVANCE ON THE THIRD DAY ON KWAJALEIN
18. C COMPANY, 32D INFANTRY-THIRD NIGHT
19. SITUATION ON KWAJALEIN ON THE MORNING OF D PLUS 4 DAY
20. SITUATION ON KWAJALEIN AT 1345 HOURS, FOURTH DAY
21. SITUATION ON KWAJALEIN AT 1445 HOURS, FOURTH DAY
22. SITUATION ON KWAJALEIN AT 1515 HOURS, FOURTH DAY
23. FINAL PHASE, KWAJALEIN ISLAND, FOURTH DAY
24. SHOWING THE ASSAULTS ON LOI, GUGEGWE AND BIGEJ ISLANDS

FOREWORD

Accurate books about battle are rare, whether written by historians, by commanders of forces in the battle described, or by direct participants in the fighting, or correspondents who were close beside them as they fought.

In its forty years of publication the Infantry Journals magazine and books have given infantrymen and men of other branches of the Army opportunity to discuss warfare and find some of the truths of battle. There have been many hundreds of articles and a number of books on combat, many of them written by men who had seen the battles about which they wrote. These, the personal experience narratives of battle itselffrom the men who have led and fought in this and other warshave been most valuable in training for the present war. They have been valuable in training for future combat, and they are used for that purpose now in time of war as well as in peacetime training.

Such past books about combat have been chiefly personal narratives, the battle stories of individuals. Such stories tell what one man experienceswhat one man remembers of what he saw and felt and did in the midst of combat, and to a certain extent what he was able to find out from others about the battle afterward. Essentially they are one-man accounts, helpful and useful fighting aids but nevertheless the work of a single author, and accordingly limited to what he alone experienced and what he could learn at second hand from the combat experiences of others.

For the first time in its history the Infantry Journal publishes in Island Victory a book that is a story of combat largely written by all the men who fought and therefore a highly accurate account of exactly what happened, as one scene of stress and confusion followed another.

Employing a new method, the interview after combat, Lieutenant Colonel S. L. A. Marshall wrote this book from the very words of the men who foughtfrom the words of all men who fought and were not killed or badly wounded in the action, not merely those of the commanders or a few other leaders. The words and actions of combat were reconstituted after the fight was done through this new method. Thus this book is literally the story of the combat experiences of certain units of the 7th Infantry Division in the battle for the capture of Kwajalein. The chapters of Island Victory are therefore unit experience accounts. They are the personal experience accounts of all the men of a unit combined into one narrative by the men themselves.

No book like it has ever appeared before. And it is most probable that no days of battle in this or any previous war have ever been described as accurately as Island Victory describes the combat on Kwajalein.

It has long been a tactical custom to hold what are called critiques. The word ordinarily means the assembling of officers (and sometimes enlisted men) after a maneuver for the purpose of bringing out the tactical mistakes made and commending good work done. In such critiques a few high commanders and umpires go over the maneuver period in some detail for an hour or two at most. There is no complete reconstitution of the maneuver. Air and ground units, in the present war, have often reviewed the actions in which they have taken part, but not in full detail. The emphasis is usually on particular mistakes made or good jobs done. Air Forces units call this post-combat review briefing, the same word used for the discussions held prior to combat in which orders for the coming action are given and explained. (Briefing is now used by most ground units to mean the same things.)

The interview after combat is not a military critique. It is something far more thorough and complete than any other type of practical review of what has happened in combat. More important still, the interview after combat is based on the willingness of every man in a fighting unit to contribute his utmost to finding out the truth after battle is overthe truth as he and his fellow fighters are able to piece it publicly togetherthe heroic and the unfortunate alikein order to learn from their own minds exactly what did happenand consequently how to fight the next battle still better. Colonel Marshall describes fully in the first chapter of the book and in the appendix just how this can be done with success.

The original aim of conducting interviews after combat was to obtain accurate military historyhistory for the long-run record. There was in mind, too, the possible writing of preliminary combat narratives at an earlier date.

But the method of the interview, of getting all the men of a company together in order to work frankly, freely, and deliberately at finding exactly how they had foughtthis method has most apparently a great immediate value for the unit itself. The method seems sure to bring out every individual combat mistake, every mistake of teamwork and every other strength and weakness of the fighting. It straightens out erroneous ideas about what happened, which it is often important to do because of the intense feelings that may be involved, as when men believe mistakenly that their own supporting weaponsmortars or artilleryhave fired upon them. It blows away the fog of war. It reaches clear to the tactical and human truth of the whole action.

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