GVSURob
Registered User
Greetings,
Haven't posted in a while... but I read something today that made me wonder what inspires everyone here? Here is a fine display of great Marine Corps. bravery.
From Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers.
Pages 95-96:
"The Marines pinned down on the shore were in desperate need of reinforcements. Two waves of landing boats full of troops, tanks, and artillery were on their way.
Then disaster struck.
The landing boats hit an exposed reef five hundred yards from shore and were grounded.
It would be fourty-four years before physicist Donald Olson would discover that D-Day at Tarawa occured during one of o nly two days in 1943 when the moon's apogee coincided with a neap tide, resulting in a tidal range of only a few inches rather than several feet.
The actions of these Marines trapped on the reef would determine the outcome of the battle for Tarawa. If they hesitated or turned back, their buddies ashore would be decimated.
But they didn't hesitate. They were Marines. They jumped from their stranded landing crafts into chest-deep water holding their arms and ammunition above their heads.
In one of the bravest scenes in the history of warfare, these Marines slogged through the deep water into the sheets of machine-gun bullets. There was nowhere to hide, as Japanese gunners raked the Marines at will. And the Marines, almost wholly submerged and their hands full of equipment, could not defend themselves. But they kept coming. Bullets ripped through their ranks, sending flesh and blood flying as screams pierced the air.
Japanese steel killed over 300 Marines in those long minutes as they struggled to the shore. As the survivors stumbled breathlessly onto shore their boots splashed in water that had turned bright red with blood.
This type of determination and valor among individual Marines overcame seemingly hopeless odds, and in three days of hellish fighting Tarawa was captured. The Marines suffered a shocking 4,400 casualties in just seventy-two hours of fighting as they wiped out the entire Japanese garrisson of 5,000".
Haven't posted in a while... but I read something today that made me wonder what inspires everyone here? Here is a fine display of great Marine Corps. bravery.
From Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers.
Pages 95-96:
"The Marines pinned down on the shore were in desperate need of reinforcements. Two waves of landing boats full of troops, tanks, and artillery were on their way.
Then disaster struck.
The landing boats hit an exposed reef five hundred yards from shore and were grounded.
It would be fourty-four years before physicist Donald Olson would discover that D-Day at Tarawa occured during one of o nly two days in 1943 when the moon's apogee coincided with a neap tide, resulting in a tidal range of only a few inches rather than several feet.
The actions of these Marines trapped on the reef would determine the outcome of the battle for Tarawa. If they hesitated or turned back, their buddies ashore would be decimated.
But they didn't hesitate. They were Marines. They jumped from their stranded landing crafts into chest-deep water holding their arms and ammunition above their heads.
In one of the bravest scenes in the history of warfare, these Marines slogged through the deep water into the sheets of machine-gun bullets. There was nowhere to hide, as Japanese gunners raked the Marines at will. And the Marines, almost wholly submerged and their hands full of equipment, could not defend themselves. But they kept coming. Bullets ripped through their ranks, sending flesh and blood flying as screams pierced the air.
Japanese steel killed over 300 Marines in those long minutes as they struggled to the shore. As the survivors stumbled breathlessly onto shore their boots splashed in water that had turned bright red with blood.
This type of determination and valor among individual Marines overcame seemingly hopeless odds, and in three days of hellish fighting Tarawa was captured. The Marines suffered a shocking 4,400 casualties in just seventy-two hours of fighting as they wiped out the entire Japanese garrisson of 5,000".
