The landing on Eniwetok

On 17 February 1944 Rear Admiral Harry W. Hill’s American amphibious force entered the lagoon of Enewetak Atoll – called Eniwetok in wartime sources – at the western end of the Marshall Islands, and began Operation Catchpole. That day Marine reconnaissance troops occupied, without a fight, small islets near Engebi, the most important island in the northern part of the atoll, and artillery was set up on them. Over the following week the 22nd Marine Regiment and the Army’s 106th Infantry Regiment captured in turn the three islands defended by the Japanese: Engebi (18 February), Eniwetok (19–21 February) and Parry (22 February). Of a garrison of about 3,400 men, only a few dozen soldiers and labourers were taken prisoner.

The landing was preceded by weeks of air raids. War chronologies record under 3 February that “American aircraft bomb Eniwetok”, and rightly so: according to the US Navy’s chronology, aircraft from Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman’s carrier group attacked the airfield on Engebi in the last days of January and during the first three days of February, followed by Rear Admiral Samuel Ginder’s group – until 7 February, again on 10–12 February and on the eve of the landing, 16 February. The claim that the atoll later became “a great base for B-29 bombers”, however, needs qualifying. From the autumn of 1944 the Superfortresses operated from the Marianas – Saipan, Tinian and Guam – while Eniwetok became above all a forward fleet anchorage, a supply base and an airfield for naval aircraft and medium bombers.

An atoll on the edge of Micronesia

Enewetak is a typical coral atoll: some forty low islets with a combined area of less than 6 km², strung along a reef enclosing a lagoon more than 30 kilometres across. It lies about 600 kilometres north-west of Kwajalein, at the western edge of the Ralik Chain, halfway between the Marshall Islands and the Marianas. Only two deep passages led into the lagoon, and the three largest islands – triangular Engebi in the north and Parry and the elongated island of Eniwetok in the south – lay close to those passages.

After the First World War the atoll became part of Japan’s South Seas Mandate. For most of the war the Japanese treated it as a staging point: in November 1942 they built an airfield on Engebi where aircraft flying east from Truk refuelled, but the permanent garrison was negligible. This changed only after the fall of the Gilbert Islands in November 1943. The Japanese Army then sent to Eniwetok Major General Yoshimi Nishida’s 1st Amphibious Brigade (Kaijō Kidō, literally “sea-mobile”), formed from reservists of a garrison unit in Manchukuo. The brigade, fewer than 4,000 men strong according to American figures, arrived on the atoll on 4 January 1944. Nishida placed his headquarters and reserve on Parry (1,115 soldiers and about 250 men of other formations), 779 soldiers under Lieutenant Colonel Masahiro Hashida on Eniwetok island, and about 700 of the brigade’s soldiers under Colonel Toshio Yano on Engebi, supported by sailors, airfield personnel and labourers.

The defenders had only six weeks to prepare their positions, and the air raids disrupted the work, destroyed stocks of food and ammunition and forced them to work at night. Japanese plans initially provided for defence on the ocean side; only later, when Colonel Yano correctly predicted that the Americans would enter the lagoon and land from that side, did they begin hastily fortifying the lagoon shores. The concrete shelters on Engebi were thin and unreinforced. More dangerous were the trench systems that the Americans called “spider webs”: foxholes covered with corrugated iron, sand and palm fronds, placed a few metres apart and linked by narrow trenches or tunnels to a central shelter. A brigade order of 5 February instructed the wounded who could not fight to commit suicide, and everyone else to fight to the end.

An improvised operation

The original American plans envisaged taking Eniwetok only around 1 May 1944. The attack on the Marshall Islands, begun on 31 January with the landing on Kwajalein, went so smoothly, however, that the reserve earmarked for that operation – Colonel John T. Walker’s 22nd Marine Regiment and two battalions of Colonel Russell G. Ayers’s 106th Infantry Regiment of the 27th Infantry Division – was not needed. As early as 2 February Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, after conferring with Rear Admiral Richmond Turner and General Holland Smith, recommended an immediate strike at Eniwetok, and Admiral Chester Nimitz gave his approval. On 3 February Rear Admiral Hill, who had earlier commanded the occupation of Majuro, flew in to Kwajalein by seaplane, and planning began that day. The US Army’s official history stresses that no other operation in the Central Pacific was so improvised: formal preparations took less than two weeks, until the expedition sailed from Kwajalein on 15 February. The landing, for which the way had been opened by the capture of Kwajalein Atoll on 4 February, came roughly ten weeks ahead of the original timetable.

The ground forces – about 8,000 men according to American studies – were combined into an ad hoc formation, Tactical Group 1 of V Amphibious Corps, under Marine Brigadier General Thomas E. Watson. Hill’s force, with the command ship Cambria, comprised transports, landing ships, three old battleships, cruisers and destroyers, and escort carriers. More distant cover was provided by the whole American effort in the area: the greatest threat to the landing was the Japanese base at Truk, about 1,200 kilometres away, so Rear Admiral Marc Mitscher’s three fast carrier groups and Spruance’s battleships struck it on 17 and 18 February, simultaneously with the landing. The fourth group, Ginder’s, stayed off Eniwetok and on 16 February destroyed a dozen or so aircraft on the ground and knocked out the airfield on Engebi and one of the two coastal guns.

The plan provided for successive phases: first the capture of the islets next to Engebi and the emplacement of artillery on them, then the assault on Engebi, and finally – depending on progress – landings on the southern islands. Air reconnaissance suggested that the main Japanese forces were on Engebi and that Parry and Eniwetok island were only weakly defended. This assumption proved wrong.

17 and 18 February: Engebi

On the morning of 17 February Hill’s ships opened fire on Engebi and the southern islands, minesweepers cleared a channel into the lagoon, and the force entered it through Deep Passage, shelling Parry and Japtan on the way. That same day V Amphibious Corps’ reconnaissance company occupied, unopposed, the islets of Canna and Camellia south-east of Engebi; islanders found there told the Americans that about a thousand Japanese soldiers were stationed on Parry and Eniwetok. The guns of a Marine pack howitzer battalion were set up on the islets, and another detachment occupied an islet north-west of Engebi to cut off the defenders’ line of escape.

On 18 February, after a bombardment by the battleships Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Colorado, the cruiser Louisville, destroyers and artillery on the neighbouring islets, and after carrier air strikes, two battalions of the 22nd Marines landed from the lagoon side at 8.43 a.m., supported by medium tanks. Resistance on the beaches was weak and the airfield was quickly taken; the Japanese held out longest in the scrub and in camouflaged holes in the southern corner of the island, which had to be destroyed one by one with explosive charges and flamethrowers. At 2.50 p.m. Engebi was declared secured, although mopping up continued into the next day. According to the American official history, the Marines lost 85 killed and missing; 1,276 Japanese were killed and 16 taken prisoner. Documents and prisoners from Engebi revealed that the southern islands were defended much more strongly than had been thought, and that Nishida’s headquarters was on Parry.

19–21 February: Eniwetok island

In the light of this new information Hill and Watson changed the plan: instead of a simultaneous attack on both southern islands, the 106th Infantry was first to take Eniwetok, and only then would the Marines take Parry. The bombardment of Eniwetok island, however, was short and light – according to the Army’s official history only about 200 tons of shells fell on it, incomparably less than on Engebi – and the landing was not preceded by an artillery preparation from the neighbouring islets.

At 9.17 a.m. on 19 February two battalions of the 106th landed from the lagoon side. Trouble began at once: the amphibian tractors were unable to climb the steep sand bank, more than two metres high, just behind the beach; successive waves piled up on the narrow strip of shore and began landing outside their assigned sectors; and Japanese machine guns and mortars, untouched by the bombardment, raked the crowded groups of soldiers. The Japanese, hidden in holes beneath the palms, let the first units pass and then opened fire from behind. Even so, before noon the Americans had cut across the narrow island and reached the ocean shore. Around midday several hundred Japanese attacked the western part of the American line; the attack had collapsed by 12.45 p.m., but the advance stalled. Colonel Ayers then committed his reserve – the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Marines, which had landed in the afternoon – and ordered the advance to continue through the night so as to give the Japanese no time for their customary night counter-attacks. Even so, on the morning of 20 February a group of defenders reached the Marine battalion’s command post before being driven off.

The fighting came down to the laborious clearing of the “spider webs”. Every hole had to be found in the dense undergrowth and destroyed with a grenade, an explosive charge or a flamethrower; surviving Japanese crawled out of hiding behind the backs of the attackers. Resistance at the western end of the island died out on 20 February, but the whole island was declared secured only on 21 February. In one of the shelters soldiers found the chief of the local Marshallese and several dozen of his people, who had come through the bombardment unharmed. According to the American official history, the capture of the island cost 37 killed and 94 wounded, and of about 800 defenders 23 were taken prisoner – but taking the island had lasted much longer than expected, above all because the bombardment had been too light.

22 February: Parry

On Parry the Americans applied the lessons of the previous days. For three days and nights the island was pounded by aircraft, by artillery set up on Eniwetok and Japtan, and by warships; on 22 February the battleships Tennessee and Pennsylvania, the heavy cruisers Indianapolis and Louisville and destroyers fired more than 900 tons of shells at it, by various calculations. A captured map of the Japanese defences made it possible to pinpoint targets. At 9 a.m. the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 22nd Marines, already worn out by the fighting on Engebi, landed from the lagoon side with tanks. In the confusion fire from American ships damaged three landing craft gunboats. The Marines advanced quickly, bypassing strongpoints that were then destroyed by teams of engineers and flamethrower operators. At 7.30 p.m. Colonel Walker reported by radio: “I present you with Parry Island”, although fighting with scattered groups continued through the night and on 23 February, when a battalion of the 106th, which was to serve as the garrison, came ashore. Among the dead was Major General Nishida.

According to the US Army’s official history, total American losses in Operation Catchpole amounted to about 1,100 men: 269 killed, 77 missing and 757 wounded. The Marine Corps official history, counting differently, gives 254 Marines killed and 555 wounded, and 94 killed and 311 wounded in the 106th Infantry. The Japanese garrison was almost completely wiped out: according to American figures about 3,400 men were killed, and 66 Japanese and Koreans were taken prisoner.

Place in the war

The capture of Eniwetok ended the fighting for the Marshall Islands. The Americans took three atolls – Kwajalein, Majuro and Eniwetok – and bypassed the remaining Japanese bases in the archipelago, including Wotje, Maloelap, Mili and Jaluit. Their garrisons, cut off from supplies and regularly bombed, survived until the end of the war, suffering hunger and disease, but played no further role. The strategy of bypassing strongpoints, tried out earlier in the South Pacific, now became the rule in the Central Pacific too: the simultaneous carrier strike on Truk showed that the largest Japanese base in Micronesia was unable to defend the neighbouring archipelagos, and in the following months it too was left on the sidelines.

The atoll was turned almost immediately into a forward base. The Eniwetok lagoon, sheltered by the reef and roomy enough for dozens of ships, became one of the fleet’s main anchorages in the Central Pacific; airfields were built on Eniwetok island and on Engebi, from which patrol aircraft and bombers took off to attack the bypassed Japanese bases. In June 1944 the invasion fleet for the Marianas sailed from Eniwetok and Kwajalein, and during later operations the atoll served as a supply and transhipment point. Advancing the timetable by several months – possible because the reserves from Kwajalein were sent straight on – allowed the Americans to land on Saipan as early as mid-June. From the fighting for the Marshall Islands, and even more from subsequent defeats, the Japanese drew lessons that cost the Americans dearly in later battles: instead of defending the beaches, the garrisons of Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa built their defences inland, in caves and underground fortifications.

For the islanders the war was only the beginning of upheaval. After the war the Marshall Islands became a UN trust territory under United States administration, and Enewetak – alongside Bikini – was chosen as a nuclear test site. At the end of 1947 the inhabitants were resettled to the remote atoll of Ujelang, and between 1948 and 1958 several dozen nuclear weapons tests were carried out on Enewetak, including the first thermonuclear explosion, Ivy Mike, which on 1 November 1952 wiped the islet of Elugelab off the face of the earth. The islanders were able to return to part of the atoll only in 1980, after a partial clean-up; contaminated waste was collected under a concrete dome on Runit island, which remains a source of dispute and concern to this day.