The insufficiency of the number of LVTs was at the origin of the delay which the operations took on February 1, because the machines which had been used for the landing of the 25th marines, the day before, were the same which were to be used by the 24th marines in Roi . After being pushed back several times to allow the troops to reorganize, zero hour was finally set for 11:12 a.m. At that moment, the first wave began to move. Two assault groups from the 23rd Marines, on board the amphibious vehicles of a battalion which fortunately had not been engaged the day before, headed for Roi, followed, shortly, by those of the 24th Marines whose leading companies were in LVT, the rest in canoes.
Preceded by a deluge of fire from the destroyers and the LCIsarmed with guns and rocket launchers, the LVTs (armored in the lead) were able to reach the coast without too much loss. Completely stunned by this avalanche, the defenders were unable to offer effective resistance and, shortly after the landing, the commander of the group passed this message to General Schmidt:“It's gassy! No resistance on the beach... Give the signal and we take the rest of the island. »
Having paused only to regroup his troops, some of which, tanks and infantry, had gone a bit far in their eagerness to make contact with the Japanese and s They had ventured under the fire of friendly boats, the colonel resumed his progress at a more regular pace, which brought him at 6 p.m. to the opposite shore; it was then that General Schmidt declared that the island was definitely occupied.
At Namu, the situation was quite different. The terrain was not at all comparable. Instead of the wide open spaces of Roi, occupied mostly by airfield landing strips, the sister island was almost entirely covered in woods. The preliminary bombardment had formed an inextricable heap of felled coconut trees, demolished buildings and gutted structures, all of which constituted countless hiding places where snipers and the last nests of resistance could hide. As the assault groups of the 24th Marines (which had encountered no resistance on the beach) advanced inland, they were deprived of armored LVT support, pinned down in the shoreline anti-tank ditches in the clutter of vegetation and trenches. However, the tanks were soon disembarked and were able to force their way through the tangle to catch up with the infantry.
Despite desperate opposition from the defenders, the regiment was advancing satisfactorily when a tragic accident happened. A demolition team launched an explosive charge into a blockhouse filled with torpedo cones... The explosion that followed was tremendous, throwing "trunks of palm trees and concrete blocks as big as containers" into the sky, was to write a witnesses. Twenty marines were killed instantly and a hundred wounded, but the attack was only momentarily halted; soon, reserves arrived to keep the momentum going. By dusk, the regiment firmly held three-quarters of the island, which was barely more than a kilometer wide.
After a night punctuated by a few Japanese counter-attacks, the The advance was resumed on February 2 with the support of a number of additional tanks from Roi via the causeway that connects the two islands. As for the Japanese, reduced to miserable numbers, they could not resist any longer and General Schmidt, who had installed his command post on the ground since the evening before, announced, at 2.18 p.m., that Namu, in his turn, had ceased all resistance.
In the south, operations were proceeding with equal success.
On D-Day, the preliminary landings on the small neighboring islands had ensured both the path needed to reach the lagoon and the positions required for the artillery. As soon as the four groups of howitzers of 105 and 155 were installed and began to add their fire to those of the ships and planes, the result was not long in coming. It was terrifying. According to a witness, we had the impression "of seeing an island that we would have taken ten thousand meters high and that we would have let fall...".
Le let February, after a well-aimed preliminary bombardment, on the same pattern as at Roi-Namu—but without a mess this time among the LVTs—the 32nd and 184th Infantry Regiments landed on the western end of Kwajalein. The narrowness of the objective—a beach barely 800 yards wide—forced the troops to come up in columns, one battalion following the other, but the two regiments nonetheless succeeded in quickly establishing their head. bridge and widen it. Entangled in thick brush and met by ever-increasing resistance from a well-concealed enemy, the soldiers contented themselves with reaching the embryonic airfield in the center of the island and dug in for the night.
In the darkness, a few Japanese, among the few who had survived the bombardment and the flamethrowers, crawled forward to surprise the front lines and the rear of the Americans. The next two nights were the same, so that the Americans advanced only very slowly, constantly hooked along the four kilometers that the crescent-shaped island stretches out.
Be that as it may, the Japanese, constantly taken to task by artillery, fire from ships and air attacks, could not hold out for long against the men of the 7th Division who were increasing their thrust. In the end, the 32nd reached the end of the island on February 4. Everything was liquidated, General Corlett, who had settled on the shore on the ter, declared that the mission was accomplished. It was 4:10 p.m.
On February 8, Admiral Turner was able to assess the operation. He had seized an essential strategic position in the heart of the Marshalls and held on to it firmly. The "outdated" Japanese bases were now to be used as targets for bombing exercises by American crews (they weren't much better). In the defense of Kwajalein the enemy had lost 8,386 men—3,563 in the north and 4,823 in the south. The 4th Marine Division had 313 killed and 502 wounded; the 7th Infantry Division, 173 killed and 793 wounded. These were significant results, compared to those of the Gilberts:the enemy's losses had doubled, those of the Americans had been halved. Spruance's men had benefited from the lesson!