Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day



"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."John 15:13 NIV

Click here for a riveting account of the World War II battle of Tarawa in 1943, as told by the late Gil Ferguson, who, at age 19, survived the battle, and later served 10 years for pro-family, conservative values in the California Assembly. Tarawa was the first US amphibious assault against a defended beachhead. Victory here came at the price of 3,000 dead or wounded U.S. Marines.

3 comments:

shokaku said...

Actually the invasion of Guadalcanal in August 1942 was the first major US offensive in the Pacific. The invasion of Tarawa in November 1943 was much later, but was the first US amphibious assault against a defended beachhead. Guadalcanal was virtually undefended at the time of the landing, and most of the Japanese fled from the initial assault. Not so on Tarawa, which was the only time that the Japanese defenders did not suffer casualties an order of magnitude greater than the American attackers. The lessons learned from the sacrifice of so many at Tarawa led to much more efficient landings throughout the rest of the war, including at Normandy.

Curmudgeon said...

Thanks for the update!

Wild Thing said...

LOVE the blog and this post is awesome. Thank you for all you do. God bless our Veterans and our troops today. The real Heroes of the whole world!!!