USAAC 1LT Louis Zamperini saw the names of the 9 Marines scratched into the wall of his cell in 1943 when he was held on Kwajalein as a POW after he was captured following the crash at sea of his B-24. Of the 12 MIA Marines 9 were captured and taken to Kwajalein Atoll where they were interrogated and eventually executed with the Japanese never reporting them as POWs.
USG Image of Marine Raiders on the deck of the USS Argonaut after the Makin Raid Because of the difficulty in returning to the subs they had also been forced to leave their dead an missing behind. The Marines had succeed in destroying the Japanese installations on the island but they retrieved nothing of any great intelligence value. The Marines had suffered 18 KIA and 12 MIA in the raid. LTC Carlson reported counting 83 Japanese bodies before he left. The Marines killed virtually all of the Japanese garrison of the island. LTC Carlson sent word to the subs to meet the men at the mouth of Makin Lagoon and the evening of the 18 th the remaining 73 men built a raft and using two native canoes traveled the four miles to the mouth of the lagoon where they were picked up by the Submarines. This attempt failed when Japanese aircraft appeared and strafed the submarines forcing them to crash dive. 93 men made it out to the subs the first evening but 73 men waited until the morning when the subs sent a boat with a rope to help the boats get through the surf. That is when the real fun started as the surf had risen and they had trouble getting out to the waiting submarines. In the early afternoon to flying boats with Japanese reinforcements attempted to land on Makin but the Marines managed to force one to crash and the other exploded in midair after being fired on by Marine machine gunners.Īfter destroying everything they could including two small ships and all the Japanese buildings on the island the Marines began to evacuate the island. Most of the defenders were killed in the course of the Banzai Charges. The Japanese also launched two Banzai Charges which the Marines beat off. They landed on the southern shore and moved north against strong resistance from snipers and machine gun teams. The Marines landed the night of August 17 th without incident and proceed to attack and kill the Japanese garrison. View of Makin Island from the Periscope of the USS Nautilus Before the Raid The Marines would land from two submarines the USS Nautilus and USS Argonaut using small rubber boats equipped with outboard motors. The plan was for 211 men from companies A and B of the 2nd Marine “Raider” Battalion led by LTC Evans Carlson to land on the island under cover of darkness, neutralize the small Japanese garrison and ransack the island for anything of intelligence value before destroying the facilities and leaving the island. The raid was conceived as a way for the Marines to gather intelligence on what and how many Japanese forces were stationed in the Gilbert Islands. In 1942 the island had a small, roughly 160 man garrison, and was the site of a Japanese Airfield. The present name of the island is Butaritari in the island nation of Kiribati. In August 1942 the 2nd Marine “Raider” Battalion raided what was then called Makin Island in the Gilbert Archipelago of the South Pacific.
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