As it Happened: Tarawa

On the 20th November 1943, one of the bloodiest battles in American History began – the target, a tiny island called Tarawa. Tarawa was the most strongly defended island in the Pacific which the Japanese boasted that a million Americans couldn’t take the island in one hundred years. On Tarawa, the Marines faced their sternest test yet. High above the Island reconnaissance aircraft charted the course of the battle. These photographs, original footage and first-hand accounts shed unprecedented light on the battle of Tarawa, a ferocious 76 hour conflict that shaped the course of the Pacific War.