There were some cynics. They claimed it made absolutely no sense to spend so much time and effort putting several hundred Marines ashore on an island of little importance-and which we did not intend to keep, anyway. Such a raid would indeed force the Japanese to station then on all of their islands, but doing so would pose fewer problems for the Japs than it would, in the future, for the United States. After the Makin Raid, they believed, we would have to fight our way ashore on every island we wished to take and keep. And that would cost lives.
There were even those who said that the whole Raider concept was a Chinese fire drill, because the President's son was involved and because the Commandant didn't have the balls to tell the President the whole idea was a drain on manpower and resources that could be better used elsewhere.
The dissent was heard, duly noted, and ignored.
The Argonaut (She was to be sunk by Japanese destroyers between Lae and New Guinea on 10 January 1943) was a one-of-a-kind submarine. She was designed in 1919 to be something of a copy of the German U-Cruiser class, and she was intended for use for both long-distance cruising and underwater mine laying. She was launched at Portsmouth on November 10, 1927, and commissioned on April 2, 1928. Powered by two German-made MAN diesel engines developing 3,175 horsepower, she was capable of making fifteen knots on the surface. And her electric motors would move her at eight knots submerged. She was armed with two six-inch cannon, three 30-caliber machine guns, and four 21-inch torpedo tubes. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, she had gone through a refit at Mare Island Navy Yard, converting her to a transport submarine.
The Nautilus was one of two submarines of the Narwhal class. Generally similar to the Argonaut, she did not have a mine-laying capability. When she was launched at Mare Island in March 1930, she had MAN diesels, but these were replaced by Fairbanks Morse engines just before World War II. She had two aft-firing torpedo tubes plus four forward firing and was armed, like the Argonaut, with two 6-inch Naval cannon.
Both vessels were considerably larger than "fleet" submarines of the period, and for this reason had been chosen to transport the elements of the 2nd Raider Battalion charged with making an attack upon the Japanese-held Makin atoll, which lay 2,029 nautical miles to the southwest, roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia.
The Argonaut and the Nautilus were led through the antisubmarine cables and other defenses of Pearl Harbor, and for some distance at sea by a patrol craft (PC 46), which stood by while (at 1500 hours) the submarines dived to test hull integrity and to determine trim. At 2015 hours, the Argonaut left the formation, under orders to visually reconnoiter the Makin atoll before the arrival of the Nautilus.
At 2100 hours the patrol craft was released as escort and the Nautilus got underway to rendezvous with the Argonaut off Makin Atoll.
(Three)
Makin Island
0530 Hours, 17 August 1942
Not surprising Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy one little bit, the landing was all fucked up.
The faithful Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman, leading a couple of squads, was at his side as they lay in the sand fifteen yards off the beach. The trouble with the situation was that Zimmerman was with Able Company, and Lieutenant McCoy was performing his duties as a platoon leader with Baker Company. He didn't know where Zimmerman was supposed to be, except that it wasn't here.
A large Raider came running up and dropped on his belly beside McCoy. "How's it going?" he asked cheerfully.
Under the circumstances, McCoy decided, since they were where they were, and since the large Raider was his little brother, he would not deliver a lecture on the proper manner for a corporal to address a commissioned officer and gentleman. Then he noticed the awesome weapon, a Boys antitank rifle ((A British weapon, essentially an oversize bolt-action rifle. Loaded, on its monopod, it weighed almost forty pounds. Fed with a top-mounted clip, the.55-caliber weapon fired a tungsten-cored bullet larger than the U.S..50-caliber machine-gun round. It had proved ineffective against German tanks, but it was believed it would be effective against lighter armored Japanese vehicles), with which Tom was armed.
"Where'd you get that, Tommy?" McCoy asked.
"I gave it to him," Zimmerman said, softly. "We got orders to bring the sonofabitch and he's the only one big enough to carry it, much less shoot it."
McCoy chuckled.
"I'm going to blow some Jap general a new asshole," Tommy said confidently. "A big new asshole."
McCoy looked up at the sky. It was lighter than it had been; dawn was obviously breaking, but it was still dark. Too dark, he decided, to order Zimmerman to go look for his officers and find out where he was supposed to be. That would just add Zimmerman and his bunch to those already milling around in the dark.
"Stay here," McCoy said, and crawled back to the beach. Then he stood up, because he couldn't see lying down.
The force had been loaded into eighteen rubber boats. And they had planned to land at several points along the seaside shore of Butaritari Island. But at the last minute (when, in McCoy's private opinion, Colonel Carlson had seen how fucked up the offloading from the subs into the boats had gone), Carlson had the word passed that everybody was to land at Beach "Z," which was across the island from Government House.
What everybody called "Makin Island" was correctly "Makin Atoll," a collection of tiny islands forming a small hollow triangle around a deep-water lagoon. The base of the triangle, shaped like a long, low-sided "U," was Butaritari Island, the largest of the islands. Off its northern point was Little Makin Island. When they had finished here, the Raiders were scheduled to attack and to destroy what personnel and materiel might be found there.
What civilization there was on Butaritari Island was all on the lagoon side-wharves running out from warehouses and buildings to the deep water of the lagoon. To the north of the built-up area were Government Wharf and Government House, now the Japanese headquarters. That was where the vast bulk of the Japanese forces were supposed to be.
McCoy counted rubber boats. He counted fifteen; that meant three were missing.
On the beach somewhere out of sight? Or swamped?
A trio of Raiders came running down the beach in a crouch, their weapons (Thompsons and Garands) at the ready.
"Whoa!" McCoy ordered.
Somewhat sheepishly they stopped, stood erect, and looked at him. Privately hoping it would set an example, McCoy had elected to arm himself with a Garand rather man with any of the array of gung ho automatic weapons in the arms room. He thought that the planned operation called for rifles… and not submachine guns that most people couldn't shoot well anyway, or carbines, whose effectiveness as a substitute for a rifle he questioned.
Their faces were streaked with black grease, and they were wearing what looked like, and in fact were, khaki uniforms that had been dyed black. There was no more India ink in the drafting offices at Camp Catlin, but the Raiders had the black uniforms Carlson couldn't find in quartermaster warehouses anywhere.
"We've been looking for you, Lieutenant," the corporal said, somewhat defensively.
"Where are you?" McCoy asked, clearly meaning the rest of the platoon.
The corporal gestured down the beach behind him. "About a hundred yards, sir."
"You run into anybody from Able Company?" McCoy asked.
"Yes, sir, there's a bunch of them down there, sir," the corporal said.
"You two stay here," McCoy ordered the two Raiders. Then he pointed at the corporal. "You go get the others," he said, and pointed inland. "I'm about fifteen yards in there."
"Aye, aye, sir," the corporal said, and started down the beach.