Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa. This item is unavailable.Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa

A retelling of the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943 describes the risks, combat, and heroism that marked the events as culled from the memoirs of Marine survivors and Japanese sources. Reprint.

rst complete and definitive account of the Battle of Tarawa."

--Maj. Gen. Mike Ryan, USMC (Ret.)

Navy Cross recipient

Green Beach, Tarawa



On November 20, l943, in the first trial by fire of America's fledgling amphibious assault doctrine, five thousand men stormed the beaches of Tarawa, a seemingly invincible Japanese island fortress barely the size of the Pentagon parking lots (three-hundred acres!). Before the first day ended, one third of the Marines who had crossed Tarawa's deadly reef under murderous fire were killed, wounded, or missing. In three days of fighting, four Americans would win the Medal of Honor. And six-thousand combatants would die.



Now, Col. Joseph Alexander, a combat Marine himself, presents the full story of Tarawa in all its horror and glory: the extreme risks, the horrific combat, and the heroic breakthroughs. Based on exhaustive research, never-before-published accounts from Ma