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Siisi V asked in Arts & HumanitiesHistory · 4 years ago

Question about Battle of Tarawa 1943?

Who killed most of the 1200 Korean SLAVE laborers? only 129 survived. Japanese?

1 Answer

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  • Fred
    Lv 5
    4 years ago

    Very few Japanese survived the battle of Tarawa. In the next island conquest, Saipan, the Japanese did bayonet their wounded too weak to fight in battle. So by that example; it is not an exaggeration that the Japanese did bayonet ANY solder too injured to continue battle. 129 Korean forced labor survivors is a lot! Of the Japanese garrison of 3,636 Japanese only one officer and 16 enlisted men surrendered! ... So it might be easy to say the 129 Koreans just stayed alive until there were no Japanese left to contain them and keep them from surrendering!

    Tarawa was the first "near" battle of the Pacific. It was an example of what Japan was to offer up for the price of conquest. The war for the Japanese was lost one year previous at Midway Island.

    Tarawa has a controversial conquest, some saying it's use was not worth the costs, in a few short months after would be the battle for Peleliu, a much more costly won island ... militarily abandoned after conquest.

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