Wartime History
Abandoned or disabled on the reef at Tarawa after the battle

Wreckage
Stan Gajda recalls:
"This photo was taken according to a source I read some months after the battle of November 1943. Note the 37mm gun is missing. This photo I reckon is taken off Red Beach Two about where the Betio hospital is now. This tank is still there but falling apart. The various amtracks can also be located but some were cleared over the years. The type 97 machine gun I have in the tankette came from a tank lying on the reef just off the beach opposite the big command bunker. This one is not the T95 often shown sitting by the bunker steps after the battle because you can see the gun I got is already missing in those post-battle photos. Where the tank came from that I got the gun from I have never been able to satisfactorily find out. Four T95 remains can still be seen lying about off the beaches of Betio. Two on the ocean side and two on the lagoon side. They are all junk today but the one I got the mg out of in 1984 had a lot of exploded 37mm and 7.7mm shell casings which were very interesting to recover and clean for all had headstamps."

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Last Updated
October 1, 2009