(PHOTO LOT) LARGE WWII DOCUMENTARY PHOTO LOT RECORDING THE BATTLE OF TARAWA, WITH CAPTIONS TO THE VERSO

Circa 75 Official US MARINE CORPS photographs documenting the fight for Tarawa, many with captions and stamping, including release date of Feb. 2, 1944. Early Marine Corps photography;  handwritten notes on verso.

The majority of these original photographs appear to have been used in the selection of images which subsequently appeared in the book "Betio Beachhead, U.S. Marines’ Own Story of the Battle for Tarawa" (Putnams, New York, 1945). The images which were used can be identified as they all have the relevant quotes from the book written in pencil on the versos. A sample caption: “Each is a hero in his own right. I am proud of them...they may not have rank, prestige or background, but they have greater substitutes—” is on the verso of a photograph showing a smiling soldier at rest.

“The Battle of Tarawa was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that was fought on 20–23 November 1943. It took place at the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, and was part of Operation Galvanic, the U.S. invasion of the Gilberts. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, and Americans died in the fighting, mostly on and around the small island of Betio, in the extreme southwest of Tarawa Atoll

The Battle of Tarawa was the first American offensive in the critical central Pacific region. It was also the first time in the Pacific War that the United States had faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing.”  (Wikipedia).