File: Members of a U.S. Marine outfit wade through surf from landing boats and barges to the beach during their amphibious invasion of Tarawa atoll in the Gilbert Islands
File: Smoke rolls from embattled Betio Islet, where the U.S. Marines drove into the Japanese-occupied Tarawa atoll in the Gilbert Islands. This is how the Island looked after bombardment by American planes which preceded the landings on Dec. 17
File: U.S. Marines crouch in the slim cover of a sand dune as they lie siege to Japanese defenders of the airfield at Tarawa atoll, in late November 1943, during the invasion of Gilbert Islands in World War II
File: Gen. David M. Shoup, commanding officer of U.S. Marines at Tarawa Atoll, holds an aerial map of Tarawa island, made a month before the Marines invaded the island in Nov. 1943, in his office at the Navy annex in Washington, D.C., in Nov. 18, 1963. The photograph of the cross in background is of the memorial which was put on Tarawa after the island was taken in action against Japanese forces in World War II
File: Sprawled bodies on beach of Tarawa, testifying to ferocity of the struggle for this stretch of sand
Pilots leaning across F6F on board the USS Lexington (CV-16) after shooting down 17 out of 20 Japanese planes heading for Tarawa
File: Marines use a flamethrower against Japanese bunker on Tarawa
File: Don Lillibridge
Don Lillibridge
File: Michael Ryan
Michael Ryan
File: Norman Hatch, Marine staff sergeant and combat cameraman
Norman Hatch
File: Actor Eddie Albert, star of the 1960s TV sitcom 'Green Acres,' was a salvage officer on an attack transport at Tarawa. He rescued dozens of Marines during the Allied invasion of the Gilbert Islands in 1943, a bloody World War II battle
