On this date in history in 1943, the WWII Battle of Tarawa began. The three-day battle for Tarawa in the Central Pacific was the first major trial by fire for the new Marine doctrine of forcible amphibious assault from the sea against a fortified island. Tarawa's coral reef, a barrier to the Navy's landing boats, posed a serious problem. To land the initial attack forces across the reef, the Marines converted their tracked "Alligator" cargo-haulers - civilian rescue vehicles designed to perform

On this day in 1943, U.S. troops stormed the Japanese-held Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. The bloody, 76-hour Battle of Tarawa is remembered as the first major American offensive in the central Pacific. For the full story, watch this clip from The Pacific War in Color: Island Hopping. | Smithsonian Channel Aviation Nation

In November, 1943, the USS Enterprise supports a two pronged attack in the Pacific at the WW2 Battle of Tarawa. | HISTORY