- 105 - Pacific War - The Bloody Invasion of the Gilberts, November 21-28, 1943

Last time we spoke about the planning for operation Galvanic and the battle of Sattelberg. The Americans were finally going to make their thrust into the central pacific with operation Galvanic. Admiral Raymond Spruance was given command of the Central Pacific Force and began building his war machine. The Americans would be employing a arsenal of new toys to hit the Gilbert Islands. Meanwhile the Japanese did everything they could to fortify the Gilberts, Marshalls and Carolines for the incoming American offensives, they would make them pay with blood for every island. Over in Green Hell the Australians were advancing up the Sattelberg road seizing Green Ridge, Coconut Ridge and other features. General Katagiri was once again on the defensive and it was only a matter of time before Sattelberg was under siege. Today we are going to cover all of this and more! This episode is The Bloody Invasion of the Gilberts Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  Last week we went through in depth the planning behind Operation Galvanic. The time had finally come to invade the Gilberts islands. To soften up the islands, carrier-borne airstrikes were made against the Gilberts and Marshalls. One of the major impacts of the raids in September and October was the evacuation of aircraft from Tarawa. Just before the raids there had been three air installations in the 3rd Special Base Force area; two airfields at Nauru and one at Tara, with a seaplane base at Makin. One of the duties assigned to these installations was to maintain patrols in the southeast corner of the Central Pacific. Patrols from Nauru covered the area south of the island, patrols from Kain covered the east and patrols from Tarawa the southeast between the other two. Yet after the removal of so many aircraft from Tarawa, now Makin had to assume full responsibility for patrolling the Gilberts area. By November there were only four amphibious reconnaissance planes left at Makin and even worse they had the dual mission of reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrol. Thus in other words there were not enough eyes on lookout. On November 10th, Admiral Spruance led out his Central Pacific force from Hawaii enroute for Tarawa aboard his flagship the heavy cruises Indianapolis. The Northern attack force, northern carrier group and interceptor carrier group all departed from the Hawaiian islands simultaneously, but they would not be traveling together. The two carrier groups moved in a parallel course followed by the Northern attack force at around 300 miles to their northwest. The two routes of approach would change around 800 miles east of the Gilberts with the Northern attack force turning to meet them. As the force made its way, Spruance warned “If … a major portion of the Japanese fleet were to attempt to interfere with Galvanic, it is obvious that the defeat of the enemy fleet would at once become paramount … the destruction of a considerable portion of the Japanese naval strength would … go far towards winning the war …” Even within the Navy there were critics of Operation Galvanic. While Spruance was taking the 5th fleet along with 30,000 marines, Vice Admiral John Towers grumbled “Spruance wants a sledgehammer to drive a tack.” The battle for Tar