Battle of Makin

Battle of Makin
Part of World War II, Pacific War
Soldiers of the US Army's 2nd Battalion, 165th Infantry, struggle to shore on Yellow Beach on Butaritari Island
Date 20–23 November 1943 Location Makin Atoll, Gilbert Islands 3°05′24″N 172°49′01″E / 3.090°N 172.817°E / 3.090; 172.817Coordinates: 3°05′24″N 172°49′01″E / 3.090°N 172.817°E / 3.090; 172.817 Result United States victory
Belligerents
United States	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Richmond K. Turner Ralph C. Smith	Seizo Ishikawa
Strength
6,470 -27th Infantry Division	400 Japanese soldiers 400 Japanese and Korean laborers
Casualties and losses
763 killed *(697 Navy, 66 Army) 185 wounded 1 aircraft carrier sunk	395 killed 101 Korean laborers captured

The Battle of Makin was an engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought from 20 to 23 November 1943, on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.

The end of the Aleutian Islands Campaign and progress in the Solomon Islands, combined with increasing supplies of men and materials, gave the United States Navy the resources to make an invasion of the central Pacific in late 1943. Admiral Chester Nimitz had argued for this invasion earlier in 1943, but the resources were not available to carry it out at the same time as Operation Cartwheel, the envelopment of Rabaul in the Bismarck Islands. The plan was to approach the Japanese home islands by "island hopping": establishing naval and air bases in one group of islands to support the attack on the next. The Gilbert Islands were the first step in this chain.

On 10 December 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 300 Japanese troops, plus laborers of the so-called Gilberts Invasion Special Landing Force had arrived off Makin Atoll and occupied without resistance. Lying east of the Marshall islands, Makin would make an excellent seaplane base, extending Japanese air patrols closer to Howland Island, Baker Island, Tuvalu and Phoenix and Ellice Islands, all held by the Allies and protecting the eastern flank of the Japanese perimeter from an Allied attack.

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