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Of the thousand marines who died in Tarawa's 76 hours Morison says convincingly: "Not one died in vain, nor did the 2,101 men wounded in action and who recovered, suffer in vain. Every man there, lost or maimed, saved at least ten of his countrymen as the Navy plunged deep into enemy waters and sailed irresistibly through Micronesia. All honor, then, to the fighting heart of the United States Marine. Let that small stretch of coral sand . . be remembered as terrible indeed, but glorious, and the seedbed for victory in 1945."
The next plunge proved that the lessons of Tarawa had been learned well. This time, Kwajalein atoll was devastated by five times the weight of steel that Tarawa received, and "even 'Howling Mad' Smith loved the Navy—for a few days." Twice as many Japanese were killed at a cost of one-third as many marines and soldiers. "A well-executed amphibious operation is as beautiful a military spectacle as one can find in modern warfare,"says Morison.
The Twin Weapons. Sam Morison writes with grace—and without ham-handed politeness. Interservice etiquette bothers him not at all. The soldiers at Makin were "miserably slow," and their fellows from the same division (the 27th) at Eniwetok were "all right but their training and leadership alike were poor." On the other hand, the 7th Division profited from Attu and was smart in the Marshalls.
In Micronesia, the aircraft carrier came of age. Whereas the Americans were reduced to one flattop in the Solomons in late 1942, they took 16 to the Marshalls in early 1944. Two weeks after Kwajalein, Admiral Marc Mitscher's Task Force 58 smothered the great base at Truk with 568 planes, and sank 200,000 tons of shipping (biggest single day of the war). The Navy, abetted by U.S. industry, had found —in amphibious expertness and carrier proficiency—the twin weapons that would lead to victory.