battle, major, interwar and Second World War

Battle of Tarawa

Name: Battle of Tarawa
Start: 1943-11-20
Location: Betio, Kiribati

Battle of Tarawa was a battle fought on 20 November 1943 at Betio, in what is now Kiribati; it lasted 3 days. It was part of Q2920892. The recorded result: Allied victory.

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Fought20 November 1943lasted 3 days

WhereBetio, Kiribati1.427N, 172.976E

OutcomeAllied victory

BelligerentsUnited States; Gilbert and Ellice IslandsagainstEmpire of Japan

Part ofQ2920892

Where it sits in Q2920892

4 placed engagements of Q2920892 in time order; taller ticks are more widely documented. Each tick is a link.

Record

Date	20 November 1943 to 23 November 1943
Place	Betio, Kiribati 1.427N, 172.976E
Kind	Battle, interwar and Second World War
Strength	35,000 troops; 18,000 marines; 5 escort carriers; 3 battleships; 2 heavy cruisers; 2 light cruisers; 22 destroyers; 2 minesweepers; 18 transports & landing ships	2,636 troops; 2,200 construction laborers (1,200 Korean and 1,000 Japanese); 14 tanks; 40 artillery pieces; 14 naval guns
Casualties and losses	U.S. Marine Corps: 1,009 killed; 2,101 wounded; U.S. Navy: 687 killed; 1 destroyer damaged by coastal guns	4,690 killed (Both Japanese soldiers and construction laborers); 17 soldiers captured; 129 Korean laborers captured; 14 tanks destroyed
Commanders	Raymond A. Spruance Richmond K. Turner Harry W. Hill (admiral) Holland Smith Julian C. Smith Leo D. Hermle	Keiji Shibazaki

The recorded site, with the nearest other engagements in the atlas. Present-day coastlines, rivers and borders; towns from Natural Earth.

The ground today

Relief of the ground around the site of Battle of Tarawa — Relief within about 10.0 km of the site, contours every 5 m. Copernicus DEM GLO-30, ESA.

Satellite view of the site of Battle of Tarawa today — The same ground from Sentinel-2 on 2025-07-23. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2025.

The recorded site stands at about 0 m; within 10.0 km the ground runs from 0 to 2 m, 2 m of relief, flat country and today it is 100% water.

Elevation from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, Airbus); land cover from ESA WorldCover 2021 (CC BY 4.0), within about 5 km of the recorded site. Computed, not recorded.

Nearest engagements

Battle of Makin 1943, 184 km N
Battle of Drummond's Island 1841, 203 km E
Battle of Kwajalein 1944, 997 km NW
Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands 1942, 1316 km SW
Battle of the Eastern Solomons 1942, 1575 km SW

In the same war

After: Battle of Makin 21 November 1943

Elsewhere in 1943

Combat data (CDB90)

	Attacker: US 2ND MAR DIV(-)	Defender: JAP GILBERT ISLANDS GARRISON FORCE(-)
Strength	9,000	4,836
Casualties	3,302 (36.7%)	4,836 (100.0%)
Mission accomplishment, 1 to 10	7	4
Outcome	attacker won
Duration	4.0 days
Front width	1.2 km	1.2 km
Attacker advanced	1 km

From the US Army Concepts Analysis Agency Database of Battles (CDB90, battle 517), public domain, in the CC0 tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold. Figures are the database's estimates, compiled in 1990 from published histories, and may differ from the Wikipedia infobox above.

Battle of Tarawa is one of 2,997 engagements of the 20th century in the atlas and one of 3 in present-day Kiribati.

Sources

Identity, coordinates, dates and the war from Wikidata Q250309, released under CC0. Result, belligerents, commanders, strength and casualties from the infobox of the English Wikipedia article Battle of Tarawa, revision 1385263834, read 2026-11-14, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the article's text is not reproduced here. Present-day country and state from Natural Earth. Dates before 1582 follow the Julian calendar as recorded.