Shibasaki Keiji

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Shibasaki Keiji (柴崎恵次) was a Japanese officer and the commander of the Japanese garrison on the island of Betio of the Tarawa atoll during the World War II Battle of Tarawa (November 20–23, 1943). A rear admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Shibasaki arrived on Betio in September 1943 to take command of the Japanese garrison, including 1,122 Imperial Marines forming the 3rd Special Base Force, 1,497 Imperial Marines forming the 7th Sasebo Special Landing Force,Tank Unit/Sasebo 7th SNLF 1,427 labourers (mostly Korean and Chinese) forming the 111th Construction unit, and a detachment of 970 labourers from the 4th Fleet Construction Dept.

Shibaskaki was a veteran of amphibious landings in China during the late 1930s and was aware of the difficulties facing an amphibious landing force. He built extensive defenses on Betio to defend its strategically-important airfield, and famously boasted to his troops that "it would take one million men one hundred years" to conquer the island.

Shibasaki is believed to have been killed on the first day of the battle sometime on mid-afternoon of November 20, 1943: reportedly, he and all his senior officers were killed by naval gunfire from U.S. destroyers while they were walking to a secondary command post away from the front lines on the beaches.