Betio

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Map of Betio from WWII

Betio is an island at the extreme southwest of South Tarawa. The main port of Tarawa Atoll is located here, and the island is most well known as being the scene of the Battle of Tarawa. ^[1]

This was also the scene of a massacre by beheading of New Zealand and Fijian civilians by Japanese forces prior to the US landings [1]. The massacre [2]may have been in retaliation for assistance given to the escape of seamen from the captured merchant ship Nimanoa (also sometimes written as Niminoa). These seamen had been captured by the Japanese at the start of the Pacific War when their ship was scuttled in Betio harbour [3]to prevent its use by the invading Japanese forces. The partly submerged hulk of the Nimanoa would later be used as a machine gun post by the Japanese against the US forces that re-took Tarawa ^[2].

The seamen escaped in a small, open boat [4]that they sailed to Fiji. News of the massacre was covered up by British authorities at the time to the extent that New Zealand and Fijian governments were prevented from informing the families of the men killed of their deaths. However, persistent rumours eventually reached the families and it has been proposed that the shooting of Japanese prisoners held in a New Zealand POW camp was done in retaliation for this massacre. The New Zealand camp guard who fired on the Japanese prisoners during the prison riot was the brother of one of the civilians massacred on Betio. (source: NZ National Archives). ^[3] Since the 1970s, the islet has become increasingly more crowded, being the main centre of economic activity in Kiribati. The construction of the causeway to Bairiki in the early 1980s exacerbated this and it is currently regarded as the most densely populated place in the world.^{[citation needed]}

Guns left over from World War II

To this day, there remain relics of the Japanese invasion, and the subsequent American assault on the islet in 1943. The Japanese airstrip is no longer there, but its effect can be seen in the stunted growth of palms along its length. Many bunkers remain, as well as the wrecks of military equipment.