Betio is an island and a town at the extreme southwest of South Tarawa in Kiribati. The main port of Tarawa Atoll is located there.
The island is most well known as the scene of the Battle of Tarawa during World War II.[1] Relics of the Japanese invasion, and the subsequent American assault on the islet in 1943, remain there. The Japanese airstrip no longer exists, 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.
It was also the scene of a massacre by beheading of New Zealand and Fijian civilians and military coastwatchers by Japanese forces prior to the US landings.[2] The massacre was in retaliation for an American air raid and not in retaliation for assistance given to the escape of civilians and seamen from the RCS (Royal Colonial Ship) Nimanoa (also sometimes wrongly written as Niminoa).[3]
Pacific Wrecks. The partly submerged hulk of the Saidu Maru, a Japanese merchant ship often wrongly called the Niminoa, would later be used as a machine gun post by the Japanese against the US forces that re-took Tarawa. Note: RCS Nimanoa was a wooden-hulled ketch, whereas Saidu Maru was a steel-hulled vessel, part of which is still visible on the reef off Red Beach. [4]
The seamen escaped in a small, open launch, towing two lifeboats [4] They sailed to Nonouti, in the Southern Gilberts, where they were met by the Degei, commanded by Captain Jack Webster in which they returned from Nonouti 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 coastwatchers massacred on Betio.[5][1]
Since the 1970s, the islet has become increasingly more crowded, being the main centre of economic activity in Kiribati, and the construction of the causeway to Bairiki in the early 1980s exacerbated this.
Unexploded artillery shells, mortar rounds, anti-aircraft shells and live machine gun bullets are found all over the island and surrounding reef. There are also remains of several hundred U.S. and Japanese soldiers still buried on the island.
One of the American missions on Battlestations: Pacific sees you supporting the Marines who are going to take over the island.
The last mission set of Medal of Honor:Pacific Assault is set during the Battle of Tarawa, where the player plays the role of a U.S. Marine.
Both games feature the merchant ship and the pier.
Betio is depicted in the Franco-Belgian comics named after the Battle of Tarawa by Jean-Michel Charlier and Victor Hubinon.
In chapter 16 of Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, Ishmael recalls his experience as a World War II Marine radioman during the siege of this island.
Betio is featured in the game Heroes of the Pacific, where you must fly a reconnaissance mission over Betio in a P-38 Lightning. You also, on the day of the invasion, support the invasion by suppressing pillboxes and maintaining air superiority.