This battle was to dominate the headlines of the American press and the "cursed beach of Tarawa" was one of the favorite themes of American war correspondents. Few images did as much to drive the war into the minds of the American people as the pictures of the corpses of marines being slowly washed up by the waves onto the coral sands of the bloody beaches of Betio, Tarawa Atoll. The landing of Betio had opened a new phase of the Pacific war:the “campaign of the atolls”, fortunately of short duration. At the beginning of the summer of 1943, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided to seize the Gilbert Islands, an essential step before the conquest of the Marshalls. The atolls would constitute the air bases necessary for the crossing of the Central Pacific, towards Japan.
The Gilberts, a British possession, had been occupied by the Japanese on December 10, 1941. They were to enjoy great peace until the end of 1943, broken only by the attack, in August 1942, of Makin Atoll. by an American commando who killed 70 Japanese and destroyed a radio station.
However, this raid attracted the attention of the Japanese high command who decided to reinforce the defense of the Gilberts, and of Tarawa in particular. The atoll was to resist an American attack, which would allow Truk's naval air forces to intervene against the American main battle, while Rabaul's aircraft would attack the Bismarcks. This would be an opportunity to fight a decisive battle.