 |
Type 95 Ha Go Light Tank on the northern beach of Tarawa (Betio)
(Right) Stan Gajda holding a Type 97 7.7mm machine gun recovered from this light tank with a local.
Stan Gajda recalls: "This photo was taken according to a source I read some months after
the battle of November 1943.
Note the 37mm gun is missing. This photo I reckon is taken off Red
Beach 2, about where the Betio hospital is now. This tank is still
there but
falling apart. The various amtracks can also be located but some were
cleared over the years. A Type 97 machine gun I have in the tankette
came from
a tank lying on the reef just off the beach opposite the big command
bunker. This one is not the Type 95 often shown sitting by the bunker steps
after the
battle because you can see the gun I got is already missing in those
post battle photos. Where the tank came from that I got the gun from
I have never been
able to satisfactorily find out. Four Type 95 remains can still be seen
lying about off the beaches of Betio. Two on the ocean side and two
on the lagoon
side. They are all junk today but the one I got the 7.7 machine gun out of in 1984
had a lot of exploded 37mm and 7.7mm shell casings which were very
interesting
to recover and clean for all had head stamps."
Credit: Stan Gajda Date: 1984
Scan
High Resolution Version
Acquire This Image |
Contribute Information
Do you have photos or additional information?
Previous Page
|
|
