40 Years ago at Tarawa

40 years ago I was tasked as an Airforce Photographer to travel with the New Zealand Contingent to the Gilbert And Ellice Islands to help commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Allied Landings at Tarawa, Gilbert Islands. The New Zealand team flew up by Bristol Freighter and a memory is looking down 9,000 feet (through the glass in the front doors of the B-170) on a vast expanse of Pacific Ocean, and being thankful for the skills of the navigator and aircrew.
Notes from the commemorative program / Order Of Service (cyclostyled - remember that process of reproduction?)
"IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL NOVEMBER, 1943"
"On 20 November 1943, United States Marines of the Second Division assaulted the island of Betio on Tarawa Atoll to begin Operation Galvanic against the Japanese-held Gilbert Islands. During three days of fierce fighting on heavily fortified Betio, the Marines all but annihilated the determined 4,836-man Japanese defense force. The price was 3,301 American casualties, 990 of whom paid the supreme sacrifice. The seizure of Tarawa, which constituted the First American amphibious assault against a fortified atoll, was of vital strategic importance. But more important, Tarawa was the testing ground for Marine amphibious doctrine and techniques. It paved the way for the island campaigns that followed and provided answers that saved thousands of American lives along the road to victory in the Pacific. --23 November 1968"

Photos I took of the ceremony show the mole at the War Memorial at Betio
Then the address by His Honour, V.J. Andersen, ESQ, CMG, OBE, VRD, Resident Commissioner in the Gilbert & Ellice Islands Colony. Seated in the front row are our RNZAF Officers representing New Zealand. Behind the Commissioner you can see one and a half of the Honour Guard from USS "McMorris"