The Far Reaches (45 page)

The battle of Tarawa as I recount it in this novel is accurate except, of course, for the participation of Josh Thurlow, Ready O'Neal, Colonel Montague Burr, the three marines Tucker, Sampson, and Garcia, and also Sister Mary Kathleen and her fella boys. Among the very real participants were Major Mike Ryan, Colonel David Shoup, Sergeant Bill Bordelon, Colonel “Red Mike” Edson, and Lieutenant Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman.

The final American bill for Tarawa was 997 dead marines and 30 corpsmen, with 2,233 marines and 59 corpsmen grievously wounded and 88 marines missing. Another way of looking at it: Nearly 30 percent of the 12,000 Americans who participated in the landing were either killed or incapacitated by wounds. Ninety of their 125 landing craft were also sunk, wrecked, or battered into junk. The battle was three days of bloody mayhem. One wonders what the reaction of the United States public would be today after such a horrendous “victory.” World War II in the Pacific, however, just kept grinding on after Tarawa with hardly a murmur of unhappiness on the home front.

The Japanese body count for the battle was 4,713 men dead. The
rikusentai
fought nearly to the last man. In 2004, the Japanese sent 600 troops to
Iraq, principally to support a variety of humanitarian projects, including water purification. Japanese citizens instantly began to fret over the safety of their soldiers, demanding that everything possible be done to keep them out of actual combat and to bring them home as soon as possible.

Obviously, there have been a few changes in the mindset of both Americans and Japanese since the 1940s.

Two excellent resources for the battle of Tarawa are the aptly titled
Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa,
by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC, and
One Square Mile of Hell,
by John Wukovits. Another excellent book with many photographs and maps is
Tarawa 1943: The Turning of the Tide,
written by Derrick Wright and illustrated by Howard Gerrard. A most remarkable book I discovered told me the story of what happened on Betio immediately after the battle. It is titled
Tarawa: The Aftermath,
written by Donald K. Allen. It is an astonishing history of men living literally atop the shallow graves of thousands. An interesting recent memoir about life on Tarawa is
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific,
by J. Maarten Troost. Despite its lurid title, Mr. Troost's amusing tale has nothing to do with cannibals or what they do in bed. It is, however, a good primer on how life has evolved in a most intriguing manner on those decaying little coral atolls.

Although the British government and church officials made an effort to evacuate missionaries off the Gilbert Islands (which included Tarawa) before the Japanese occupation in 1942, a number of them were captured, including approximately twenty Catholic nuns of various nationalities. Most of the male missionaries and priests were executed. The nuns were brutalized by the Japanese troops and then sent to the northern Gilberts. None were apparently on Betio when the island was invaded by the United States Marines.

Sister Mary Kathleen is fictitious, but many nuns of various Catholic orders have over the years dedicated themselves to service in the Pacific. These were and are remarkable women with an astonishing capacity for difficult and selfless work. They are rightly beloved by the citizens of Oceania's far-flung atolls and islands. To support these dedicated women, a contribution to Catholic Relief Services or directly to the various orders is always welcome.

To research Sister Mary Kathleen, it was necessary to delve into a variety of books written by and about Catholic nuns. Although fiction,
The Nun's Story,
by Kathryn Hulme, is still a powerful story and is based on a
real woman's experiences during the same era as this novel. I found it invaluable because it told quite movingly how and why women became nuns just prior to and during World War II. Another novel that I enjoyed reading was
The Flesh and the Spirit
(a.k.a.
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison),
by Charles Shaw. The movie's pretty good, too. An informative book on an Irish nun in the Pacific is
An Extraordinary Australian: Mary MacKillop,
by Paul Gardiner. I also found
The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns,
by Elizabeth Kuhns, to be most enlightening.

I am particularly grateful to a Roman Catholic nun who wishes to be completely anonymous for her helpful correspondence during my writing of this novel. She provided me with much-needed research concerning the Catholic nuns in the Pacific during World War II as well as hand drawings to illustrate the various components of the habits they wore. I hasten to add that she was never aware of the plot of this novel or the imperfections of the fictitious Sister Mary Kathleen, who certainly does not represent her or most nuns. I hope she won't be too embarrassed by what I have written.

My research into native life on the islands of Pacific Oceania led me down some fascinating paths. Early on in my conceptualization of this novel, I decided that the people of the Far Reaches would be culturally closer to the Polynesian people of the nineteenth century, rather than the twentieth and certainly the twenty-first. With this in mind,
A Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands,
by James F O'Connell, first published in 1836, became pertinent, as did Mark Twain's
Following the Equator
and Robert Louis Stevenson's
In the South Seas.
To understand the navigational techniques and boat-building of the Pacific,
East Is a Big Bird,
by Thomas Gladwin, proved to be a wonderful resource. I only tweaked a bit the design of the oceangoing outriggers Gladwin writes about in his most excellent book.

Three books I used for insight into the minds of Japanese military personnel during World War II were
The Knights of Bushido,
by Lord Russell of Liverpool,
Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War,
edited by Frank Gibney, and
Prisoners of the Japanese,
by Gavan Daws.
Japanese Pacific Island Defenses, 1941—45,
by Gordon L. Rottman, illustrated by Ian Palmer, was an excellent manual to help me understand Japanese field fortifications.

I also used portions of many other books, manuals, and personal recollections to get into the minds of the men and women of that era and place. If there are errors in this novel concerning technical details of the American and Japanese war machines, I regret them. But if I have captured the
emotional souls of the people involved, while providing a little entertainment and history for my readers, I will have accomplished my goals. As for Josh Thurlow, if I have anything to say about it, he will sail again across adventurous seas.