When Lieutenant Colonel Amey’s boat rammed to a sudden halt against the reef, he hailed two passing LVTs for a transfer. Amey’s LVT then became hung up on a barbed wire obstacle several hundred yards off Red Beach Two. The battalion commander drew his pistol and exhorted his men to follow him into the water. Closer to the beach, Amey turned to encourage his staff, “Come on! Those bastards can’t beat us!” A burst of machine gun fire hit him in the throat, killing him instantly. His executive office, Major Howard Rice, was in another LVT which was forced to land far to the west, behind Major Ryan. The senior officer present with 2/2 was Lieutenant Colonel Walter Jordan, one of several observers from the 4th Marine Division and one of only a handful of survivors from Amey’s LVT. Jordan did what any Marine would do under the circumstances: he assumed command and tried to rebuild the disjointed pieces of the landing team into a cohesive fighting force. The task was enormous. The only assault unit to get ashore without significant casualties was Major “Jim” Crowe’s LT 2/8 on Red Beach Three to the left of the pier. Many historians have attributed this good fortune to the continued direct fire support 2/8 received throughout its run to the beach from the destroyers _Ringgold_ and _Dashiell_ in the lagoon. The two ships indeed provided outstanding fire support to the landing force, but their logbooks indicate both ships honored Admiral Hill’s 0855 ceasefire; thereafter, neither ship fired in support of LT 2/8 until at least 0925. Doubtlessly, the preliminary fire from such short range served to keep the Japanese defenders on the eastern end of the island buttoned up long after the ceasefire. As a result, Crowe’s team suffered only 25 casualties in the first three LVT waves. Company E made a significant penetration, crossing the barricade and the near taxiway, but five of its six officers were shot down in the first 10 minutes ashore. Crowe’s LT 2/8 was up against some of the most sophisticated defensive positions on the island; three fortifications to their left (eastern) flank would effectively keep these Marines boxed in for the next 48 hours. [Illustration: LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection Heywood _(APA 6) lowers an LVT-1 by swinging boom in process of debarking assault troops of the 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, on D-Day at Betio. The LVT-1 then joined up with other amphibian tractors to form up an assault wave._]