General Smith kept his promise to his assault troops at Tarawa. Amphibious transports entered the lagoon on 24 November and backloaded Combat Teams 2 and 8. To Lieutenant Lillibridge, going back on board ship after Betio was like going to heaven. “The Navy personnel were unbelievably generous and kind ... we were treated to a full-scale turkey dinner.... The Navy officers helped serve the food.” But Lillibridge, like many other surviving troop leaders, suffered from post-combat trauma. The lieutenant had lost over half the members of his platoon, and he was consumed with guilt. [Illustration: Marine Corps Personal Papers, LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection _Navy Seabees managed to get their first bulldozer ashore on D-Day. With it, and the ones that followed, the Seabees built artillery revetments, smothered enemy positions, dug mass graves, and rebuilt the damaged runway--all while under fire._] With the 2d Marines and 8th Marines off to Hawaii, McLeod’s 3/6 enroute to Apamama, and Murray’s 2/6 beginning its long trek through the other islands of the Tarawa Atoll, Major Jones’ 1/6 became the last infantry unit on Betio. Its work was tedious: burying the dead, flushing out die-hard snipers, hosting visiting dignitaries. The first of these was Major General Holland Smith. The V Amphibious Corps Commander flew to Betio on 24 November and spent an emotional afternoon viewing the carnage with Julian Smith. “Howling Mad” Smith was shaken by the experience. In his words: “The sight of our dead floating in the waters of the lagoon and lying along the blood-soaked beaches is one I will never forget. Over the pitted, blasted island hung a miasma of coral dust and death, nauseating and horrifying.” Major Jones recalled that Holland Smith had tears in his eyes as he walked through the ruins. Robert Sherrod also accompanied the generals. They came upon one sight that moved all of them to tears. It was a dead Marine, leaning forward against the seawall, “one arm still supported upright by the weight of his body. On top of the seawall, just beyond his upraised hand, lies a blue and white flag, a beach marker to tell succeeding waves where to land.” Holland Smith cleared his throat and said, “How can men like that ever be defeated?” Company D, 2d Tank Battalion, was designated as the scout company for the 2d Marine Division for the Tarawa operation. Small elements of these scouts landed on Eita and Buota Islands while the fighting on Betio still raged, discovering and shadowing a sizeable Japanese force. On 23 November, Lieutenant Colonel Manley Curry’s 3d Battalion, 10th Marines, landed on Eita. The battalion’s pack howitzers were initially intended to augment fires on Betio; when that island finally fell, the artillerymen turned their guns to support the 2d Battalion, 6th Marines, in clearing the rest of the islands in the atoll. [Illustration: _“Ebb Tide--Tarawa,” a sketch by Kerr Eby, evokes the tragic view of the beachhead._