Lurid headlines--“The Bloody Beaches of Tarawa”--alarmed American newspaper readers. Part of this was the Marines’ own doing. Many of the combat correspondents invited along for Operation Galvanic had shared the very worst of the hell of Betio the first 36 hours, and they simply reported what they observed. Such was the case of Marine Corps Master Technical Sergeant James C. Lucas, whose accounts of the fighting received front-page coverage in both _The Washington Post_ and _The New York Times_ on 4 December 1943. Colonel Shoup was furious with Lucas for years thereafter, but it was the headline writers for both papers who did the most damage (_The Times_: “Grim Tarawa Defense a Surprise, Eyewitness of Battle Reveals; Marines Went in Chuckling, To Find Swift Death Instead of Easy Conquest.”). Nor did extemporaneous remarks to the media by some of the senior Marines involved in Operation Galvanic help soothe public concerns. Holland Smith likened the D-Day assault to Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. “Red Mike” Edson said the assault force “paid the stiffest price in human life per square yard” at Tarawa than any other engagement in Marine Corps history. Evans Carlson talked graphically of seeing 100 of Hays men gunned down in the water in five minutes on D+1, a considerable exaggeration. It did not help matters when Headquarters Marine Corps waited until 10 days after the battle to release casualty lists. [Illustration: _A Marine combat correspondent assigned to the Tarawa operation interviews a Marine from the 18th Engineers, 2d Marine Division, during the course of the fighting._ LtGen Julian C. Smith Collection ] The atmosphere in both Washington and Pearl Harbor was particularly tense during this period. General MacArthur, still bitter that the 2d Marine Division had been taken from his Southwest Pacific Command, wrote the Secretary of War complaining that “these frontal attacks by the Navy, as at Tarawa, are a tragic and unnecessary massacre of American lives.” A woman wrote Admiral Nimitz accusing him of “murdering my son.” Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called a press conference in which he blamed “a sudden shift in the wind” for exposing the reef and preventing reinforcements from landing. Congress proposed a special investigation. The Marines were fortunate to have General Alexander A. Vandegrift in Washington as the newly appointed 18th Commandant. Vandegrift, the widely respected and highly decorated veteran of Guadalcanal, quietly reassured Congress, pointing out that “Tarawa was an assault from beginning to end.” The casualty reports proved to be less dramatic than expected. A thoughtful editorial in the 27 December 1943 issue of _The New York Times_ complimented the Marines for overcoming Tarawa’s sophisticated defenses and fanatical garrison, warning that future assaults in the Marshalls might result in heavier losses. “We must steel ourselves now to pay that price.”