_The capture of this atoll followed a carefully planned sequence, using a variety of geographic points: (1) entrance of U.S. ships into the lagoon through Wide Passage in the south and Deep Entrance in the southeast; (2) artillery set up on “Camellia” and “Canna” in the northeast; (3) landing on Engebi in the north; (4) landing on Eniwetok in the south; and, finally (5) landing on Parry in the southeast._] As always, there was the unexpected. When a shell from a U.S. warship hit directly on top of an underground bunker, all the Japanese inside poured out and ran--of all places--into the sea. Another shell hurled a coconut tree aloft and catapulted the body of an enemy sniper from its branches through the air to his death. [Illustration: _Cpl Anthony P. Damato, V Amphibious Corps, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for having saved the lives of his fellow Marines by throwing himself on a Japanese hand grenade._ Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 303037 ] For the assault troops, it was a continuing story of “spider holes,” tunnels, underground strong points, and enemy resistance to the death. Another young Marine, Second Lieutenant Cord Meyer, Jr., in his first combat fought on both Eniwetok and Parry. The grueling experiences he had were typical of everyone who took part in these battles. He was landed with his machine gun platoon in the second wave of assault troops, three minutes after the first men to hit the beach on Eniwetok. Moving quickly inland, the platoon came to the edge of a blasted coconut grove. Then, as the lieutenant later wrote home: We were hard hit there, and with terrible clarity the reality of the event came home to me. I had crawled forward to ask a Marine where the Japs were--pretty excited really and enjoying it almost like a game. I crawled up beside him but he wouldn’t answer. Then I saw the ever widening pool of dark blood by his head and knew that he was dying or dead. So it came over me what this war was, and after that it wasn’t fun or exciting, but something that had to be done. Fortune smiled on me that day, or the hand of a Divine Providence was over me, or I was just plain lucky. We killed many of them in fighting that lasted to nightfall. We cornered fifty or so Imperial [Japanese] Marines on the end of the island, where they attempted a banzai charge, but we cut them down like overripe wheat, and they lay like tired children with their faces in the sand.