Leon Cooper is sad and angry. The World War II Navy veteran, now 89 years old, has embarked on a personal mission that grew out of his first combat experience in the South Pacific, the Battle of Tarawa, November 20-23, 1943. As a young ensign he was operating a Higgins Boat ferrying U. S. Marines of the 2nd Division ashore on Betio, where the bitter fighting against a well-established Japanese defense started even as the landing craft approached the island and dropped the Marines and their support equipment on Red Beach.

As traumatic as the experience was, Cooper put Tarawa aside in his mind as he moved on to other actions in the Pacific and moved on with his life. Then, a few years ago, he came across a news article on Tarawa, specifically Red Beach which had become a garbage dump over the years as the native population disposed of processed food containers and other debris from other cultures. The article prompted him to contact the U. S. government about restoring the beach as a war memorial. When that went nowhere, he took upon himself the challenge to do something; he took a camera crew to the South Pacific and made the documentary Return to Tarawa, The Leon Cooper Story, which airs on The Military Channel, April 24, 10 pm Eastern Time.

Leon sat down with Jay Wertz for an exclusive ArmchairGeneral.com interview to discuss his wartime experience in the 1943 battle, his trip to Tarawa last year and what he discovered in the process. The frustration he feels over what he regards as the U.S. Government’s failure to honor the men of Tarawa makes him both sad and angry.

Jay Wertz: I read a little bit about your role in the battle. You were a landing craft commander, operator taking troops ashore at Red Beach. Was that Red 1, 2 or 3?

Leon Cooper: Well, at the last moment, somebody said go to Red Beach. The battle was a screw-up from the very first morning, so landing somewhere on Red Beach is all I can recall.

JW: Take me back to that November 20th morning and tell me a little bit about bringing in the first wave, what your role was, and what you observed.

LC: I was a wave commander, so to speak, of a group of a dozen or so Higgins boats carrying Marines of the 2nd Division. We got about halfway there, and some guy came up in another landing craft and said boats are hung up on the beach, stand by. So we hung around instead of going in around 7 or 8 in the morning as we should have. The Marines had been vomiting everywhere during the long ride and more so during the long wait before we finally got the go-ahead.

An hour or so later we headed in. I couldn’t see anything, except smoke and fire covering the whole island. It isn’t much of an island, only about two-and-a-half miles long and about a half-mile wide. I landed somewhere on Red Beach, and it was all I could do to prevent the Marines from jumping out of the boat because we were being hit pretty heavy by machine-gun and other fire from Japanese positions on the island. With their heavy packs, the Marines would have drowned. They were scared and so was I. I still don’t know to this day how I survived. I saw scores of guys just falling everywhere. All I can say about that first morning is that if there was anything that could have gone wrong, it did.

That trip was just the first of a number of landings; I got back to my ship, got some more assault troops and headed back, and the situation was pretty much the same. I made about half-dozen trips into Red Beach. I was so goddamn scared. I tried to stand on the engine box of my boat repeatedly waving my flag – which was an act of stupidity because the Japanese figured if this dumbbell was waving flags he must be important, so they were shooting at me.

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