The series of Central Pacific operations that began at Tarawa in November 1943 marked a period of steadily increasing momentum in our drive toward the Japanese home islands. To a great extent, these operations were periods of trial---and occasionally of error---when our amphibious striking force, the Fifth Fleet and the V Amphibious Corps, tested and proved the basic soundness of the doctrine, tactics, and techniques developed by the Navy and Marine Corps in the years before the World War II. This was a time of innovation too, when new weapons, improved methods of fire support, and organizational developments all played a large part in our victories. The lessons learned in the Gilberts, reaffirmed and applied with increasing effect in the Marshalls and Marianas, were of priceless value in shortening the war.