A Marine Corps Tank Company on Tarawa. In May 1943 a self-described really young, green, ignorant lieutenant assumed command of a new Marine Corps company. His even younger enlisted Marines were learning to use an untested weapon, the M4A2 Sherman medium tank. His sole combat veteran was the company bugler, who had salvaged his dress cap and battered horn from a sinking aircraft carrier. Just six months later the company would be thrown into one of the ghastliest battles of World War II.On 20 November 1943 the Second Marine Division launched the first amphibious assault of the Pacific War, directly into the teeth of powerful Japanese