History of Betio

-converted-space"> POW camp was done in retaliation for this massacre. The New Zealand camp guard who fired on the Japanese prisoners during the prison riot was the brother of one of the coast watchers executed on Betio.

The partly submerged hulk of the SaiduMaru, a Japanese merchant ship often mistaken for the Niminoa, would later be used as a machine gun post by the Japanese against the US forces that re-took Tarawa. The RCS Nimanoa was a wooden-hulled ketch, whereas SaiduMaru was a steel-hulled vessel, part of which is still visible on the reef off Red Beach.

Since the 1970s, the islet has become a major centre of economic activity in Kiribati, and a causeway to Bairiki was constructed in the early 1980s, leading to an increase in human contact with the island.

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