The Island of P
u
eleli
We should not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. But having war-type nightmares every single night for 74 years, sometime I wonder if it would have been better without God’s help. Next was the following Japanese held island Okinawa with 100,000 defending it.
On Sept. 15, 1944, U.S. Marines fighting in World War II landed on Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands of the western Pacific. Over the next several weeks, ferocious Japanese resistance inflicted heavy casualties on U.S. troops before the Americans were finally able to he invasion of the Philippines and the Japanese home islands.
Peleliu's
network of rocky ca
secure the island. Thcontroversial attack on Peleliu resulted in a higher death toll than any other amphibious assault in U.S. military history, Allied commanders troops learned important lessons that would benefit them during t
ves, which the Japanese connected with tunnels, effectively
acted as a fortress. The Japanese used Peleliu's unique terrain to their
advantage, stationing troops in caves just above invading U.S. forces so as to
inflict the maximum amount of damage on the troops below.
Peleliu–a
volcanic island just six miles long and two miles wide–was held by a garrison of
more than 10,000 Japanese troops. The island’s airfield would allow Japanese
planes to threaten any Allied operation in the Philippines, and General Douglas MacArthur pushed for an amphibious attack in order
to neutralize this threat. Admiral William Halsey reported that enemy resistance
in the region was far less than expected; he recommended that the landings in
the Palaus be canceled entirely and MacArthur’s invasion of Leyte Gulf (in the
Philippines) be moved up to October. MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz
followed Halsey’s advice about Leyte, but chose to go ahead with the attack on
Peleliu.
On
the morning of Sept. 15, the 1st Marine Division landed on the southwest corner
of Peleliu. U.S. forces had refined their amphibious strategy over a year of
hard fighting, and by this time had it down to a science: Massive naval
bombardment of land-based targets preceded troop landings, which were supported
by strafing and bombing runs by carrier-based aircraft. The troops arrived on
shore in waves, gathering on an island’s beaches until they had sufficient
numbers to push inland. These methods had worked in earlier landings and were
expected to work again on Peleliu.
The Japanese still held
out, and would only be dislodged after much bloodshed throughout October. More
U.S. reinforcements arrived, and the ridge was finally neutralized on November
25. Characteristically, the Japanese defenders refused to surrender, and
virtually all of them were killed.
The
battle of Peleliu resulted in the highest casualty rate of any amphibious
assault in American military history: Of the approximately 28,000 Marines and
infantry troops involved, a full 40 percent of the Marines that fought for the
island died or were wounded, for a total of some 9,800 men (1,800 killed in
action and 8,000 wounded). The high cost of the battle was later attributed to
several factors, including typical Allied overconfidence in the efficacy of the
pre-landing naval bombardment, a poor understanding of Peleliu’s unique terrain,
and overconfidence on the part of Marine commanders, who refused to admit their
need for support earlier on at Bloody Nose Ridge.
On
the other hand, the capture of Peleliu served as a means to MacArthur’s
much-desired end: the recapture of the Philippines, and the drive towards
Japan’s home islands. The lessons learned at Peleliu also gave U.S. commanders
and forces insight into the new Japanese strategy of attrition, which they would
use to their advantage in later struggles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
