Contents

Bloody Beaches:
The Marines
at Peleliu

Marines in
World War II
Commemorative Series

By Brigadier General
Gordon D. Gayle
U.S. Marine Corps (Ret)

“Down from Bloody
Ridge Too Late. He’s Finished—Washed
Up—Gone As we passed sick bay, still
in the shell hole, it was crowded with
wounded, and somehow hushed in the
evening light. I noticed a tattered Marine
standing quietly by a corpsman, staring
stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled
in battle, his jaw hung, and his eyes
were like two black empty holes in his
head.” Caption by the artist, Tom Lea.

TABLE OF DISTANCES FROM PELELIU
In Nautical Miles

Pearl Harbor	3990
Guadalcanal	1589
Espiritu Santo	2067
Admiralty Islands	960
Hollandia	705
Morotai	430
Saipan	820
Yap	237
Ulithi	323
Truk	1030
Davao	540
Manila	920
Tokyo	1725

1

Bloody Beaches:
The Marines at Peleliu

by Brigadier General Gordon D. Gayle, USMC (Ret)

On D-Day 15 September
1944, five infantry battalions
of the 1st Marine
Division’s 1st, 5th,
and 7th Marines, in
amphibian tractors (LVTs) lumbered
across 600–800 yards of coral reef
fringing smoking, reportedly
smashed Peleliu in the Palau Island
group and toward five selected landing
beaches. That westward anchor
of the 1,000-mile-long Caroline archipelago
was viewed by some U.S.
planners as obstacles, or threats, to
continued advances against Japan’s
Pacific empire.

The Marines in the LVTs had been
told that their commanding general,
Major General William H. Rupertus,
believed that the operation would be
tough, but quick, in large part because
of the devastating quantity and
quality of naval gunfire and dive
bombing scheduled to precede their
assault landing. On some minds were
the grim images of their sister 2d Marine
Division’s bloody assault across
the reefs at Tarawa, many months
earlier. But 1st Division Marines,
peering over the gunwales of their
landing craft saw an awesome scene
of blasting and churning earth along
the shore. Smoke, dust, and the geysers
caused by exploding bombs and
large-caliber naval shells gave optimists
some hope that the defenders
would become casualties from such
preparatory fires; at worst, they
would be too stunned to respond
quickly and effectively to the
hundreds of on-rushing Marines
about to land in their midst.

PALAU ISLANDS

E. L. Wilson

2
Just ahead of the first wave of
troops carrying LVTs was a wave of
armored amphibian tractors (LVTAs)
mounting 75mm howitzers. They
were tasked to take under fire any
surviving strongpoints or weapons
which appeared at the beach as the
following troops landed. And just
ahead of the armored tractors, as the
naval gunfire lifted toward deeper
targets, flew a line of U.S. Navy
fighter aircraft, strafing north and
south along the length of the beach
defenses, parallel to the assault
waves, trying to keep all beach
defenders subdued and intimidated
as the Marines closed the defenses.3
Meanwhile, to blind enemy observation
and limit Japanese fire upon the
landing waves, naval gunfire was
shifted to the hill massif northeast of
the landing beaches.

Captions by the artist, Tom Lea

“Going In—First Wave For an hour we plowed toward the beach, the sun above
us coming down through the overcast like a silver burning ball…. Over the
gunwale of a craft abreast of us I saw a Marine, his face painted for the jungle,
his eyes set for the beach, his mouth set for murder, his big hands quiet now in
the last moments before the tough tendons drew up to kill.”

That “massif,” later to be called the
Umurbrogol Pocket, was the first of
two deadly imponderables, as yet
unknown to the division commander
and his planners. Although General
Rupertus had been on temporary
duty in Washington during most of
his division’s planning for the Peleliu
landing, he had been well briefed for
the operation.

The first imponderable involved
the real character of Umurbrogol,
which aerial photos indicated as a
rather gently rounded north-south
hill, commanding the landing
beaches some 2,000–4,000 yards distant.
Viewed in these early photos,
the elevated terrain appeared clothed
in jungle scrub, which was almost entirely
removed by the preparatory
bombardment and then subsequent
heavy artillery fire directed at it. Instead
of a gently rounded hill, the
Umurbrogol area was in fact a complex
system of sharply uplifted coral
ridges, knobs, valleys, and sinkholes.
It rose above the level remainder of
the island from 50 to 300 feet, and
provided excellent emplacements for
cave and tunnel defenses. The
Japanese had made the most of what
this terrain provided during their extensive
period of occupation and
defensive preparations.

The second imponderable facing
the Marines was the plan developed
by Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, the
officer who was to command the
force on Peleliu, and his superior,
Lieutenant General Sadae Inoue,
back on Koror. Their concept of
defense had changed considerably
from that which was experienced by
General Rupertus at Guadalcanal and
Cape Gloucester, and, in fact, negated
his concept of a tough, but quick
campaign.

Instead of relying upon a presumed
moral superiority to defeat the4
attackers at the beach, and then to
use bushido spirit and banzai tactics
to throw any survivors back into the
sea, Peleliu’s defenders would delay
the attacking Marines as long as they
could, attempting to bleed them as
heavily as possible. Rather than depending
upon spiritual superiority,
they would combine the devilish terrain
with the stubborn, disciplined,
Japanese soldiers to relinquish Peleliu
at the highest cost to the invaders.
This unpleasant surprise for the Marines
marked a new and important
adjustment to the Japanese tactics
which were employed earlier in the
war.

ASSAULT ON PELELIU
15–23 September 1944

R Johnstone

Little or nothing during the trip
into the beaches and the touchdown
revealed the character of the revised
Japanese tactical plan to the five Marine
assault battalions. Bouncing
across almost half a mile of coral
fronting the landing beaches (White
1 and 2, Orange 1, 2, and 3), the tractors
passed several hundred “mines,”
intended to destroy any craft which
approached or ran over them. These
“mines” were aerial bombs, set to be
detonated by wire control from observation
points onshore. However,
the preliminary bombardment had
so disrupted the wire controls, and
so blinded the observers, that the
defensive mining did little to slow or
destroy the assaulting tractors.

As the tractors neared the beaches,
they came under indirect fire from
mortars and artillery. Indirect fire
against moving targets generates
more apprehension than damage,
and only a few vehicles were lost to
that phase of Japanese defense. Such
fire did, however, demonstrate that
the preliminary bombardment had
not disposed of all the enemy’s heavy
fire capability. More disturbingly, as
the leading waves neared the
beaches, the LVTs were hit by heavy
enfilading artillery and antiboat gun
fire coming from concealed bunkers
on north and south flanking points.

The defenses on the left (north)
flank of Beach White 1, assaulted by
the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines (Lieutenant
Colonel Stephen V. Sabol),
were especially deadly and effective.
They disrupted the critical regimental
and division left flank. Especially
costly to the larger landing plan,
these guns shortly thereafter knocked
out tractors carrying important elements
of the battalion’s and the regiment’s
command and control
personnel and equipment. The battalion
and then the regimental commander
both found themselves
ashore in a brutally vicious beach
fight, without the means of communication
necessary to comprehend
their situations fully, or to take the
needed remedial measures.

The critical mission to seize the
“The Point” dominating the division
left flank had gone to one of the 1st
Regiment’s most experienced company
commanders: Captain George P.
Hunt, a veteran of Guadalcanal and
New Britain, (who, after the war, became
a long-serving managing editor
of Life magazine). Hunt had
developed plans involving specific assignments
for each element of his
company. These had been rehearsed
until every individual knew his role
and how it fit into the company plan.
Each understood his mission’s criticality.

D-Day and H-Hour brought heavier
than expected casualties. One of
the company’s platoons was pinned
down all day in the fighting at the
beach. The survivors of the rest of
the company wheeled left, as
planned, onto the flanking point.
Moving grimly ahead, they pressed
assaults upon the many defensive
emplacements. Embrasures in the
pillboxes and casements were
blanketed with small-fire arms and
smoke, then attacked with demolitions5
and rifle grenades. A climax
came at the principal casement, from
which the largest and most effective
artillery fire had been hitting LVTs on
the flanks of following landing
waves. A rifle grenade hit the gun
muzzle itself, and ricocheted into the
casement, setting off explosions and
flames. Japanese defenders ran out
the rear of the blockhouse, their
clothing on fire and ammunition exploding
in their belts. That flight had
been anticipated, and some of Hunt’s
Marines were in position to cut them
down.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 94913

The skies over the landing beaches of Peleliu are blackened
with smoke rising from the ground as the result of the combined
naval and aerial prelanding bombardment, as amphibian
tractors rush shoreward carrying the assault waves.

At dusk, Hunt’s Company K held
the Point, but by then the Marines
had been reduced to platoon
strength, with no adjacent units in
contact. Only the sketchy radio communications
got through to bring in
supporting fires and desperately
needed re-supply. One LVT got into
the beach just before dark, with
grenades, mortar shells, and water.
It evacuated casualties as it departed.
The ammunition made the difference
in that night’s furious struggle
against Japanese determined to recapture
the Point.

6

Marines and corpsmen scramble ashore and seek any cover they can to escape the
incoming murderous enemy mortar and artillery fire. Behind them, smoking and
abandoned, are amphibian tractors which were hit as they approached the beach.

The next afternoon, Lieutenant
Colonel Raymond G. Davis’ 1/1
moved its Company B to establish
contact with Hunt, to help hang onto
the bitterly contested positions.
Hunt’s company also regained the
survivors of the platoon which had
been pinned at the beach fight
throughout D-Day. Of equal importance,
the company regained artillery
and naval gunfire communications,
which proved critical during the second
night. That night, the Japanese
organized another and heavier—two
companies—counterattack directed
at the Marines at the Point. It was
narrowly defeated. By mid-morning,
D plus 2, Hunt’s survivors, together
with Company B, 1/1, owned the
Point, and could look out upon some
500 Japanese who had died defending
or trying to re-take it.

To the right of Puller’s struggling
3d Battalion, his 2d Battalion, Lieutenant
Colonel Russell E. Honsowetz
commanding, met artillery and mortar
opposition in landing, as well as
machine-gun fire from still effective
beach defenders. The same was true
for 5th Marines’ two assault battalions,
Lieutenant Colonel Robert W.
Boyd’s 1/5 and Lieutenant Colonel
Austin C. Shofner’s 3/5, which
fought through the beach defenses
and toward the edge of the clearing
looking east over the airfield area.

Caption and photograph by Phillip D. Orr

Situated in a cave overlooking the airfield is this heavy caliber Japanese antiboat
gun. It had a field of fire which included the invasion beaches and the airfield.

On the division’s right flank,
Orange 3, Major Edward H. Hurst’s
3/7 had to cross directly in front of
a commanding defensive fortification
flanking the beach as had Marines in
the flanking position on the Point.
Fortunately, it was not as close as the
Point position, and did not inflict
such heavy damage. Nevertheless, its
enfilading fire, together with some
natural obstructions on the beach
caused Company K, 3/7, to land left
of its planned landing beach, onto
the right half of beach Orange 2,
3/5’s beach. In addition to being out
of position, and out of contact with
the company to its right, Company
K, 3/7, became intermingled with7
Company K, 3/5, a condition fraught
with confusion and delay. Major
Hurst necessarily spent time regrouping
his separated battalion, using as
a coordinating line a large antitank
ditch astride his line of advance. His
eastward advance then resumed,
somewhat delayed by his efforts to
regroup.

Any delay was anathema to the division
commander, who visualized
momentum as key to his success. The
division scheme of maneuver on the
right called for the 7th Marines
(Colonel Herman H. Hanneken) to
land two battalions in column, both
over Beach Orange 3. As Hurst’s
leading battalion advanced, it was to
be followed in trace by Lieutenant
Colonel John J. Gormley’s 1/7.
Gormley’s unit was to tie into Hurst’s
right flank, and re-orient southeast
and south as that area was uncovered.
He was then to attack
southeast and south, with his left on
Hurst’s right, and his own right on
the beach. After Hurst’s battalion
reached the opposite shore, both
were to attack south, defending
Scarlet 1 and Scarlet 2, the southern
landing beaches.

At the end of a bloody first hour,
all five battalions were ashore. The
closer each battalion was to Umurbrogol,
the more tenuous was its
hold on the shallow beachhead. During
the next two hours, three of the
division’s four remaining battalions
would join the assault and press for
the momentum General Rupertus
deemed essential.

Following close behind Sabol’s
3/1, the 1st Marines’ Colonel Puller
landed his forward command group.
As always, he was eager to be close
to the battle, even if that location
deprived him of some capacity to develop
full supporting fires. With
limited communications, and now
with inadequate numbers of LVTs for
follow-on waves, he struggled to
ascertain and improve his regiment’s
situation. His left unit (Company K,
3/1) had two of its platoons desperately
struggling to gain dominance at
the Point. Puller’s plan to land Major
Davis’ 1st Battalion behind Sabol’s
3/1, to reinforce the fight for the left
flank, was thwarted by the H-hour
losses in LVTs. Davis’ companies had8
to be landed singly and his battalion
committed piecemeal to the action.
On the regiment’s right, Honsowetz’
2/1 was hotly engaged, but making
progress toward capture of the west
edges of the scrub which looked out
onto the airfield area. He was tied on
his right into Boyd’s 1/5, which was
similarly engaged.

D-DAY
(After Rectifying 3/5)

In the beachhead’s southern sector,
the landing of Gormley’s 1/7 was
delayed somewhat by its earlier losses
in LVTs. That telling effect of early
opposition would be felt
throughout the remainder of the day.
Most of Gormley’s battalion landed
on the correct (Orange 3) beach, but
a few of his troops were driven leftward
by the still enfilading fire from
the south flank of the beach, and
landed on Orange 2, in the 5th Marines’
zone of action. Gormley’s battalion
was brought fully together
behind 3/7 however, and as Hurst’s
leading 3/7 was able to advance east,
Gormley’s 1/7 attacked southeast
and south, against prepared positions.

Hanneken’s battle against heavy
opposition from both east and south
developed approximately as planned.
Suddenly, in mid-afternoon, the opposition
grew much heavier. Hurst’s
3/7 ran into a blockhouse, long on
the Marines’ map, which had been
reported destroyed by pre-landing
naval gunfire. As a similar situation
later met on Puller’s inland advance,
the blockhouse showed little evidence
of ever having been visited by
heavy fire. Preparations to attack
and reduce this blockhouse further
delayed the 7th Marines’ advance,
and the commanding general fretted
further about loss of momentum.

[Sidebar (page 2):]

The Divisions and their Commanders

The Peleliu operation was to be conducted by two
divisions, one Marine and one Army. In the Pacific
area since mid-1942, the 1st Marine Division was
a veteran, combat-tested organization which launched the
first offensive landing in the Pacific War when it attacked
Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. After a period in Australia
of rest, recuperation, and training of newly joined Marines,
the division made its second amphibious assault on
26 December 1943 at Cape Gloucester on New Britain Island.
When the division landed on Peleliu, its regiments
(1st, 5th, and 7th Marines, all infantry, and 11th Marines,
artillery) contained officers and enlisted Marine veterans
of both landings as well as new troops. Before World War
II ended, the 1st Division was to participate in one last battle,
the landing on Okinawa.

MajGen William H. Rupertus

Major General William H. Rupertus, the 1st Division
commander, had been with the division since early 1942.
As a brigadier general, he was the assistant division commander
to Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift during
the Guadalcanal campaign. He took command of the division
for the Cape Gloucester operation. General Rupertus
was commissioned in 1913 and served as commander of
a Marine ship’s detachment in World War I. During subsequent
years, he was assigned duty in Haiti and China. Following
the Peleliu campaign, he was named Commandant
of the Marine Corps Schools in Quantico. General Rupertus
died of a heart attack on 25 March 1945, while still
on active duty.

The Army’s 81st Infantry Division—the Wildcats—was
formed in August 1917 at Camp Jackson, South Carolina.
It saw action in France at the Meuse-Argonne in World War
I, and was deactivated following the end of the war. The
division was reactivated in June 1942. It went to several
Pacific training bases before its first combat assignment,
the landing on Angaur. After securing Angaur, it relieved
units of the 1st Marine Division on Peleliu. When Peleliu
was secured, the Wildcats began training for Operation
Olympic—the assault on Japan proper. The Japanese surrendered
unconditionally after suffering two atomic bomb
attacks. As a result, instead of invading Japan, the 81st occupied
it. On 10 January, the 81st Infantry Division was
once more deactivated.

MajGen Paul J. Mueller, USA

Major General Paul J. Mueller, USA, the commander of
the 81st Division, was a graduate of the famous West Point
Class of 1915. He commanded an infantry battalion in
France in World War I, and during the interwar period he
had a succession of assignments to infantry commands,
staff billets, and schools. In August 1941 he assumed command
of the 81st Infantry Division at Fort Rucker, Alabama,
and moved his division during its training period
successively from Florida to Tennessee to California before
its commitment to the battle for Angaur and Peleliu. General
Mueller served on active duty until 1954, when he retired.
He died in 1964.

[Sidebar (page 7):]

Naval Gunfire Support for Peleliu

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95115

In their earlier operations, especially at Guadalcanal,
the primary experience of 1st Division Marines with
naval gunfire was at the receiving end. On New Britain,
the character and disposition of Japanese defenses did
not call for extensive pre-landing fire support, nor did subsequent
operations ashore. The naval gunfire to which the
Guadalcanal veterans were exposed frequently and heavily
damaged planes and installations ashore. Its effect upon
dug-in Marines was frightening and sobering, but rarely
destructive.

During the planning for Peleliu, the division staff initially
had no trained naval gunfire (NGF) planner. When
one arrived, he was hampered by the cumbersome communications
link back to higher headquarters, Lieutenant
General Holland M. Smith’s Fleet Marine Force, Pacific
(FMFPac), in Honolulu, which would provide the essential
targeting information for the division’s NGF plan.
FMFPac also would plan and allocate the available gunfire
resources to the targets deemed important by the division
staff’s planners. The preoccupation of FMFPac with the ongoing
Marianas campaigns, as well as illness on the staff
of Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, Commander, Naval
Gunfire Support Group, further limited and constrained the
preparations. Heavy ammunition expenditures in the Marianas
reduced ammunition availability for Peleliu.

Surprisingly, during the delivery of U.S. preparatory
fires, there was no Japanese response. This prompted Oldendorf
to report all known targets destroyed, and to cancel
preparatory fires scheduled for D plus 3. An
unintentional benefit of this uncoordinated change in naval
gunfire plan may have resulted in there being more shells
available for post-landing NGF support. But the costliest
effect of inadequate NGF was that the flanking positions
north and south of the landing beaches were not taken out.
The selection of naval gunfire targets could certainly have
been done with more careful attention. Colonel Lewis B.
Puller, the 1st Marines commander, had specifically asked
for the destruction of the positions dominating his landing
on the division left flanks. Failure to do so was paid
for in blood, courage, and time during the critical battle
for the Point.

Subsequent to D-Day there were numerous instances of
well-called and -delivered naval gunfire support: night illumination
during the night of 15–16 September, the destruction
of two major blockhouses earlier reported
“destroyed,” and effective support of the Ngesebus landing
toward the end of the battle.

The Japanese Defenses

On the enemy’s side, Lieutenant
General Sadae Inoue, a fifth generation
warrior of stout military reputation,
commanding the 14th
Infantry Division, fresh from the
Kwangtung Army in China, met in
Tokyo in March 1944 with Japanese
Premier Hideki Tojo, who was also
Minister of War. Tojo had concluded
that Japan was no longer able to
hold the Palaus against growing Allied
naval dominance in the Western
Pacific. Instead, he had decided to sell
the Palaus to the United States at the
highest possible cost to Americans in
blood and time. He ordered Inoue to
take his division to the Palaus, to take
command of all Japanese forces
there, and to defend the Palau Islands
as long as possible, denying its use
to the Americans—and killing as
many as possible in the undertaking.

As his division sailed to the Palaus,
Inoue flew ahead, reconnoitered his
new locale by air for two days, and
concluded that Peleliu (with satellite
air strips on Angaur and Ngesebus)
was the key to his defenses. Earlier
U.S. attention to Peleliu during the
Task Force 58 March strikes seemed
to confirm that judgment. To defend
Peleliu, Inoue immediately settled
upon a commander, a mission, and
a force level. Peleliu had for some
time been under occupation and administrative
command of a rear admiral,
who had used his forces’
construction resources and capability
to build blockhouses and many
reinforced concrete structures above
ground, while improving existing9
caves and tunnels under Peleliu’s rich
concealment of overlying jungle,
scrub, and vines.

Caption by the artist, Tom Lea

“The Beach … My First View as I Came Around From the
Ramp of our LVT We ground to a stop, after a thousand years,
on the coarse coral…. And we ran down the ramp and came
around the end of the LVT, splashing ankle-deep up the surf to
the white beach. Suddenly I was completely alone. Each man
drew into himself when he ran down that ramp, into that
flame. Those Marines flattened in the sand on that beach were
dark and huddled like wet rats in death as I threw my body
down among them.”

In these underground installations,
the admiral’s personnel had well survived
the Task Force 58 March attacks.
Above ground, planes and
installations were demolished. As
Task Force 58 departed, the Japanese
emerged, repaired what they could,
but continued to focus upon underground
installations. Together with
a few Korean labor troops, their
numbers totaled about 7,000, most
of them lacking training and leadership
for infantry action.

Leadership arrived in the person of
Colonel Nakagawa, with his
6,500-man 2d Infantry Regiment
(Reinforced). They had long battle
experience in China. They were
armed with 24 75mm artillery pieces,
some 13–15 light tanks, about 100
.50-cal. machine guns, 15 81mm
heavy mortars, and about 30 dual-purpose
antiaircraft guns. Already
on the island were a large number of
very heavy (141mm) mortars, naval
antiaircraft guns, and rudimentary
rocket launchers for sending up large,
unguided naval shells. Most significant,
the regiment had Colonel
Nakagawa and his battle-disciplined
officers and noncommissioned
officers. Nakagawa had already been
awarded nine medals for leadership
against the Chinese and was viewed
as a “comer” within his officer corps.

Immediately upon arrival,
Nakagawa reconnoitered his
prospective battle area from the
ground and from the air. He identified
the western beaches, the Marines’
White and Orange Beaches, as
the most probable landing sites. He
immediately ordered his troops to dig
in and construct beach defenses. At
this time, a bureaucratic conflict
arose. Vice Admiral Seiichi Itou, who
was the senior officer and the senior
naval officer on Peleliu, resented being
subordinate to an Army officer
much junior to him.

From Koror, Lieutenant General
Inoue dispatched Major General
Kenjiro Murai to Peleliu, to assume
island command and to maintain
“liaison” with Colonel Nakagawa.
Murai was young, highly regarded,
and, as the personal representative of
Lieutenant General Inoue, was considered
senior to the admiral. He left
Nakagawa’s operational mission
firmly in Nakagawa’s hands, as Inoue
intended. Throughout the campaign,
Nakagawa exercised
operational control, and was assisted
and counseled, but not commanded,
by General Murai.

Nakagawa had a sound appreciation
of his mission, of the situation,
and of American firepower. He
turned his attention to the fullest use
of his principal advantage, the terrain.
He so deployed and installed his
forces to inflict all possible damage
and casualties during the anticipated
landing, and then to defend in
depth for as long as possible. On
Peleliu, that offered a vertical as well
as a horizontal dimension to the
defense.

He surveyed and registered artillery
and mortar weapons over the10
width and depth of the reef off both
eastern and western beaches, with
planned heavy concentrations along
the fringe of the western reef. In this
he anticipated the American need to
transfer follow-on waves from landing
craft to the reef-crossing amphibian
vehicles. He registered weapons
on, and immediately inland from,
the water’s edge, to subject landing
troops to a hail of fire. Off-shore he
laid 500 wire-controlled “mines.”

Caption by the artist, Tom Lea

“The Price Lying there in terror looking longingly up the slope to better cover, I
saw a wounded man near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs. His face was
half bloody pulp and the mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down
like a stick, as he bent over in his stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The half of his
face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patience I have
ever seen. He fell behind me, in a red puddle on the white sand.”

Colonel Nakagawa directed construction
of beach obstacles, using
rails and logs, and ordered antitank
ditches dug. He emplaced troops in
machine gun and mortar pits along,
and inland from, the beaches, augmented
by all the available barbed
wire. On the north and south flanks
of the beach, he constructed concrete
emplacements to shelter and conceal
antitank and antiboat artillery sited
to enfilade the expected waves of
landing craft.

Inland, he incorporated the
already-built blockhouse and adjacent
reinforced buildings into mutually
supporting defensive complexes,
with interconnecting communication
lines and trenches.

Although believing the western
beaches to be the most probable
route of attack, he did not leave the
southern (Scarlet) and eastern (Purple)
beaches undefended. He committed
one battalion to organize
defenses in each area. The Purple
Beaches were thoroughly organized,
with contingent orders to the
defenders to move into central Peleliu
if the battle developed from the west,
as expected. But the battalion committed
to the south, Scarlet Beach,
had orders to defend those stronger,
more permanent emplacements to
the end. Nakagawa assigned about
500 infantry and artillery to defend
Ngesebus and about 1,000 naval personnel
to defend northern Peleliu.
Not under his command were the
1,500 defenders of Angaur.

The major part of his force and effort
was committed to the 500 caves,
tunnels, and firing embrasures in the
coral ridges of central Peleliu. The
naval units’ extensive earlier tunneling
into the limestone ridges rendered
occupants largely immune to general
bombardments. Only lucky hits
into the mouths of caves, or point-blank
direct fire could damage the
hidden defenses and their troops.
The tunnels were designed for, or
adapted to, various purposes: barracks,
command centers, hospitals,
storage and ammunition magazines,
cooking areas complete with fresh
water springs and seepage basins,
and of course firing embrasures with
elaborate concealment and protective
devices, including a few sliding steel
doors. Colonel Nakagawa expected
very heavy prelanding bombardments.
He expected his troops to survive
them, and then to carry out his
mission of delaying and bleeding the
Americans.

On Koror, Lieutenant General Inoue
was busy with the bulk of his
forces, preparing for expected attacks
against Babelthuap. The Allied11
“Stalemate” plan had indeed called
for invasion of Babelthuap. As the
anticipated invasion drew near, Inoue
issued a proclamation to his troops,
clearly reflecting Tojo’s instructions
to delay and bleed. He pointed out
the necessities to anticipate and endure
the naval bombardment and to
use the terrain to inflict casualties on
the attackers. Without actually ordering
troops to die, he included the
words, “we are ready to die honorably.”
He went on to say that dying,
and losing the territory to the enemy,
might contribute to the opening of a
new phase of the war.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95253

Engaged in the bitter struggle to establish the Peleliu beachhead,
Marine riflemen get only momentary shelter behind an
LVT, while other Marines atop the amphibian tractor fire at
enemy targets. The name of the LVT was more than prophetic.

The Assault in the Center

As the 1st Marines battled to secure
the left flank, and as the 7th Marines
fought to isolate and then
reduce the Japanese defenses in the
southern end of Peleliu, the 5th Marines,
Colonel Harold D. Harris commanding,
was charged to drive across
the airfield, cut the island in two, and
then re-orient north and drive to secure
the eastern half of the island.
Shortly after the scheduled H plus
one schedule, the 2d Battalion, 5th
Marines, Major Gordon D. Gayle
commanding, landed over Beach
Orange 2, in trace behind 3/5. It
moved directly east, through the
dunes and scrub jungle, into and out
of the antitank barrier, and to the
west edge of the clearing surrounding
the airfield. Passing through the
lines of 3/5, Gayle’s battalion attacked12
west against scattered
resistance from dug-outs and bomb
shelters near the southern end of the
airfield, and through the scrub area
slightly farther south. The 3d Battalion’s
mission was to clear that scrub,
maintaining contact with 3/7 on its
right, while 2/5 was to drive across
the open area to reach the far side of
the island. Advancing in its center
and right, 2/5 battled completely
across the island by mid-afternoon,
echeloned its left rearward to keep
contact with 1/5, and moved to re-orient
its attack northward. The 2d
Battalion’s right flank tied for a while
into 3/5 in the woods to the south
of the airfield, but then lost contact.

JAPANESE DEFENSIVE PLAN

By this time, the antitank ditch
along the center and right of Orange
Beaches 1 and 2 was notable for the
number of command posts located
along its length. Shofner’s 3/5 was
there, as was Harris’ 5th Marines
command post. Then an advance element
of the division command post
under Brigadier General Oliver P.
Smith, the assistant division commander,
landed and moved into the
antitank ditch within sight of the airfield
clearing area. Simultaneously,
important support weapons were
moving ashore.

The 1st Tank Battalion’s M-48A1
Sherman medium tanks, one-third of
which had been left behind at the last
moment because of inadequate shipping,
were landed as early as possible,
using a novel technique to cross
the reef. This tank landing scheme
was developed in anticipation of early
Japanese use of their armor capability.

Movement of this fire and logistical
support material onto a beach still
close to, and under direct observation
from, the commanding Umurbrogol
heights was an inescapable risk mandated
by the Peleliu terrain. So long
as the enemy held observation from
Umurbrogol over the airfield and
over the beach activity, there was no
alternative to driving ahead rapidly,
using such fire support as could be
mustered and coordinated. Continuing
casualties at the beaches had to
be accepted to support the rapid advance.
The commanding general’s
concern for early momentum appeared
to be eminently correct. Units
on the left had to assault toward the
foot of Umurbrogol ridges, and
quickly get to the commanding
crests. In the center, the 5th Marines
had to make a fast advance to secure
other possible routes to outflank
Umurbrogol. In the south, the 7th
Marines had to destroy immediately
those now cut-off forces before becoming
freed to join the struggle
against central Peleliu.

The movement of the 5th Marines
across the airfield and to the western
edge of the lagoon separating the airfield
area from the eastern peninsula
(Beach Purple), created a line of
attacking Marines completely across
that part of the island oriented both
east and north, toward what was believed
to be the major center of
Japanese strength. The 7th Marines,
pushing east and south, completed
splitting the enemy forces. Colonel
Hanneken’s troops, fully engaged,
were generally concealed against observation
from the enemy still north
of the airfield and from the heights
of Umurbrogol. There was a gap between13
the 5th’s right and the 7th’s left,
but it did not appear to be in a critical
sector.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 96745

Cpl Peter P. Zacharko stands by a captured Japanese 141mm mortar, which rained
shells down on the landing beaches and on the Marines as they proceeded inland.

Nevertheless, it was by now apparent
that the D-Day phase-line objectives
were not going to be met in
either the south or the north.
Alarmed at the loss of the desired
momentum, General Rupertus began
committing his reserve. First, he ordered
the division reconnaissance
company ashore, then, pressing commanders
already on the island, he
ordered his one remaining uncommitted
infantry battalion, Lieutenant
Colonel Spencer S. Berger’s 2/7, to
land. No commander ashore felt a
need for 2/7, but Colonel Hanneken
said he could find an assembly area
where it would not be in the way.
General Rupertus ordered it to land,
remarking to his staff that he had
now “shot his bolt!” Ashore, it was
apparent that what was needed on
this hectic beachhead was not more
troops, but more room in which to
maneuver and more artillery.

General Rupertus began to make
plans to land himself and the main
elements of his command group. Advice
from the ADC ashore, and his
chief of staff, Colonel John T. Selden,
convinced Rupertus to stay on the
flagship. He compromised that decision
by ordering Colonel Selden
ashore. By now, the shortage of LVTs
was frustrating the timely landing of
following waves. In consequence,
neither Selden’s small CP group, nor
Berger’s 2/7, could get past the transfer
line in their landing craft, and had
to return to their ships despite their
orders to land.

Into this division posture, at about
1650, Colonel Nakagawa launched
his planned tank-infantry counterattack.
All Marine commanders had
been alerted to the Japanese capability
to make an armored attack on D-Day,
and were well prepared. The attack
emerged from the area north of
the airfield and headed south, generally
across the front of the 1st Marines’
lines on the eastern edge of the
airfield clearing. The attack moved
directly into the 5th Marines’ sector
where Boyd’s 1/5 was set in, and
stretched across the southern area of
the airfield. Marines in 2/1 and 1/5
took the attackers under fire, infantry
and tanks alike. A bazooka gunner
in 2/1’s front hit two of the tanks.
The commanding officer of 1/5 had
his tanks in defilade, just behind his
front lines. They opened up on the
Japanese armor, which ran through
the front lines and virtually into his
forward command group. Boyd’s
lines held fast, taking the attackers,
infantry and tanks alike, under fire
with all available weapons.

Major John H. Gustafson, in 2/5’s
forward command post mid-way
across the airfield, had his tank platoon
close at hand. Although the
enemy had not yet come into his zone
of action, he launched the platoon of
tanks into the melee. Accounts vary
as to just who shot what, but in a
very few minutes it was all over. The
attacking tanks were all destroyed,
and the Japanese infantry literally
blown away.

Colonel Nakagawa’s attack was
courageous, but proved to be a total
failure. Even where the tanks broke
through the Marine lines, they induced
no Marine retreat. Instead, the
Japanese armor became the focus of
antitank fire of every sort and caliber.
The light Japanese tanks were literally
blown apart. More than 10014
were reported destroyed. That figure,
of course, reflected the amount of fire
directed their way; each Marine
grenadier, antitank gunner, and
tanker thought he had killed the tank
at which he shot, and so reported.

PELELIU
SECOND OPERATIONAL
PHASE (D+1–D+8)

With the counterattack over and
the Japanese in apparent disarray, 2/5
immediately resumed its attack,
moving north along the eastern half
of the airfield. The battalion advanced
halfway up the length of the
airfield clearing before it stopped to
organize for the night. It was the
maximum advance of the day, over
the most favorable terrain in the division
front. It provided needed
space for artillery and logistic
deployment to support the continuation
of the attack the next day.

However, that relatively advanced
position had an open right, south,
flank which corresponded to a hole
in the regimental command structure.
At that stage, 3/5 was supposed
to maintain the contact between
north-facing 2/5 and south-oriented
3/7. But 3/5’s battalion command
and control had been completely
knocked out by 1700. The battalion
executive officer, Major Robert M.
Ash, had been killed earlier in the
day by a direct hit upon his landing
LVT. About the time of the Japanese
tank attack, a mortar barrage hit the
3/5 CP in the antitank ditch near the
beach, killing several staff and
prompting the evacuation of the battalion
commander. As of 1700, the
three companies of 3/5 were not in
contact with each other, nor with the16
battalions to their right and left.

The 5th Marines commanding
officer ordered his executive officer,
Lieutenant Colonel Lewis W. Walt,
to take command of 3/5 and to
redeploy so as to close the gap between
5th and 7th Marines. Major
Gayle moved 2/5’s reserve company
to his right flank and to provide a tie-in
position. Walt located and tied in
his 3/5 companies to build a more
continuous regimental line. By 2230,
he had effected the tie-in, just in time.
Beginning then, the salient which the
5th Marines had carved between
Peleliu’s central and southern
defenders came under a series of
sharp counterattacks that continued
throughout the night. The attacks
came from both north and south.
None of them enjoyed any notable
success, but they were persistent
enough to require resupply of ammunition
to forward companies. Dawn
revealed scores of Japanese bodies
north of the Marine lines.

Elsewhere across the 1st Division’s
front there were more potentially
threatening night counterattacks.
None of them succeeded in driving
Marines back or in penetrating the
lines in significant strength. The most
serious attack came against the Company
K, 3/1, position on the Point,
at the 1st Marines’ left.

In the south, the 7th Marines experienced
significant night attacks
from the Japanese battalion opposing
it. But the Marines there were in
comfortable strength, had communications
to bring in fire support, including
naval gunfire illumination.
They turned back all attacks without
a crisis developing.

At the end of the first 12 hours
ashore, the 1st Marine Division held
its beachhead across the intended
front. Only in the center did the
depth approximate that which had
been planned. The position was
strong everywhere except on the extreme
left flank. General Smith, from
his forward command post was in
communication with all three regimental
commanders. The report he
received from Colonel Puller, on the
left, did not afford an adequate perception
of 1st Marines’ tenuous hold
on the Point. That reflected Colonel
Puller’s own limited information.
The other two regimental reports
reflected the situations adequately.

In addition to the three infantry
regiments, the 1st Division had
almost three battalions of light artillery17
ashore and emplaced. All 30
tanks were ashore. The shore party
was functioning on the beach, albeit
under full daylight observation by
the enemy and under intermittent
enemy fire. The division necessarily
had to continue at full press on D
plus 1. The objective was to capture
the commanding crests on the left, to
gain maneuver opportunities in the
center, and to finish off the isolated
defenders in the south.

Caption by the artist, Tom Lea

“This is Sad Sack Calling Charlie Blue We found the battalion commander (LtCol
Edward H. Hurst, CO, 3/7) sitting on a smashed wet log in the mud, marking positions
on his map. By him sat his radioman, trying to make contact with company
commands on the portable set propped up in the mud. There was an infinitely tired
and plaintive patience in the radioman’s voice as he called code names, repeating time
and again, ‘This is Sad Sack calling Charlie Blue. This is Sad Sack calling Charlie….’”

At least two colonels on Peleliu
ended their work day with firm misconceptions
of their situations, and
with correspondingly inaccurate
reports to their superiors. At day’s
end, when General Smith finally got
a telephone wire into the 1st Marines’
CP, he was told that the regiment had
a firm hold on its beachhead, and
was approximately on the O-1 objective
line. He was not told about, and
Colonel Puller was not fully aware
of, the gaps in his lines, nor of the
gravity of the Company K, 3/1,
struggle on the Point, where only 38
Marines were battling to retain the
position.

Colonel Nakagawa, on the other
hand, had reported that the landing
attempt by the Marines had been
“put to route.” Inconsistently, he had
also reported that his brave counterattack
force had thrown the enemy
into the sea.

The Assault Continues

With the dawn of a new day, the
two opposing commanders at Peleliu
awoke from whatever sleep they may
have gotten to face immediate grim
prospects.

General Rupertus, having been
frustrated by his earlier effort to land
his division reserve into the southern
sector of his beachhead, was now
aware that his northern sector stood
most in need of help, specifically on
the extreme left flank. Rupertus ordered
2/7 into Puller’s sector for employment
there.

At division headquarters afloat,18
more had been learned about the extent
of Marine D-Day casualties:
1,111, of whom 209 were killed in action
(KIA). While this was not a
hefty percentage of the total reinforced
divisional strength, the number
was grim in terms of cutting-edge
strength. Most of those 1,111 casualties
had been suffered in eight of the
division’s nine infantry battalions.
Except in the center, Rupertus was
not yet on the O-1 line, the first of
eight planned phase lines.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95921

At about 1650 on D-Day, Col Nakagawa launched his tank-infantry
attack from the north of the airfield and headed south
across the front of the 1st Marines’ lines. The 1st Marine Division
had been prepared for such an eventuality, and the attack
was a total failure. More than 100 enemy tanks and their
covering troops were reported as being literally blown apart.

Having received less than a comprehensive
view of the 1st Marines’
situation, Rupertus was more determined
than ever to move ashore
quickly, to see what he could, and to
do whatever he could to re-ignite the
lost momentum. That he would have
to operate with a gimpy leg from a
sandy trench within a beach area still
under light but frequent fire, seemed
less a consideration to him than his
need to see and to know (General
Rupertus had broken his ankle in a
preassault training exercise, and his
foot was in a cast for the entire
operation.).

Over on Colonel Nakagawa’s side,
despite the incredible reports being
sent out from his headquarters, he
could see from his high ground a
quite different situation. The landing
force had not been “put to route.”
Ashore, and under his view, was a
division of American Marines
deployed across two miles of beachhead.
They had been punished on D-Day,
but were preparing to renew the
fight. Predictably, their attack would
be launched behind a hail of naval
gunfire, artillery, and aerial attacks.
They would be supported by U.S.
tanks which had so readily dispatched
the Japanese armor on
D-Day.

In his own D-Day counterattack,
Nakagawa had lost roughly one of19
his five infantry battalions. Elsewhere
he had lost hundreds of his beach
defenders in fighting across the front
throughout D-Day, and in his uniformly
unsuccessful night attacks
against the beachhead. Nevertheless,
he still had several thousand determined
warriors, trained and armed.
They were deployed throughout
strong and well-protected defensive
complexes and fortifications, with
ample underground support facilities.
All were armed with the discipline
and determination to kill
many Americans.

Caption and photo by Phillip D. Orr.

“Sick Bay in a Shellhole: The Padre Read, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Light’
About thirty paces back of the Jap trench a sick bay had been established in a big
shell crater made by one of our battleship guns…. In the center of the crater
at the bottom a doctor was working on the worst of the stretcher cases. Corpsmen,
four to a stretcher, came in continually with their bloody loads…. The
padre stood by with two canteens and a Bible, helping. He was deeply and visibly
moved by the patient suffering and death. He looked very lonely, very close to
God, as he bent over the shattered men so far from home.”

As he had known from the start,
Nakagawa’s advantage lay in the terrain,
and in his occupation and organization
of that terrain. For the
present, and until that time when he
would be driven from the Umurbrogol
crests which commanded the
airfield clearing, he held a dominating
position. He had impressive observation
over his attackers, and
hidden fire to strike with dangerous
effect. His forces were largely invisible
to the Americans, and relatively
impervious to their fire superiority.
His prospects for continuing to hold
key terrain components seemed
good.

The Marines were attacking fortified
positions, against which careful
and precise fire preparations were
needed. They were, especially on the
left, under extreme pressure to assault
rapidly, with more emphasis upon
speed than upon careful preparation.
With enemy observation and
weapons dominating the entire Marine
position, staying in place was to
invite being picked off at the hidden
enemy’s leisure. General Rupertus’
concern for momentum remained
valid.

This placed the burden of rapid
advance primarily upon the 1st Marines
on the left, and secondarily
upon the 5th in the airfield area. In
the south, the 7th Marines already
held its edge of the airfield’s terrain.
The scrub jungle largely screened the
regiment from observation and it was
opposed by defenses oriented toward
the sea, away from the airfield.

Puller’s 1st Marines, which had already
suffered the most casualties on
D-Day, still faced the toughest terrain
and positions. It had to attack,
relieve Company K, 3/1, on the
Point, and assault the ridges of
Umurbrogol, south to north. Supporting
that assault, Honsowetz had
to swing his east-facing 2/1 leftward,
and to capture and clear the built-up
area between the airfield and the
ridges. This his battalion did on D
plus 1 and 2, with the 5th Marines
assisting in its zone on the right. But
then he was at the foot of the commanding
ridges, and joined in the
deadly claw-scratch-and-scramble attack
of Davis’ 1/1 against the
Japanese on and in the ridges.

As Colonel Puller was able to close
the gaps on his left, and swing his entire
regiment toward the north, he
pivoted on Sabol’s 3/1 on the left.
Sabol, aided by Company B, 1/1, established
contact with and reinforced
Company K on the Point. Then he
headed north, with his left on the
beach and his right near the West
Road along the foot of the westernmost
features of the Umurbrogol
complex. In Sabol’s sector, the terrain
permitted tank support, and offered
more chances for maneuver than
were afforded in the ridges further to
the right. Hard fighting was involved,
but after D-Day, Sabol’s battalion
was able to move north faster
than the units on his right. His advance
against the enemy was limited
by the necessity to keep contact
with Davis’ 1/1 on his right.

The relative rates of movement
along the boundary between Sabol’s
flatter and more open zone and Davis’
very rough zone of action,
brought the first pressing need for
reserves. Tactically, there was clear
necessity to press east into and over20
the rough terrain, and systematically
reduce the complex defenses. That
job Davis’ 1/1, Honsowetz’s 2/1, and
Berger’s 2/7 did. But more troops
than Sabol had also were needed to
advance north through the open terrain
to begin encirclement of the
rough Umurbrogol area, and to find
avenues into the puzzle of that
rugged landscape. By 17 September,
reserves were badly needed along the
1st Division’s left (west) axis of advance.
But on 17 September, neither
the division nor III Amphibious
Corps had reserves.

As Sabol’s 3/1 fought up the easier
terrain on the 1st Marines’ left, Davis’
1/1 drove into the center with his
left on the break between coral ridge
country and Sabol’s more open flat
zone. Among his early surprises, as
he approached the foot of the ridge
area, was another of the blockhouses
Admiral Oldendorf had reportedly
destroyed with pre-D-Day gunfire.
Although it had been on the planning
map for weeks, those who first
encountered it, reported the emplacement
as “not having a mark on it!”

The blockhouse was part of an impressive
defense complex. It was connected
to and supported by a web of
pillboxes and emplacements, which
it in turn supported. The walls were
four-feet thick, of reinforced concrete.
Happily, Davis was given a
naval gunfire support team which
called in the fires of the USS Mississippi.
Between them, they made
fairly short work of the entire complex,
and 1/1 could advance until it
ran into the far more insoluble
Japanese ridge defense systems.

Major Davis, who was to earn a
Medal of Honor in the Korean War
in 1950, said of the attack into and
along or across those ridges, “It was
the most difficult assignment I have
ever seen.”

During the 1st Marines’ action in
the first four days of the campaign,
all three of its battalions battled
alongside, and up onto Umurbrogol’s
terrible, cave-filled, coral ridges.
Berger’s 2/7, initially in division
reserve, but assigned to the 1st Marines
on D plus 1, was immediately
thrown into the struggle. Puller fed
two separate companies of the battalion
into the fight piecemeal. Shortly
thereafter, 2/7 was given a central
zone of action between Colonel
Puller’s 1st and 2d Battalions. The 1st
Marines continued attacking on a
four-battalion front about a 1,000
yards wide, against stubborn and
able defenders in underground caves
and fortifications within an incredible
jumble of ridges and cliffs. Every
advance opened the advancing Marines
to new fire from heretofore hidden
positions on flanks, in rear, in
caves above or below newly won
ground.

Nothing better illustrated the tactical
dilemmas posed by Umurbrogol
than did the 19 September seizure of,
then withdrawal from, Hill 100, a
ridge bordering the so-called Horseshoe
Valley at the eastern limit of the
Pocket. It lay in the sector of Lieutenant
Colonel Honsowetz’ 2d Battalion,
1st Marines, to which
Company B of Major Ray Davis’ 1st
Battalion was attached. Company B,
1/1, having landed with 242 men,
had 90 men left when its commander,
Captain Everett P. Pope, received
Honsowetz’ order to take what the
Marines were then calling Hill 100.
The Japanese called it Higashiyama
(East Mountain).

Initially supported by tanks, Pope’s
company lost that support when the
two leading tanks slipped off an approach
causeway. Continuing with
only mortar support, and into the
face of heavy defending mortar and
machine-gun fire, Pope’s Marines21
reached the summit near twilight,
only to discover that the ridge’s
northeast extension led to still higher
ground, from which its defenders
were pouring fire upon the contested
Hill 100. Equally threatening was
fire from the enemy caves inside the
parallel ridge to the west, called Five
Brothers. In the settling darkness
Pope’s men, liberally supported by
2/1’s heavy mortars, were able to
hang on. Throughout the night, there
was a series of enemy probes and
counterattacks onto the ridge top.
They were beaten off by the supporting
mortars and by hand-to-hand
brawls involving not only rifles but
also knives, and even rocks, thrown
intermittently with grenades, as supplies
of them ran low. Pope’s men
were still clinging to the ridge top
when dawn broke; but the number
of unwounded Marines was by now
down to eight. Pope was ordered to
withdraw and was able to take his
wounded out. But the dead he had
to leave on the ridge, not to be recovered
until 3 October, when the ridge
was finally recaptured for good. This
action was illustrative and prophetic
of the Japanese defenders’ skillful
use of mutually supporting positions
throughout Umurbrogol.

By D plus 4, the 1st Marines was
a regiment in name only, having
suffered 1,500 casualties. This fact led
to a serious disagreement between
General Rupertus, who kept urging
Puller onward, and the general’s superior,
Major General Roy S. Geiger,
III Amphibious Corps commander.
Based on his own experiences in commanding
major ground operations at
Bougainville and Guam, Geiger was
very aware of the lowered combat efficiency
such losses impose upon a
committed combat unit.

On 21 September, after visiting
Colonel Puller in his forward CP and
observing his exhausted condition,
and that of his troops, Geiger conferred
in the 1st Division CP with
Rupertus and some of his staff.
Rupertus was still not willing to admit
that his division needed reinforcement,
but Geiger overruled him.
He ordered the newly available 321st
Regiment Combat Team (RCT), 81st
Infantry Division, then on Angaur,
to be attached to the Marine division.
Geiger further ordered Rupertus to
stand down the 1st Marines, and to
send them back to Pavuvu, the division’s
rear area base in the Russell
Islands.

On 21 September (D plus 5),
Rupertus had ordered his 7th Marines
to relieve what was left of the
1st and 2d Battalions of the 1st Marines.
By then, the 1st Marines was
reporting 1,749 casualties. It reported
killing an estimated 3,942
Japanese, the capture of 10 defended
coral ridges, the destruction of
three blockhouses, 22 pillboxes, 13
antitank guns, and 144 defended
caves.

In that fighting the assault battalions
had captured much of the crest
required to deny the enemy observation
and effective fire on the airfield
and logistic areas. Light aircraft had
begun operating on D plus 5 from
Peleliu’s scarred, and still-under-22repair
airfield. With Purple Beach in
American control, the division’s
logistical life-line was assured.
Although the Japanese still had some
observation over the now operating
airfield and rear areas, their reduced
capability was to harass rather than
to threaten.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95661

At a conference held in the 1st Marine Division command post, Col Harold D.
“Bucky” Harris, 5th Marines commander, center, explains to MajGen Roy S. Geiger,
Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps, left, and MajGen William H. Rupertus,
commander of the division, his plan of operations in northern Peleliu.

Furthermore, the Marine front
lines in the Umurbrogol had by now
reached close to what proved to be
the final Japanese defensive positions.
Intelligence then available
didn’t tell that, but the terrain and situation
suggested that the assault requirements
had been met, and that
in the Umurbrogol it was time for
siege tactics. The Japanese defenders
also learned that when aerial observers
were overhead, they were no
longer free to run their weapons out
of their caves and fire barrages
toward the beach or toward the airfield.
When they tried to get off more
than a round or two, they could
count on quick counter-battery, or a
much-dreaded aerial attack from
carrier-based planes, or—after 24
September—from Marine attack
planes operating from the field on
Peleliu.

The Early Battle
in the Division Center

On D plus 1, when the 1st Marines
had launched their costly Umurbrogol
assault, the 5th Marines on its
right also faced an assault situation,
but one of substantially less opposition
and easier terrain. Lieutenant
Colonel Boyd’s 1/5 had to fight
across the airfield, from southwest to
northeast, and through the built-up
area similar to that which faced Honsowetz’s
2/1. The battalion was subjected
to observed fire from the
Umurbrogol and to small arms fire
from Japanese defenders in the
rubble-filled built-up area. Boyd’s
coordinated tank-infantry attack
quickly carried the day. He soon had
control of that area, and the east-west,
cross-island road, which could
lead the 5th toward its next objective,
the eastern peninsula of Peleliu.

On the 5th Marines’ right, 2/5 had
a more difficult time. Its progress was
stubbornly opposed by infantry from
the woods on its right, and by artillery
from Umurbrogol, which took
a particular interest in the tanks 2/5
was using to support its attack along
the edge of the woods. Whether the
Japanese infantry in those woods had
been posted to defend that position,
or whether they were just surviving
Japanese infantry from the D-Day
counterattack, was never established.
The fight took all day and inflicted
heavier casualties on Gayle’s battalion
than had D-Day. By dusk, 2/5
had battled beyond the north end of
the airfield, and halted for the night
near the woods concealing the approaches
to the eastern peninsula.

As the two-battalion attack of the
5th Marines (D plus 1) was heavily
engaged on its front and right, the
regimental headquarters near the
beach was hit by an artillery barrage
which, coupled with D-Day’s loss of
3/5’s commanding officer and executive
officer, engendered a significant
rearrangement in command assignments.
The early D plus 1 barrage hit
the regimental CP, took out numbers
of the staff, and buried the regimental
commander in the crumbling
Japanese antitank trench in which the
CP was “sheltered.” Fortunately, the23
burial was temporary, and Colonel
Harris emerged with a twisted and
battered leg, but still able to hobble.
Two of his principal staff officers
were casualties, and his sergeant
major killed. Harris elected not to be
evacuated, but he needed help in the
regimental CP. Ordering Lieutenant
Colonel Walt back from the 3d Battalion
to the regimental CP, Harris
directed the commanding officer of
2/5 to send his executive officer,
Major John H. Gustafson, to take
command of 3/5. Then Harris directed
Boyd to send his 1/5 operations
officer, Major Hierome Opie, to join
3/5 as Gustafson’s executive officer.

Fortunately, 3/5 was having a relatively
quiet day, unlike its hair-raising
regrouping on the night of D-Day.
After daylight, as 2/5 attacked north,
3/5 stretched along the east edge of
the mangrove lagoon which separated
Peleliu from the eastern peninsula.
In that position, 3/5 also tied into
3/7 as that battalion attacked south.
Thus 3/5 protected each regiment’s
flank against any Japanese movement
across the intervening water,
and into the rear of the attacking battalions.
No such threat developed,
and as the afternoon grew on, there
emerged a more pressing employment
for 3/5.

As Walt returned to his post beside
the now only semi-mobile Harris,
Major Gustafson was told to get 3/5
into position to bolster and then
relieve 1/5, as it closed in on its O-2
objectives.

Throughout the next day (D plus
2), the 5th Marines kept tied in with
the 1st Marines on its left and captured
some control of the foot of the
East Road. On the right, 2/5 hacked
and combed its way through the jungle
and mangrove north of the airfield,
alongside the road leading
toward the eastern peninsula. The
thick scrub, nearly impenetrable,
reduced progress to a crawl. It compensated
by concealing most of the
advancing Marines from enemy observation
from high ground to 2/5’s
north and northwest.

That 5th Marines’ forward position
generally coincided with the
northeast sector of the airfield earlier
mentioned. Possession of that
visual boundary meant that in most
places on the regimental right, frontline
Marines were spared the hostile
observation and directed fire from
Umurbrogol. As with the 7th Marines,
largely hidden in the jungle of
the south, this lessened the need for
headlong assault. There would now
be freedom to maneuver more
deliberately and to coordinate supporting
fire more carefully.

The 7th Marines’
Complete Destruction of
Enemy in the South

In the south, from D plus 1 through
D plus 3, the 7th Marines was in
vigorous assault against extensive
fortifications in the rear of the Scarlet
Beaches. These were defended by a
full battalion, the elite 2d Battalion,
15th Regiment. Although isolated
and surrounded by the Marines, this
battalion demonstrated its skill and
its understanding of Colonel
Nakagawa’s orders and mission: to
sell Peleliu at the highest possible
price. The 7th Marines attacked with
3/7 on the left and 1/7 on the right.
They enjoyed the advantage of attacking
the extensive and well-prepared
defenses from the rear, and
they had both heavy fire support and
the terrain for limited maneuver in
their favor. Both sides fought bitterly,
but by 1530 on 18 September (D
plus 3), the battle was substantially
over. The Marines had destroyed an
elite Japanese reinforced infantry battalion
well positioned in a heavily
fortified stronghold. Colonel Hanneken
reported to General Rupertus
that the 7th Marines’ objectives he
had set for D-Day were all in hand.
The naval gunfire preparation had
been significantly less than planned.
The difference had been made up by
time, and by the courage, skill, and
additional casualties of the infantry
companies of 1/7 and 3/7.

Now the 7th Marines, whose 2d
Battalion was already in the thick of
the fight for Umurbrogol, was about
to move out of its own successful battle
area and into a costly assault
which, by this time, might have been
more economically conducted as a
siege.

Maneuver and Opportunity

As the 7th Marines moved to its
mission, the 5th Marines was again
successfully opening up opportunities
on Peleliu’s eastern, “lobster claw”
peninsula. Most of those opportunities,
unfortunately were never exploited.

By the end of D plus 2, the 5th
Marines stood at the approach to the
eastern peninsula, and astride the
East Road just east of the 1st Marines’
terrible struggle in Umurbrogol. It
had fought somewhat clear of the
galling fires from Umurbrogol, and
planned an assault on the eastern
peninsula across a narrow causeway,
which the Japanese should certainly
defend. Then a D plus 3 reconnaissance
of the causeway revealed that
the causeway was not defended. The
2d Battalion hastened to seize the opportunity
and moved across in
strength. The attack was hit by its
own supporting fires. The forward
battalion CP group was strafed by
Navy planes and then hit by artillery
airburst, causing the loss of 18 battalion
headquarters personnel to
“friendly fire.”

Nevertheless, a bridgehead across
the causeway was well established on
D plus 3, and the 5th Marines’
Colonel Harris moved to exploit it.
During the afternoon, he thinned his
forces holding the East Road sector,
gave the former 3/5 mission to Company
L, 3/5, and gave the remainder
of 3/5 a new mission. He ordered
Gustafson into a position within the
bridgehead established by 2/5, and
further ordered both battalions then
to capture and clear the eastern
peninsula. Earlier he had expected24
such an attack to be against the
strong defending forces originally
reported on the eastern peninsula.
However, the apparent reduction of
defending forces now appeared to
offer an opportunity to seize Purple
Beach quickly, a logistic prize of
some significance. Harris knew that
the division would need to shift its
logistical axis to Purple Beach, away
from the fire from Umurbrogol, and
away from the threat of westerly
storms.

Before dark, Gustafson moved two
of his 3/5 companies across the
causeway, and moved his own CP
group in with the 2/5 CP, where the
two commanders jointly planned the
next day’s advance. Hoping for little
resistance, they directed rapid
movement, but armed their point
units with war dog sections to guard
against ambush. Their lead companies
moved out just after dawn. In
the 3/5 sector, there was an ambush,
but the war dogs warned of, and effectively
thwarted, the attempted
surprise.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 96936

A Marine war dog handler reads a note just delivered by canine messenger, a Doberman
Pinscher, one of the breeds used in the Pacific. This Marine has a pump shotgun.

By the end of D plus 4, the two
battalions had cleared the main body
of the eastern peninsula and had
reached Purple Beach from the rear.
The defenses were most impressive,
but many were unmanned. Those
enemy troops encountered seemed
more interested in hiding than in
fighting, leading to speculation that
Nakagawa’s trained infantry had
been moved west to the fight on D-Day
and/or D plus 1. By D plus 5,
Purple Beach was cleared, as were
the long peninsulas southwest and
northeast of Purple Beach. On D
plus 6, 2/5 seized the two islands immediately
north of the northeast
peninsula, and the next day occupied
the small unnamed islet just 1,000
yards east of the northern ridges of
Peleliu.

From that position, and positions
elsewhere on the other islands, and
near Ngardololok, there appeared to
be many opportunities to attack by
fire against the cave-infested north-south
ridges of central and northern
Peleliu. Such positioning of heavy
weapons would be very difficult, but
relative to the intense infantry battles
underway in Umurbrogol, such
difficulties seemed acceptable. Many
of the prospective targets could have
been vulnerable to direct, flat trajectory
fire across the front of U.S. units
advancing north in central Peleliu.
Corps artillery units had conducted
such direct fire training before embarking
for the Peleliu campaign.
Such tactical advantages and opportunities
from the eastern peninsula
were advocated but never exploited.
Only later, in the fighting for northern
Peleliu was the 5th Marines able
to secure point-blank, heavy, single-gun
fire support.

Encirclement of the
Umurbrogol Pocket

With southern and eastern Peleliu
captured, there now began an encirclement
of the Japanese defenders in
central Peleliu, and an attack against
the Japanese defending northern
Peleliu and nearby Ngesebus and
Kongauru. This was the obvious next
tactical phase for combat on Peleliu.
However, securing it was less necessary
for the basic Peleliu tactical and
strategic goals than for the mopping-up
of the island. As the 1st Marine
Division’s Assistant Commander,
Brigadier General Oliver P. Smith,
later phrased it, “by the end of the
first week, the Division had control
of everything on the island that it
then needed, or later used.”

The airfield had been seized, was
under repair and improvement, and
in use. It was no longer any threat,
if it had ever been, to MacArthur’s
long-heralded return to the Philippines.
Peleliu’s best logistical beach
(Purple) had been secured, providing
a secure logistic axis to the main battle
areas. The Japanese defenders in25
their caves, and in northern Peleliu
and on Ngesebus, retained some
capability to harass American rear installations,
but that was sharply curtailed
by the Marines’ counterfire.

Only two significant Japanese
capabilities remained: they could bitterly
resist from their cave positions
and they had a limited capability to
reinforce Peleliu from Babelthuap.
Such reinforcement could only be by
small-unit infiltration, which faced
U.S. naval screening operations in the
area. Likewise, American encirclement
of the stubborn Umurbrogol
Pocket faced two obstacles. First was
the lack of additional maneuver regiments
from III Amphibious Corps’
reserve. General Geiger in fact had
no corps reserve pending the release
of some units from the forces involved
in the seizure of Angaur. That
landing by the 81st Infantry Division
(less the 323d RCT) had been
launched on 17 September, after
which there was no corps reserve.

The operation on Angaur, the
planning which attended it and the
decision on its timing, impacted
heavily upon the Peleliu operation.
The naval planners early on proposed
landing on Angaur before
Peleliu. Only when Major General
Julian C. Smith, commanding Expeditionary
Troops/X-Ray Planning
Group, explained that such timing
would invite the numerous Japanese
in northern Palau to reinforce Peleliu
was it agreed that Angaur be assaulted
only after the Peleliu landing was
assured of success. However, the Angaur
landing was initiated before the
Peleliu landing had been clearly
resolved. The commanding general
of the 81st Division wanted to land
as soon as possible, and he was supported
in his view by his naval task
unit commander, Rear Admiral William
H. P. Blandy. Opposing the 17
September date for the Angaur landing
was Marine Major General Julian
Smith. Smith argued that committing
the element of III Corps Reserve before
the Peleliu operation was more
fully developed would be premature.
His advice was ignored by Vice Admiral
Theodore S. Wilkinson.

A related decision on 17 September
committed the III Corps’ final
reserve to the Ulithi landing. The task
was assigned to the Western Attack
Force, which was ordered to seize
Ulithi with “available resources.” Over
General Smith’s advice, Wilkinson
chose to commit the entire 323d RCT,
the 81st Division’s other maneuver
element. The 321st subsequently and
successfully occupied an undefended
Ulithi while reserves were sorely
needed at Peleliu.

By 20 September, the 81st Division
had defeated or cornered all survivors
of Angaur’s 1,400 defenders.
The 81st’s commander declared Angaur
secure. He tasked his 322d RCT
to complete the mop-up, and reported
to General Geiger that the 321st
RCT was available for further operations.
The lack of enough troops to
begin encircling Umurbrogol was no
longer an obstacle.

The other obstacle to reinforcing
the division on Peleliu and encircling
the Pocket lay in the thinking of
General Rupertus, who clung to a belief
that his Marines could do it
without help from the Army. The III
Corps plan tasked the 81st Division
to reinforce the Marines in seizing
Peleliu and then to relieve the 1st Marine
Division for the mop up, but the
general continued to exhort his commanders
to “hurry up.”

Earlier, General Rupertus and
Colonel Puller had shrugged off a
suggestion from the 5th Marines’
“Bucky” Harris that they take a look
at the Umurbrogol Pocket from the
newly available light planes of Marine
Observation Squadron 3. Harris’
own aerial reconnaissance, made
immediately after those planes arrived
on 19 September, had altered
his view of the Umurbrogol from
sober to grave. It convinced him that
attacking the Pocket from the north
would be less costly than the originally
planned and ordered attempts
from south to north. Both Puller and
Rupertus responded to Harris that
they had their maps.

The prelanding scheme of maneuver
was built on the tactical concept
that, after capturing the airfield, the26
1st Marine Division would push
north along a line across the width
of the main or western part of the island.
Once abreast of the southern
edge of Umurbrogol, that concept
and maneuver scheme were reflected
in a series of four west-to-east
phase lines, indicating an expected
linear advance, south to north.
Clearly, it was expected that the advance
along the flatter zones west
and east of Umurbrogol would be at
approximately the same pace as that
along the high-central ground of
Peleliu. Such thinking may have been
consistent with Rupertus’ prediction
of a three-day assault. Developments
in Sabol’s sector to the west, and in
the 5th Marines’ sector to the east,
apparently did not change division-level
thinking. Until additional forces
became available, such a linear advance
may have seemed all that was
possible.

Even so, there was no apparent
reexamination of the planned south-to-north
linear advance, and for days
after the Pocket was sealed off at its
northernmost extremity, the division
commander kept ordering attacks
from south to north, generally following
the initial landing plan. As
had been revealed to “Bucky” Harris
in his early aerial reconnaissance of
the Umurbrogol Pocket, such attacks
would offer little but casualties.
Troops, heavily supported, could advance
into “the Horseshoe” and into
“Death Valley,” but the positions they
reached then proved untenable and
withdrawal was usual at day’s end.

Some part of this thinking may
have well come from the inadequacies
of the map in use. The 5th Marines
in early October produced a
new and more representative sketch
map. It located and identified the details
within Umurbrogol sufficiently
to facilitate maneuver and fire coordination.

That mapping effort, incidentally,
led to the misnaming of Honsowetz’
Hill 100, where Captain Everett P.
Pope earned his Medal of Honor.
The 5th’s mapping team, launched
after Harris’ regiment was committed
against the Pocket, encountered
Lieutenant Colonel Walt, the
regimental executive officer, on Hill
100 during their sketching, and so
named the hill.

Even after General Geiger had ordered
General Rupertus on 21 September
to stand down Puller’s
shattered 1st Marines, General
Rupertus expressed the belief that his
Marines, alone, would shortly clear
the entire island. After taking a closer
look at the situation on the ground,
Geiger ordered RCT 321 from Angaur
and attached it to the Marine
division. Encirclement of the Umurbrogol
Pocket now became tactically
feasible.

Capture of northern Peleliu and
Ngesebus became more pressing with
the discovery on 23 September that
some part of the enemy’s substantial
troop strength in the northern Palaus
was being infiltrated by barge from
Koror and Babelthuap into northern
Peleliu.

Although the naval patrol set to
protect against just that reinforcing
action had discovered and destroyed
some of the Japanese barges, most
enemy troops seemed to have waded
ashore on the early morning of 23
September. Colonel Nakagawa suddenly
had reinforcements in the form
of a partially mauled infantry battalion
in northern Peleliu.

Encirclement of Umurbrogol
and Seizure of
Northern Peleliu

A plan to encircle the Pocket, and
deny reinforcement to northern
Peleliu was immediately formulated.
General Rupertus’ staff was closely
attended by selected III Corps staff
officers, and General Geiger also was
present.

The plan called for two regiments
to move up the West Road, the Army
321st Infantry leading in the attack,
and the 5th Marines following. The
Marines were to pass through the
Army unit after it had gone beyond
the Pocket on its right, and the 5th
would continue then to take northern
Peleliu and Ngesebus.

COMMITMENT OF
RCT 321, 24 SEPT.

The 321st RCT, by now battle tested,
was tasked to push up the West
Road, alongside and just atop the
western edge of coral uplift which
marked the topographical boundary
between the flat western plain, and
the uplifted coral “plateau.” That
plateau, about 300 yards west to east,27
constituted the western shoulder of
the Pocket. The plateau rose some
30–80 feet above the West Road. Its
western edge, or “cliff,” was a jumble
of knobs and small ridges which
dominated the West Road, and
would have to be seized and cleared
to permit unharrassed use of the
road.

Once the 321st RCT was past this
up-lift, and the Pocket which it
bounded, it was to probe east in
search of any routes east through the
600 yards necessary to reach the
eastern edge of that portion of
Peleliu. Any opportunities in that
direction were to be exploited to encircle
the Pocket on the north.

Behind the 321st RCT, the 5th Marines
followed, pressed through, and
attacked into northern Peleliu. Hanneken’s
7th Marines relieved the 1st,
which was standing down to the
eastern peninsula, also relieving the
5th Marines of their then-passive
security role. The 5th was then
tasked to capture northern Peleliu,
and to seize Ngesebus-Kongauru.

This maneuver would involve the
use of the West Road, first as a tactical
route north, then as the line of
communications for continued operations
to the north. The road was
comparatively “open” for a distance
about halfway, 400 yards, to the
northern limit of the Pocket, and
paralleled by the ragged “cliff” which
constituted the western shoulder of
the up-lifted “plateau.” That feature
was no level plateau, but a veritable
moonscape of coral knobs, karst, and
sinkholes. It had no defined ridges or
pattern. The sinkholes varied from
room-size to house-size, 10 to 30 feet
in depth, and jungle- and vine-covered.
The “plateau” was generally
30 to 100 feet above the plain of
the road. Some 200–300 yards further
to the east, it dropped precipitiously
off into a sheer cliff, called the China
Wall by those Marines who
looked up to it from the southern and
eastern approaches to the Pocket. To
them, that wall was the western edge
of the Pocket and the coral “plateau”
was a virtually impassable shoulder
of the Pocket.

ISOLATION OF UMURBROGOL
26, 27 SEPT

The plateau was totally impenetrable
by vehicles. The coral sinkholes
and uplifted knobs forced any infantry
moving through to crawl, climb,
or clamber down into successive
small terrain compartments of rough
and jagged surfaces. Evacuating any
casualties would involve unavoidable
rough handling of stretchers and
their wounded passengers. The area
was occupied and defended by scattered
small units and individuals who
did not sally forth, and who bitterly
resisted movement into their moonscape.
When Americans moved along
the West Road, these Japanese ignored
individuals, took under fire
only groups or individuals which appeared
to them to be rich targets.

The only tactical option along the
West Road was to seize and hold the
coral spires and cliffs commanding
the road, and to defend such positions
against infiltrators. Once those
heights were seized, troop units and28
trucks could move along West Road.
Until seized, the “cliff” offered concealment
and some cover to occupying
Japanese. Until those cliff
positions were seized and held, the
Japanese therein could be only temporarily
silenced by heavy firepower.
Until they were driven from their
commanding positions, the road
could not be treated as truly open.

Those terrain conditions existed
for three-quarters of a mile along the
West Road. There, abreast the north
end of the Pocket, the plateau of
coral sinkholes merged into a more
systematic group of limestone ridges.
These ridges trended slightly northeast,
broadening the coastal strip to
an east-west width of 200 to 400
yards.

Into that milieu, the 321st RCT
was launched on 23 September, behind
an hour-long intensive naval
gunfire and artillery preparation
against the high ground commanding
the West Road. The initial Army
reconnaissance patrols moved generally
west of the road, somewhat
screened from any Japanese still on
the “cliff” just east of the road by
vegetation and small terrain features.
These tactics worked until larger
units of the 2d Battalion, 321st,
moved out astride the West Road.
Then they experienced galling fire
from the heights above the road.

The 321st’s 2d Battalion had
relieved 3d Battalion, 1st Marines,
along an east-west line across the
road, and up onto the heights just
above the road. Near that point, the
1st Marines had been tied into the
forward left flank of 3d Battalion,
7th Marines. The orders for the advance
called for 3/7 to follow behind
the elements of 2/321, along the high
ground as the soldiers seized the succeeding
west edge of the cliff and advanced
northward. However, the
advanced elements along the ridge
were immediately out-paced by the
other 2/321 elements in the flat to
their west. Instead of fighting north
to seize the ridge, units responsible
for that cliff abandoned it, side-stepping
down to the road. They then
advanced along the road, and soon
reported that 3/7 was not keeping
contact along the high ground.

Caption and photo by Phillip D. Orr

Discovered during a trip to Peleliu in 1994 was this 1,000-man cave, littered with
empty sake bottles, deep in the tunnels in the Amiangal Mountain in north Peleliu.

On orders from Colonel Hanneken,
the 7th Marines’ commanding
officer, 3/7 then captured the
high ground which 2/321 had abandoned,
but at a cost which did little
for inter-service relations. Thereafter,
3/7 was gradually further committed
along the ridge within the 321st zone
of action. This of course stretched
3/7, which still had to maintain contact
on its right in the 7th Marines’
zone, generally facing the southern
shoulders of the Umurbrogol Pocket.
Further north, as the 321st pressed
on, it was able to regain some of the
heights above its axis of advance, and
thereafter held onto them.

Abreast the northern end of
Umurbrogol Pocket, where the sinkhole
terrain blended into more regular
ridgelines, the 321st captured
parts of a key feature, Hill 100.
Together with an adjacent hill just
east of East Road, and designated
Hill B, that position constituted the
northern cap of the Umurbrogol
Pocket. Seizing Hill B, and consolidating
the partial hold on Hill 100
would occupy the 321st for the next
three days.

As the regiment probed this
eastern path across the north end of
Umurbrogol, it also pushed patrols
north up the West Road. In the vicinity
of the buildings designated
“Radio Station,” it reached a promising
road junction. It was in fact the
junction of West and East Roads.
Colonel Robert F. Dark, commanding
officer of RCT 321, determined
to exploit that route, back south, to
add a new direction to his attack
upon Hill 100/Hill B. He organized
a mobile task force heavy in armor
and flamethrowers, designated Task29
Force Neal, named for Captain George
C. Neal. He sent it circling
southeast and south to join 2/321’s
efforts at the Hill 100/Hill B scene.
Below that battle, the 7th Marines
continued pressure on the south and
east fronts of the Pocket, but still attacking
south to north.

As those efforts were underway,
the 5th Marines was ordered into the
developing campaign for northern
Peleliu. Now relieved by the 1st Marines
of its passive security mission
on the eastern peninsula and its nearby
three small islands, the 5th moved
over the West Road to side-step the
321st action and seize northern
Peleliu. Having received the division
order at 1100, the 5th motored,
marched, and waded (off the northeastern
islets) to and along the West
Road. By 1300, its 1st Battalion was
passing through the 321st lines at
Garekoru, moving to attack the radio
station installations discovered
by 321st patrols the previous afternoon.

In this area, the 5th Marines found
flat ground, some open and some covered
with palm trees. The ground
was broken by the familiar limestone
ridges, but with the critical tactical
difference that most of the ridges
stood alone. Attackers were not always
exposed to flanking fires from
mutually supporting defenses in adjacent
and/or parallel ridges, as in the
Umurbrogol. The Japanese had prepared
the northern ridges for defense
as thoroughly as they had done in
the Umurbrogol, with extensive tunnels
and concealed gun positions.
However, the positions could be attacked
individually with deliberate
tank, flamethrower, and demolition
tactics. Further, it developed that the
defenders were not all trained infantrymen;
many were from naval construction
units.

On the U.S. side of the fight, a
weighty command factor shaped the
campaign into northern Peleliu.
Colonel Harold D. “Bucky” Harris
was determined to develop all available
firepower fully before sending
his infantry into assault. His aerial
reconnaissance earlier had acquainted
him with an understanding of the
terrain. This knowledge strengthened
his resolve to continue using all available
firepower and employing
deliberate tactics as he pursued his
regiment’s assigned missions.

On the afternoon of 25 September,
1/5 seized the Radio Station complex,
and the near portion of a hill
commanding it. When 3/5 arrived,
it was directed to seize the next high
ground to the east of 1/5’s position.
Then when 2/5 closed, it tied in to
the right of 3/5’s position, and extended
the regimental line back to the
beach. This effectively broke contact
with the 321st operations to the
south, but fulfilled Colonel Harris’
plans to advance north as rapidly as
possible, without over-extending his
lines. By suddenly establishing this
regimental “beachhead,” the 5th Marines
had surprised the defenders
with strong forces challenging the
cave defenses, and in position to engage
them fully on the next day.

NORTH PELELIU & NGESEBUS
NORTHWARD ATTACK 5th MARINES
D+10

The following day, 26 September,
as the 321st launched its three-pronged
attack against Hill 100/Hill
B (northern cap of the Umurbrogol
Pocket) and the 5th Marines attacked
four hills running east to west across
Peleliu, dubbed Hills 1, 2, 3, and Radar
Hill in Hill Row. The row was
perpendicular to and south of the last
northern ridge, Amiangal Mountain.
These hills and the ridge were
defended by some 1,500 infantry, artillerymen,
naval engineers, and the
shot-up reinforcing infantry battalion
which landed the night of 23 September,
in caves and interconnected
tunnels within the ridge and the hills.
As the fight for Hill Row developed,
Colonel Harris had his 2d Battalion
side-step west of Hill Row and begin
an attack on the Amiangal ridge to
the north. Before dark, the 2d Battalion
had taken the southern end30
and crest of the ridge, but was under
severe fire from cave positions in
the central and northwestern slopes
of the ridge.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95375

Marines using rifle grenades, hand grenades, and “Molotov
cocktails” battle Japanese holed up in caves in northern Peleliu.
Note the torch in the foreground which was used to ignite the
“cocktails” and the flaming bottle of gas ready to be thrown.

What was not yet appreciated was
that the Marines were confronting
the most comprehensive set of caves
and tunnels on Peleliu. They were
trying to invade the home (and
defensive position) of a long-established
naval construction unit
most of whose members were better
miners than infantrymen. As dark
fell, the 2d Battalion cut itself loose
from the units to its south, and
formed a small battalion beachhead
for the night.

The next morning, as the 2d Battalion,
5th Marines, tried to move
along the route leading to the northern
nose of Amiangal Ridge, it ran
into a wide and deep antitank ditch
which denied the attacking infantry
the close tank support they had so
successfully used earlier. At this
point, the 5th Marines command31
asked, again, for point-blank artillery.

This time, division headquarters
responded favorably. During the
night of 27 September Major George
V. Hanna’s 8th 155mm Gun Battalion
moved one of its pieces into position
in 2/5’s sector. The gun was
about 180 yards from the face of
Amiangal Ridge. The sight of that
threat at dawn elicited enemy
machine-gun fire which inflicted
some casualties upon the artillerymen.
This fire was quickly suppressed
by Marine infantry fire, and
then by the 155mm gun itself.
Throughout the morning, the heavy
155mm fire played across the face of
Amiangal Ridge, destroying or closing
all identified caves on the west
face, except for one. That latter was
a tunnel mouth, down at ground level
and on the northwestern base of
the hill. It was too close to friendly
lines to permit the gun to take it under
fire. But by then, tanks had neutralized
the tunnel mouth, and a tank
bulldozer filled in a portion of the
antitank ditch. This allowed 2/5’s
tank-infantry teams to close on the
tunnel mouth, to blast and bulldoze
it closed, and to press on around the
northern nose of Amiangal. Simultaneously,
Marines swept over the
slopes above the tunnel and “seized”
the crest of the small mountain.

The term seizure is qualified, for
although 2/5 held the outside of the
hill, the stubborn Japanese defenders
still held the inside. A maze of interconnected
tunnels extended throughout
the length and breadth of the
Amiangal Ridge. From time to time
the Japanese inside the mountain
would blast open a previously closed
cave or tunnel mouth, and sortie to
challenge the Marines. Notwithstanding
their surprise effect, these
counterattacks provided a rare and
welcome opportunity for the Marines
actually to see their enemy in
daylight. Such tactics were inconsistent
with the general Japanese strategy
for Peleliu, and somewhat
shortened the fight for the northern
end of the island.

As that fighting progressed, the
5th Marines assembled its 3d Battalion,
supporting tanks, amphibian
tractors, and the entire panoply of
naval gunfire, and air support to
launch a shore-to-shore operation to
seize Ngesebus and Kongauru, 600
yards north of Peleliu, on 28 September.

There followed an operation
which was “made to look easy” but
which in fact involved a single, reinforced
(but depleted) battalion
against some 500 prepared and entrenched
Japanese infantry. For some
35 hours, the battalion conducted the
most cost-effective single battalion
operation of the entire Peleliu
campaign.

SECURING THE NORTH

Much of the credit for such effectiveness
was due to supporting aviation.
VMF-114, under Major Robert
F. “Cowboy” Stout, had landed on
Peleliu’s air strip just three days prior
to this landing, and immediately
undertook its primary service mission:
supporting Marine ground
operations. The Ngesebus landing
was the first in the Pacific War for
which the entire air support of a33
landing was provided by Marine aviation.
As the LVTs entered the water
from Peleliu’s shore, the naval gunfire
prematurely lifted to the alarm
of the assault troops. Stout’s pilots
immediately recognized the situation,
resumed their strafing of Ngesebus
until the LVTs were within 30 yards
of the beach. They flew so low that
the watching Marines “expected some
of them to shoot each other down by
their ricochets.” This action so kept
the Japanese defenders down that the
Marines in the leading waves were
upon them before they recovered
from the shock of the strafing planes.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95931

The crews of amphibian tractors board a severely damaged
Japanese landing craft which was intercepted by U.S. naval
patrols when it carried troops attempting to infiltrate northern
Peleliu and reinforce Ngesebus Island off northwest Peleliu.

The 3d Battalion got ashore with
no casualties. Thus enabled to knock
out all the Japanese in beach defenses
immediately, it turned its attention
to the cave positions in the ridges and
blockhouses. The ridges here, as with
those on northern Peleliu, stood individually,
not as part of complex
ridge systems. This denied their
defenders opportunities for a mutual
defense between cave positions.
The attacking companies of 3/5
could use supporting tanks and concentrate
all fire means upon each
defensive system, without being
taken under fire from their flanks
and rear. By nightfall on 28 September,
3/5 had overrun most of the opposition.
On 29 September, there was
a day of mopping up before Ngesebus
was declared secure at 1500. As
planned, the island was turned over
to 2/321, and 3/5 was moved to division
reserve in the Ngardololok
area.

Seizure of Ngesebus by one depleted
infantry battalion gave a dramatic
illustration of an enduring principle
of war: the effective concentration of
means. To support that battalion,
General Rupertus concentrated the
bulk of all his available firepower: a
battleship; two cruisers; most of the
divisional and corps artillery; virtually
all of the division’s remaining armor;
armored amphibian tractors; all
troop-carrying amphibian tractors;
and all Marine aviation on Peleliu.

Caption and photo by Phillip D. Orr

Possibly one of the best preserved specimens of its kind in the Pacific this Model
10 120mm dual-purpose antiaircraft and coastal defense gun is on the western shore
of Ngesebus. The gun rests on its skid plate and was sited in a natural position.

Such concentrated support enabled
the heavily depleted 3d Battalion, 5th
Marines, to quickly seize Ngesebus,
destroying 463 of Colonel Nakagawa’s
battle-hardened and well-emplaced
warriors in 36 hours, at a
cost of 48 American casualties.

Other maneuver elements on
Peleliu also were attacking during
those 36 hours, but at an intensity
adjusted to the limited support consequent
upon General Rupertus’ all-out
support of the day’s primary objective.

As 3/5 was clearing Ngesebus, the
rest of the 5th Marines was fighting
the Japanese still in northeast Peleliu.
After capturing Akarakoro Point beyond
Amiangal Mountain, 2/5
turned south. It swept through the
defenses east of that mountain with
demolitions and flamethrowers, then
moved south toward Radar Hill, the
eastern stronghold of Hill Row. That
feature was under attack from the
south and west by 1/5. After two
days, the two battalions were in command
of the scene, at least on the34
topside of the hills. Inside there still
remained stubborn Japanese
defenders who continued to resist the
contest for Radar Hill, as did the
defenders within Amiangal Mountain’s
extensive tunnels. All could be
silenced when the cave or tunnel
mouths were blasted closed.

UMURBROGOL POCKET

As these operations were in
progress, the 321st at the north end
of Umurbrogol completed seizing
Hills 100 and Hill B, then cleared out
the ridge (Kamilianlul Mountain)
and road north from there to the area
of 5th Marines operations. On 30
September the 321st relieved the 1st
and 2d Battalions of the 5th Marines
in northern Peleliu. That regiment
reassembled in the Ngardololok area,
before it became once more necessary
to commit it to the Umurbrogol
Pocket.

The Umurbrogol Pocket:
Peleliu’s Character Distilled

In a very real sense, the Umurbrogol
Pocket typified the worst features
of the post D-Day campaign for
Peleliu. It provided the scene of some
of Peleliu’s worst and most costly
fighting, and of some of the campaign’s
best and worst tactical judgments.
Its terrain was the most
difficult and challenging on the island.
Prelanding planning did not
perceive the Pocket for what it was,
a complex cave and ridge fortress
suitable to a fanatic and suicidal
defense. Plans for the seizure of the
area treated the Pocket’s complex terrain
as oversimplified, time-phased
linear objectives to be seized concurrently
with the flat terrain abutting
it to the east and west.

The southern slopes (generally
called Bloody Nose) dominated the
landing beaches and airfield, over
which the Pocket had to be approached.
After those heights were
conquered by the heroic and costly
assaults of Puller’s 1st Marines (with
Berger’s 2/7 attached), and after the
division had set in artillery which
was controlled by aerial observers
overhead, the situation changed radically.
The Pocket’s defenders thereafter
retained only the capability to
harass and delay the Americans, to
annoy them with intermittent attacks
by fire and with night-time raids. But35
after D plus 4, Umurbrogol’s defenders
could no longer seriously
threaten the division’s mission.

This sketch shows the floor plan of the largest and most elaborate tunnel system discovered
by Marines on Peleliu. It was prepared by Japanese naval construction troops
and was so elaborate the Americans thought it might be a phosphate mine.

Nevertheless, after the critical enemy
observation sites were seized,
General Rupertus kept urging
“momentum,” as though the seizure
of the Pocket were as urgent as had
been seizure of the commanding
heights guarding it from the south.
The stubborn character of the terrain,
and its determined defenders,
became entwined with the determined
character of the general commanding
the 1st Marine Division.
This admixture was sorted out only
by time and by the reluctant intercession
of General Geiger. Most of
the offensive effort into the Pocket
between 21 and 29 September was
directed from south to north, into the
mouths or up onto the ridges of the
twin box canyons which defined the
Pocket. Infantry, supported by tanks,
air, and flame-throwing LVTs could
penetrate the low ground, but generally
then found themselves surrounded
on three sides. Japanese positions
inside the ridges of the canyons, hidden
from observation and protected
in their caves, were quite capable of
making the “captured” low ground
untenable. Other attacks, aimed at
seizing the heights of the eastern
ridges, while initially successful, in
that small infantry units could
scramble up onto the bare ridge tops,
thereafter came under fire from facing
parallel ridges and caves. They
were subject to strong night counterattacks
from Japanese who left their
caves under cover of darkness.

During 20 September, D plus 5,
the 7th Marines had relieved the 1st
Marines along the south and southwest
fronts of the Pocket, and on the
21st the 3d and 1st Battalions resumed
the attack into the Pocket,
from southwest and south. These attacks
achieved limited initial successes
behind heavy fire support and
smoke, but succeeded only in advancing
to positions which grew untenable
after the supporting fire and
smoke was lifted. Assault troops had
to be withdrawn under renewed fire
support to approximately their jump-off
positions. There was little to show
for the day’s valiant efforts.

Attacks the next day (22 September)
against the west shoulder of the
Pocket, from the West Road, up the
western box canyon (Wildcat Bowl)
and toward Higashiyama (Hill 140),
all liberally supported with firepower,
again produced early advances,
most of which had to be surrendered
at day’s end, as all three attacking
groups came under increasing fire
from the Japanese hidden in mutually
supporting cave positions. The
7th Marines had, unbeknown to it,
reached within about 100 yards of
Colonel Nakagawa’s final command
cave position. However, many supporting
ridges, and hilltops, would
have to be reduced before a direct attack
upon that cave could have any
hope of success.

The fight for Umurbrogol Pocket
had devolved into a siege situation,
to be reduced only by siege tactics.
But the 1st Marine Division’s commander
continued to cling to his belief
that there would be a “break-thru”
against the enemy’s opposition. He
insisted that continued battalion and
regimental assaults would bring victory
“very shortly.”

When the 321st’s probes eastward36
near the northern end of the Pocket
brought them within grasp of sealing
off that Pocket from the north,
they deployed two battalions (2d and
3d) facing eastward to complete the
encirclement.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 98260

Many of the participants in the battle with a literary turn of mind best compared
the ridge areas of Peleliu with the description of Dante’s “Inferno.” Here a flame
thrower-mounted amphibian tractor spews its deadly stream of napalm into a cave.

This attack against Hill B, the stopper
at the northern end of the Pocket
absorbed the 321st Infantry’s full
attention through 26 September, as
the 5th Marines was fighting in
northern Peleliu. The 7th Marines
continued pressuring the Pocket from
the south, and guarding it on the
west. With the 321st victory on the
26th, that unit’s mission was expanded
to press into the Pocket from the
north. This it did, while simultaneously
clearing out the sporadically
defended Kamilianlul Ridge to its
north. Its attack south from Hill B
and adjacent ridges made very limited
progress, but permitted some consolidation
of the American hold
along the north side of the Pocket,
now 400 yards wide in that zone. On
29 September, the 7th Marines was
ordered to relieve the Army unit in
that northern sector.

To relieve 2/7 and 3/7 of their now
largely static guard positions along
the west and southwest sectors of the
Pocket, the division stripped hundreds
of non-infantry from combat
support units (artillery, engineer, pioneer),
and formed them into two
composite “infantillery” units. Under
11th Marines’ Lieutenant Colonel
Richard B. Evans and 5th Marines’
Major Harold T. A. Richmond, they
were assigned to maintain the static
hold in the sectors earlier held by 2/7
and 3/7. They faced the karst plateau
between the West Road and the
Pocket.

The 7th Marines’ flexibility restored
by this relief, its 1st and 3d
Battalions relieved the 321st units on
29 September, along the north edge
of the Pocket. Then on the 30th, they
pushed south, securing improved
control of Boyd Ridge and its
southern extension, variously called
Hill 100, Pope’s Ridge, or Walt Ridge.
The latter dominated the East Road,
but Japanese defenders remained in
caves on the west side. The 7th Marines’
partial hold on Pope Ridge gave
limited control of East Road, and
thereby stabilized the east side of the
Pocket. But the U.S. hold over the
area needed improvement.

On 3 October, reinforced by the
attached 3/5 (back from Ngesebus),
the 7th Regiment organized a four-battalion
attack. The plan called for
1/7 and 3/7 to attack from the north,
against Boyd Ridge and the smaller
ridges to its west, while 2/7 would
attack Pope (Walt) Ridge from the
south. The attached 3/5 was ordered
to make a diversionary attack from
the south into the Horseshoe canyon
and its guardian Five Sisters on its
west. This regimental attack against
the Pocket committed four infantry
“battalions,” all now closer to company
than battalion strength, against
the heights near the southern end of
the Pocket (Five Sisters), and the
ridges at the eastern shoulder of the
Pocket (Pope and Boyd Ridges). After
heavy casualties, the attack succeeded,
but the Five Sisters (four of
which 3/5 scaled) were untenable,
and had to be abandoned after their
seizure.

The next day, 4 October, the 7th
Marines with 3/5 still attached made
one more general attack—in the
south, again to seize, then give up,
positions on the Five Sisters; in the
north, to try to advance and consolidate
the positions there earlier seized.

In that 4 October action, the 3d
Battalion, 7th Marines’ push led to
an unexpectedly rapid advance which
it pressed to get up onto Hill 120. It
was hoped that this would provide
a good jump-off for the next day’s
operation against the next ridge to
the west. However, Hill 120, as with
so many others in the Umurbrogol,
was then under enemy crossfire
which made it completely untenable.
The attacking company was withdrawn
with heavy casualties. Among
these casualties was Captain James
V. “Jamo” Shanley, commanding
Company L. His company was attacking
Ridge/Hill 120 when several
of his men fell, wounded. Shanley
dashed forward under heavy fire,
rescued two of the men and brought
them to safety behind a tank. He
then rushed back to help a third,37
when a mortar round landed immediately
behind him, mortally
wounding him. His executive officer,
Lieutenant Harold J. Collins ran out
to rescue him, only to fall by his side
instantly killed by a Japanese antitank
round.

For his heroism Captain Shanley
was awarded a Gold Star (second) for
the Navy Cross he had earned at
Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
There, his company was in the lead
in seizing Hill 660, a key terrain feature
in the Borgen Bay area.

The 7th Marines had now been in
the terrible Umurbrogol struggle for
two weeks. General Rupertus decided
to relieve it, a course General Geiger
also suggested. Still determined to secure
the Pocket with Marines, General
Rupertus turned to his only
remaining Marine regiment, the 5th.

Colonel Harris brought two firm
concepts to this final effort for his 5th
Marines. First, the attack would be
from the north, an approach which
offered the greatest opportunity to
chip off one terrain compartment or
one ridge at a time. His 1st Battalion
positions along the east side of
the Pocket would be held statically,
perhaps incrementally adjusted or
improved. No attacks would be
launched from the south, where the
3d Battalion was positioned in
reserve.

UMURBROGOL POCKET
30 SEPT–1 OCT

Colonel Harris’ aerial reconnaissance
during the first week on Peleliu
had convinced him that siege tactics
would be required to clear the multitude
of mutually defended positions
within Umurbrogol. As he had
earlier expressed himself in the
presence of the corps and division
commanders visiting his regimental
CP, Harris continued with his policy
to “be lavish with ammunition and
stingy with … men’s lives.” He was
in a strong command position to prepare
support thoroughly before ordering
advances.

The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,
relieved 3d Battalion, 7th Marines in
position on 5 October, but did nothing
but reconnoiter positions where38
heavier firepower could come into
play. Engineer dozers were brought
up to prepare paths into the north
ends of the box canyons, along which
LVT flamethrowers and tanks could
later operate. A light artillery battery
was emplaced along the West Road
to fire point-blank into the west-facing
cliffs at the north end of the
Pocket, as were weapons carriers and
tanks later. Troublesome sections of
certain cliffs were literally
demolished by direct fire, and the
rubble dozed into a ramp for tanks
to climb toward better firing positions.
Light mortars were used extensively
to strip vegetation from areas
in which firing caves were suspected,
and planes loaded with napalm-filled
belly tanks were used to bomb
suspected targets just south of the key
Hill 140, which 2/5 had selected as
its key objective.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 97433

Marine riflemen accompanied by tanks push forward to the
inner recesses of Horseshoe Ridge in an effort to cut off the
enemy water supply and rid it of Japanese troops once and for
all. The going got no easier as the Americans pushed forward.

As 2/5 picked off successive firing
positions in the north, 3/5 on 7 October
sent a tank sortie into the
Horseshoe. This time, the mission
was not to seize and hold, but to destroy
by fire all identifiable targets on
the faces of the Five Sisters, and on39
the western (lower) face of Hill 100
(Pope Ridge). When all ammunition
was expended, the tanks withdrew to
rearm then returned, accompanied
by LVT flame-throwing tanks and
guarded by small infantry fire-teams.
Considerably more destruction was
effected, a large number of Japanese
were killed in caves, and many of the
Japanese heavy weapons in those
caves were silenced. Previous to this
time, some single artillery pieces firing
from within the Horseshoe had
occasionally harassed the airfield. No
such nuisance attacks occurred after
the 7 October tank sorties.

For the next six days, the 5th Marines
headquarters afforded all available
support to small, incremental
advances by 2/5 from the north.
Light mortars were repeatedly used
to clear all vegetation from small objectives
and routes of advance. Both
tanks and artillery were used at
point-blank ranges to fire into all suspected
caves or rough coral areas.
Aerial bombardment with napalm
was used to clear vegetation and,
hopefully, drive some defenders further
back into their caves. All advances
were very limited, aimed
simply at seizing new firing positions.
Advances were made by
squads or small platoons.

The last position seized, Hill 140,
just north of the Five Brothers, afforded
a firing site to which a 75mm
pack howitzer was wrestled in disassembled
mode, reassembled, sandbagged,
and then effectively fired
from its then-commanding position.
It could fire into the mouth of a very
large cave at the base of the next
ridge, from which serious fire had
been received for days.

Sandbagging this piece into position
posed special problems, since the
only available loose sand or dirt had
to be carried from the beach, or occasional
debris slides. Nevertheless,
the use of sandbags in forward infantry
positions began to be used increasingly,
and the technique was
later improved and widely used when
81st Infantry Division soldiers took
over further reduction of the Pocket.

SEIZURE OF EASTERN RIDGES

By this mode of careful advance,40
a number of small knobs and ridges
at the head of the two murderous box
canyons were seized. Direct fire could
be laid into the west face of Walt and
Boyd Ridges, whose tops were occupied
by 1/5, but those cave-filled
western slopes were protected by
other caves on the opposite, parallel
ridge known as Five Brothers.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 97878

Maj Gordon D. Gayle, commander of 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, outlines in the
sand proposed enemy targets in the north for LtCol Joslyn R. Bailey, Marine Aircraft
Group 11. Looking on are Col Harold D. Harris, 5th Marines commander,
center, and LtCol Lewis W. Walt, behind Gayle, 5th Marines executive officer.

A week of such siege-like activity
pushed the northern boundary of the
Pocket another 500 yards south. On
12 October, the 3d Battalion, 5th
Marines was called in to relieve 2d
Battalion, 5th Marines. The relief
was seriously marred, primarily because
the forward positions being
relieved were so close to the opposing
enemy. The incoming troops, including
a company commander, were
picked off by snipers during this exchange,
and a small group of enemy
reoccupied a position earlier subdued
by frequent interdiction fires. Despite
these losses and interruptions, the
relief was completed on schedule,
and on 13 October, 3/5 continued
the slow and deliberate wedging
forward.

Directly south of Hill 140, there
seemed no feasible axis for advance,
so 3/5’s axis was shifted southwest,
approximately paralleling the West
Road, and into the coral badlands in
front of the containing lines manned
by the composite groups guarding
West Road. While the composite
groups held in place, 3/5 operated
across their front, north to south. By
this means the coral badlands were
cleared out for an average (east-west)
depth of 75–150 yards, along some
500 yards of the north-south front.
This terrain, earlier judged unsuitable
for any but the costliest and
most difficult advance, was now
traversed with the aid of preparatory
fire-scouring by napalm bombs.
Major “Cowboy” Stout’s VMF-114 pilots’
bombs fell breathtakingly close
to both the advancing 3/5 front and
to the stationary composite units
holding just east of West Road.

A similar effort was then launched
from the south by what was left of
Lieutenant Colonel John Gormley’s
1/7. Together, these two advances
seized and emptied about one-half of
the depth of the coral badlands, between
West road and the China Wall.
This clearing action allowed the composite
“infantillery” unit to advance
its lines eastward and then hold, as
far as the infantry had cleared,
toward the back of China Wall.

Overall, the actions of the 5th and
7th Marines in October had reduced
the Pocket to an oval some 800 yards,
north to south, and 400–500 yards,
east to west. According to Colonel
Nakagawa’s contemporaneous radio
report back to Koror, he still had
some 700 defenders within the Pocket,
of which only 80 percent were effective.
In early October, some wag
had suggested that the Pocket situation
be clarified by enclosing it with
barbed wire and designating it as a
prisoner of war enclosure. Spoken in
bitter jest, the concept did recognize
that the Pocket no longer counted in
the strategic balance, nor in completing
the effective seizure of Peleliu.

But it still weighed significantly in
the mind of Major General Rupertus,
who wanted to subdue the Pocket before
turning over to Major General
Mueller the 81st Division’s previously
specified mopping-up task. In point
of fact, Rupertus’ successful seizure
of Ngesebus and northern Peleliu had
terminated the enemy’s capability to
reinforce the now-isolated Japanese
on Peleliu. Creation of that tactical
situation had effectively secured
Peleliu.

Without pressing for a declaration
that Peleliu had been effectively secured,
which would have formalized
the completion of the 1st Marine Division’s
mission, General Geiger had
for some days suggested that in continuing
his attacks into the Pocket,
Rupertus relieve first the 5th, then the
7th Marines with his largest and
freshest infantry regiment, the 321st
RCT, still attached to 1st Marine Division.
To all such suggestions,
General Rupertus replied that his
Marines would “very shortly” subdue
the Pocket.

Two events now overtook General41
Rupertus’ confidence. First, the
81st Division was made whole by the
return of its 323d RCT, fresh from its
critically important seizure of Ulithi.
Second, the perception that Peleliu
was effectively secured was validated
by a message which so stated from
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander
in Chief, Pacific Fleet/Commander
in Chief, Pacific Ocean
Areas. Major General Geiger was
directed to turn over command to
Major General Mueller, whose 81st
Division was now directed to relieve
the 1st Marine Division, to mop up,
and to garrison Peleliu, as long
planned. Rear Admiral George E.
Fort, Rear Admiral Theodore S.
Wilkinson’s successor as commander
of operations in the Palaus, was
directed to turn over that responsibility
to Vice Admiral John H.
Hoover, a sub-area commander.
When relieved by the 81st Division,
the 1st Marine Division would embark
for return to Pavuvu.

DRIVE FROM THE NORTH

During the movement and turnover,
tactical operations ashore
necessarily remained under 1st Marine
Division control until the 81st
Division could move its command
post from Angaur. General Mueller
established his CP near Peleliu’s Purple
Beach on 20 October. The Wildcat
Division thereupon acquired
“custody” of the Pocket, and responsibility
for final reduction of its determined,
able, battered defenders.

Meanwhile, the relief of the 5th
Marines by the 321st RCT took place
on 15 and 16 October. While that
relief was in progress, Lieutenant
Colonel Gormley’s 1/7 was still engaged
in the earlier-described coral
badlands action, to make possible the
eastward movement of the containing
lines protecting West Road. The
relief of 1/7 was accordingly delayed
until the next day. On 17 October,
a full-strength Company B, 1/323,
newly arrived from Ulithi, relieved
Gormley’s surviving battalion, approximately
man for man.

Post-assault Operations
in the Palaus

When on 20 October Major
General Mueller became responsible
for mopping up on Peleliu, he addressed42
the tactical problem as a siege
situation, and directed his troops to
proceed accordingly. Over a period
of nearly six weeks, his two regiments,
the 322d and 323d Infantry,
plus 2/321, did just that. They used
sandbags as an assault device, carrying
sand up from the beaches and
inching the filled sandbags forward
to press ever nearer to positions from
which to attack by fire the Japanese
caves and dug-in strong points. They
made liberal use of tanks and
flamethrowers, even improving upon
the vehicle-mounted flamethrower.
They thrust a gasoline pipeline forward
from a roadbound gasoline
truck, thereby enabling them, with
booster pumps, to throw napalm
hundreds of feet ahead into Japanese
defensive areas. Noting the effectiveness
of the 75mm pack howitzer
which the Marines had wrestled up
to Hill 140, they sought and found
other sites to which they moved pack
howitzers, and from which they fired
point-blank into defending caves. To
support their growing need for sandbags
on ridge-top “foxholes,” their engineers
strung highlines to transport
sand (and ammo and rations) up to
such peaks and ridgetops.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 98401

As a result of Maj Gayle’s targetting of enemy positions in the
Umurbrogol, napalm-laden Marine Corsairs lifted from Peleliu’s
airfield, and returned to the field to be rearmed, in perhaps
the shortest wheels-down bombing run of the Pacific War.

Notwithstanding these deliberate
siege tactics, the 81st troops still faced
death and maiming as they ground
down the bitter and stubborn
Japanese defenses. The siege of the
Umurbrogol Pocket consumed the
full efforts of 81st Division’s 322d
RCT and 323d RCT, as well as 2/321,
until 27 November 1944 (D plus 73).

This prolonged siege operation
was carried on within 25 miles of a
much larger force of some 25,000
Japanese soldiers in the northern
Palaus. Minor infiltrations aside,
those Japanese were isolated by U.S.
Navy patrols, and by regular bombing
from Marine Aircraft Group 11,
operating from Peleliu.

Difficult and costly as the American
advances were, the Japanese
defenders in their underground
positions had a similarly demanding
and even more discouraging situation.
Water was low. Sanitation was
crude to nonexistent. Rations were
short, and ammunition was even
scarcer. As time wore on, some of the
Japanese, when afforded opportunity,
chose to leave their defenses and
undertake futile, usually suicidal
night attacks. A very few succeeded43
in being captured.

Toward late November, even
Major General Murai apparently
came to this point of view. Still not
in command, he nevertheless proposed,
in a radio message to Lieutenant
General Inoue on Koror, a
banzai finale for their prolonged
defense. But General Inoue turned
down the proposal. By this time,
Nakagawa’s only exterior communications
were by radio to Koror. As
he had anticipated, all local wire
communications had been destroyed.
He had issued mission orders to carry
his units through the final phase
of defense.

As the tanks and infantry carefully
pressed their relentless advances,
the 81st Division’s engineers pressed
forward and improved the roads and
ramps leading into or toward the
heart of the Japanese final position.
This facilitated the tank and
flamethrower attacks to systematically
reduce each cave and position as
the infantry pushed its sandbag “foxholes”
forward.

On 24 November, Colonel Nakagawa
sent his final message to his superior
on Koror. He advised that he
had burned the colors of the 2d Infantry
Regiment. He said that the final
56 men had been split into 17
infiltration parties, to slip through the
American positions and to “attack the
enemy everywhere.” During the night
of 24–25 November, 25 Japanese, including
two officers, were killed.
Another soldier was captured the following
morning. His interrogation,
together with postwar records and interviews,
led to his conclusion that
Colonel Nakagawa and Major General
Murai died in the CP, in ritual
suicide.

FINAL MARINE ACTION

The final two-day advance of the
81st Division’s soldiers was truly and
literally a mopping-up operation. It
was carefully conducted to search out
any holed-up opposition. By midday
on 27 November, the north-moving
units, guarded on the east by
other Army units, met face-to-face
with the battalion moving south,
near the Japanese CP later located.
The 323d’s commander, Colonel Arthur44
P. Watson, reported to General
Mueller that the operation was over.

Not quite. Marine air on Peleliu
continued to attack the Japanese positions
in Koror and Babelthuap,
joining the patrolling Navy units in
destroying or bottling up any remaining
Japanese forces in the northern
Palaus. A late casualty in that
action was the indomitable Major
Robert F. “Cowboy” Stout, whose
VMF-114 had delivered so much effective
air support to the ground
combat on Peleliu.

On 27 September 1944, the U.S. flag was raised over Peleliu,
symbolizing that the island was secured. The honor guard was
comprised of 1st Marine Division Band members. The general
editor of this pamphlet, Benis M. Frank, is eighth from the left.

The stubborn determination of the
Japanese to carry out their emperor’s
war aims was starkly symbolized by
the last 33 prisoners captured on
Peleliu. In March 1947, a small Marine
guard attached to a small naval
garrison on the island encountered
unmistakable signs of a Japanese
military presence in a cave in the
Umurbrogol. Patrolling and ambushes
produced a straggler, a Japanese
seaman who told of 33 remaining
Japanese under the military command
of Lieutenant Tadamichi
Yamaguchi. Although the straggler
reported some dissension within the
ranks of that varied group, it seemed
that a final banzai attack was under
consideration.

The Navy garrison commander
moved all Navy personnel, and some
35 dependents, to a secure area and
sent to Guam for reinforcements and
a Japanese war crimes witness, Rear
Admiral Michio Sumikawa. The admiral
flew in and travelled by jeep
along the roads near the suspected
cave positions. Through a loudspeaker
he recited the then-existing situation.
No response. Finally, the
Japanese seaman who had originally
surrendered went back to the cave
armed with letters from Japanese families45
and former officers from the
Palaus, advising the hold-outs of the
end of the war. On 21 April 1947, the
holdouts formally surrendered. Lieutenant
Yamaguchi led 26 soldiers to
a position in front of 80 battle-dressed
Marines. He bowed and
handed his sword to the American
naval commander on the scene.

Was the Seizure of Peleliu
Necessary? Costs vs. Benefits

What advantages to the United
States’ war effort grew from the conquest
of Peleliu? It assured absolute
domination of all of the Palaus,
thereby adding, marginally, to the
security of MacArthur’s right flank
as he continued westward, then
northward from New Guinea into his
Philippines campaign. Within the
Palaus group, it destroyed facilities
which survived Admiral Marc A.
Mitscher’s devastating strike of
March 1944. It insured total denial
of support to the enemy from Koror’s
submarine basing facilities, incrementally
decreasing the already
waning Japanese submarine capability
east of the Philippines. The United
States position on Peleliu
completed the neutralization of the
some 25,000 Japanese troops in
northern Palau. The landing on
Peleliu did not contribute to the
Regimental Landing Team (RLT) 323
unopposed seizure of Ulithi. Admiral
William F. Halsey had earlier believed
that his forces could seize
Ulithi without first seizing Peleliu.

The most visible benefit of a subdued
Peleliu lay in its use as a link
in the flight path and line of communications
from Hawaii, and from the
Marianas, to the Philippines. The
holding was a convenience, but not
a necessity.

Such judgment could be disputed,
however, by the survivors of the Indianapolis’
29 July 1945 sinking.
Having delivered atomic bomb parts
to Tinian shortly before, the ship was
headed for the Philippines, when it
was suddenly torpedoed at night.
The ship went down in 12 minutes,
and no report of the contact or the
sinking was received. The fourth day
after the sinking, its 316 survivors
(from a crew of 1,196) were sighted
by a Navy patrol bomber working
out of Peleliu. The sighting led directly
to their rescue, and most certainly
would not have occurred, but for
American occupation of Peleliu.

46
What did the seizure of Peleliu
cost? Marine casualties numbered
6,526, including Navy corpsmen and
doctors, of whom 1,252 were killed.
The 81st Division totalled 3,089
casualties, of whom 404 were killed
in action. Total U.S. troop casualties
was 9,615 for Peleliu, Angaur and
Ngesebus, with 1,656 dead.

By inflicting that many casualties,
the Japanese were successful in implementing
their longstanding “delay
and bleed” strategy. The actions cost
them an estimated 10,900 casualties,
all but a tiny fraction killed. Just 202
prisoners of war were captured, only
19 of whom were Japanese military
(seven Army, 12 Navy). The others
were laborers, largely Korean.
Among the Japanese military
defenders, less than two per thousand
were captured.

The costs at Peleliu held warnings
aplenty for the remaining Allied
operations to be conducted across the
Pacific to Japan. Even with total local
air and naval superiority, with
lavish naval gunfire and bombs, with
the dreaded napalm weaponry, and
with a 4:1 troop superiority, the seizure
of Peleliu consumed one American
casualty and 1,589 rounds of
heavy and light troop ammunition
for each single Japanese defender
killed or driven from his prepared
position. A few months later, the attacks
on Iwo Jima and Okinawa
would confirm this grim calculus of
war against determined Japanese
defenders, ably led, in prepared
defenses.

The question of whether the
Peleliu operation was necessary remains
moot, even today, some 52
years after the 1 September 1944
landing. The heroism and exemplary
conduct of the 1st Marine Division,
its Marines and Navy corpsmen, and
the soldiers of the 81st Infantry Division
on that miserable island is
written in the record. But there is an
enduring question of whether the
capture of Peleliu was essential, especially
in view of Admiral William
F. Halsey’s recommendation through
Admiral Nimitz to the Joint Chiefs
of Staff on 13 September 1944, two
days before D-Day, that the landing
be cancelled. By that time, it was too
late. And Peleliu was added to the
long list of battles in which Marines
fought and suffered, and prevailed.

[Sidebar (page 46):]

Tom Lea’s Paintings

Life Magazine artist Tom Lea accompanied Marines on Peleliu.

Tom Lea, the artist of the paintings which illustrate
this pamphlet, wrote of his experiences on Peleliu
in Battle Stations, published in 1988 by Still Point
Press in Dallas. Some of the sketches from this book were
reproduced with commentary in Volume 14, Number 2 of
Discovery, a journal published by the University of Texas
at Austin. In this issue, James Jones, author of From Here
to Eternity, wrote: “Lea was one of the artists put in the
field by Life…. Various of his works appeared in the
magazine, and up until the time he went into Peleliu, most
of them could be pretty well classified as excellently done
but high-grade propaganda. There was very little American
blood, very little tension, very little horror. Mostly,
it was what could be called the Bravo America! and This
is Your Boy type of war art. His almost photographic style
easily lent itself to that type of work….

“But something apparently happened to Lea after going
into Peleliu. The pictures painted out of his Peleliu experience
show a new approach. There is the tension of terror
in the bodies here, the distorted facial expressions of
the men under fire show it, too….

“One of the most famous, of course, is the Two-Thousand-Yard
Stare portrait of a young marine who has
had all, or more than, he can take. The staring eyes, the
slack lips, the sleepwalker’s stance. I’ve seen men with that
look on their faces. I’ve had it on my own face. It feels stiff,
and the muscles don’t want to work right when you try
to smile, or show expression, or talk. Mercifully, you’re out
of it for a while; unmercifully, down in the center of that
numbness, though, you know you will have to come back
eventually.”

Reprinted by permission of Discovery, the University of Texas at
Austin. Tom Lea’s artwork in this pamphlet is reproduced with
the permission of the artist. The captions under each of the Lea
paintings are the artist’s own words.

Benis M. Frank

“Counterattack” The phone rang. A battalion CO reported the
Japs’ infiltration and the beginning of the counterattack. He asked what
reserves were available and was told there were none. Small arms fire
ahead of us became a continuous rattle. Abruptly three star shells burst
in the sky. As soon as they died floating down, others flared to take their
place. Then the howitzers just behind us opened up, hurling their charges
over our heads, shaking the ground with their blasts.

47

“Artillery Support” At the southern end on our side of
the field opposite the hill our artillerymen had dug holes and carried
75mm field howitzers to the sites. As we came down to them these batteries
were firing continuously, throwing shells into the Jap hangars and
buildings at the foot of the hill, and at caves in the hill where Jap mortar
and artillery and machine-gun fire was dealing out misery to marines.

“The Blockhouse” Looking up at the head of the trail
I could see the big Jap blockhouse that commanded the height. The thing
was now a great jagged lump of concrete, smoking. I saw our lead man
meet a front line detail posted by the blockhouse while the other troops
advanced down the hill with the three tanks and the flamethrowers. Isolated
Jap snipers were at work on our slope, small groups of marines
fanned out on both sides of the trail to clean them out, while we climbed
toward the blockhouse.

48

[Sidebar (page 48):]

For Extraordinary Heroism

The Secretary of the Navy awarded the Presidential Unit Citation to the
1st Marine Division, and its reinforcing organizations, for
“extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces at
Peleliu and Ngesebus from September 15 to 29, 1944.” In addition, Marine
Aircraft Group 11 and the 3d 155mm Howitzer Battalion were awarded the
Navy Unit Commendation. On an individual basis, 69 participants in the
battle for Peleliu were decorated with the Navy Cross, the second seniormost
combat award in the Naval service.

The nation’s highest award, the Medal of Honor, was presented to eight
Marines in the fight for Peleliu; five were decorated posthumously, as indicated
by (*): *Corporal Lewis K. Bausell, USMC, 1/5; Private First Class Arthur
J. Jackson, USMC, 3/7; *Private First Class Richard E. Kraus, USMCR,
8th Amphibian Tractor Battalion; *Private First Class John D. New, USMC,
2/7; *Private First Class Wesley Phelps, USMCR, 3/7; Captain Everett P. Pope,
USMC, 1/1; *Private First Class Charles H. Roan, USMCR, 2/7; and First
Lieutenant Carlton R. Rouh, USMCR, 1/5.

Sources

The basic source work for this pamphlet
is the Marine Corps’ official monograph,
The Assault on Peleliu, by Maj
Frank O. Hough, published by the Government
Printing Office in 1950, while LtCol
Gordon D. Gayle was serving as deputy
director of Marine Corps history, and editor
of the monograph series. Other books
used in this narrative were: George W.
Garand and Truman R. Strobridge,
Western Pacific Operations, vol IV, History
of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World
War II (Washington: Historical Division,
HQMC, 1971); George P. Hunt, Coral
Comes High (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1946); E. B. Sledge, With the Old
Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (Presidio
Press, 1981); Edward S. Miller, War Plan
Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991);
Edward Behr, Hirohito: Behind the Myth
(New York: Vantage Books & Random
House, 1989); Bill D. Ross, Peleliu: Tragic
Triumph, The Untold Story of the Pacific
War’s Forgotten Battle (New York: Random
House, 1992); James H. Hallas, The Devil’s
Anvil: The Assault on Peleliu (Westport,
Connecticut: Praeger, 1944); Harry A.
Gailey, Peleliu 1944 (Annapolis,
Maryland: Nautical & Aviation Publishing
Inc., 1983); Masataka Chihaya, Fading
Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome
Ugaki, 1941–45 (University of Pittsburg
Press, 1962); Larry L. Woodward, Before
the First Wave: The 3rd Armored Amphibian
Tractor Battalion—Peleliu and Okinawa
(Manhattan, Kansas: Sunflower Univ.
Press, 1944); Burke Davis, Marine: The Life
of Lieutenant General Lewis B. (Chesty)
Puller, USMC (Ret) (Boston: Little, Brown
Company, 1962).

The Oral History and Personal Papers
Collections in the Marine Corps Historical
Center, Washington Navy Yard,
Washington, D.C., hold a number of interviews
and diaries of participants in the
Peleliu operation. These documents from
the following were particularly useful:
LtGen Oliver P. Smith; BGen Harold D.
Harris; BGen Harold O. Deakin; and
LtGen Lewis J. Fields, along with numerous
personal interviews with campaign
veterans—officers and enlisted men.

The author wishes to thank the Army
Center of Military History for the loan of
the photographs of Tom Lea’s artwork appearing
in this pamphlet. He also wishes
to thank Phillip D. Orr for permitting use
of the interesting photographs of Peleliu as
it appeared in 1994.

About the Author

Brigadier General Gordon D. Gayle, USMC
(Ret), graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy
in June 1939 and was commissioned a Marine
second lieutenant. After completing Basic
School in Philadelphia in 1940, he was assigned
to the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division with
which he served in three Pacific campaigns:
Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu. For
his extraordinary heroism while commanding the
2d Battalion, 5th Marines, on Peleliu, he was
awarded the Navy Cross.

He returned to 1st Marine Division in the Korean war to serve first as the executive
officer of the 7th Marines, then as G-3 on the division staff. He is a graduate
of the Army’s Command and General Staff College. In 1963–65, he chaired the Long
Range Study Panel at Quantico, developing concepts for the Corps’ operational,
organizational, logistical and R&D needs for the 1985 period. He was promoted
to brigadier general in 1964. Retiring in 1968, he joined Georgetown University’s
Center for Strategic and International Studies.

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the
World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by
the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,
Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance
of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by
a grant from the Marine Corps Historical Foundation and a bequest from
the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband, Thomas M.
Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple Heart.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR EMERITUS OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
George C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information
Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1996

PCN 190 003137 00