Word: angaur
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Battlefronts Writer John Walker is a veteran of the war in Europe (he was one of the last correspondents to escape from Warsaw before the Nazis goose-stepped in) but he got his Pacific baptism by fire when our troops swarmed ashore at Angaur...
...Palau. On the ground, where Japs dig in and wait to be rooted out with grenade and bayonet, no such overwhelming combat superiority is possible. Yet more than 10,000 Japs had been killed on Peleliu and Angaur in the southern Palaus. (By last weekend seven other nearby small islands had been occupied, including Ngesebus and Kongauru.) Resistance simmered down to one small pocket on Angaur and "Bloody Nose" Ridge on Peleliu...
...hillside caves and mangrove swamps had not come cheap. The marines killed more than 8,000 Japs but lost 981 in killed and missing (against Tarawa's 984), had 3,639 wounded (against Tarawa's 2,072). Percentagewise, the 81st Infantry Division's losses on Angaur were higher. In killing 1,075 Japs, the soldiers had 880 casualties: 106 dead, five missing, 769 wounded...
Palou's Significance. Plainly, meeting entrenched Japs was an operation expensive in human lives, which are highly regarded in the U.S. if not in Japan. Wherever possible, U.S. strategy has been to by-pass Jap defenses. From air bases on Angaur, Peleliu and Ngesebus, the U.S. can now neutralize not only the 25,000 Japs on Babelthuap, Koror and the other northern Palaus, but also an estimated 100,000 others on once-mighty Truk, Ponape and other Caroline islands...
...rest of the 2,500 Japs formerly on Angaur had apparently moved before the battle to next door Peleliu, where the 1st Marine Division, at a place called "Bloody Nose," met some of the stiffest resistance of the Pacific...