Word: palaus
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...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...
Peleliu Island and its 8,000 Japs (of the 40,000 in the Palaus) were the first target. The island's twelve square miles had been rocked six times in eight days by swarms of Army and Navy bombers. Then for three full days warships smothered Peleliu with a hail of steel...
Three times the Japs counterattacked with their inferior tanks, were thrice thrown back. Peleliu's airfield, best of the five in the Palaus, fell to the determined marines the second day. After three days 5,495 dead Japs were counted. Peleliu was doomed but, like all dug-in Jap positions, it would not come cheap...
...capture of Peleliu and Angaur alone will not secure the anchorage. That is situated off the northern Palaus: 25-mile-long Babelthuap and Koror (where the capital is located). But, said Admiral Nimitz: "We will have a base from which to cover and support General MacArthur's Philippine campaign...