Word: peleliu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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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...
...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...
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...
...days after the assault on Peleliu Admiral Wilkinson made his second move. He gave Major General Paul J. Mueller's 81st ("Wildcat") Army Division its baptism of fire by sending it ashore on southernmost, phosphate-producing Angaur Island, six miles south of Peleliu. Initial resistance was lighter this time...
...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...