Word: peleliu
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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...
Last week the haggard ist Marine Division got some help from fresh units of the 81st Army Division, which landed, pushed through 4.000 yds., then encircled Bloody Nose. Peleliu's collapse was only a matter of time, might come in the typical banzai charge wherein all Japs are killed or kill themselves...
...even before last week's casualties had been counted, Peleliu's 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...
...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...
...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...