Word: peleliu
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...that September morning, a Japanese lieutenant of machine cannon on the island of Peleliu looked out over the Pacific Ocean and noted in his diary that what he saw made him "so furious I could feel the blood pounding in my veins throughout my body." The U.S. Marines had come, and with them a naval escort that stretched as far as the eye could see. After ten days of pounding, the warships and carrier planes ceased fire, and a transport commander said complacently to a Marine colonel: "Everything's done over there. You'll walk in." Replied...
...clock the ist Marine Division on Peleliu had made only 200 yards. The Japanese lieutenant had noted in his diary that although the bombardment had altered the island's scenery, only one man in his company was hurt. Snug in their caves, the Japanese waited until the first wave hit the beach, then, "the guns on point and island opened, many of those back in the ridge, and a mortar barrage so heavy that those who lived through it said it was the worst they had ever seen." By nightfall there were 1,298 dead & wounded Marines, the beachhead...
...Shock of Battle. According to Fletcher Pratt, Peleliu was the Marines' hardest battle. None of them was easy, though he calls the assault on Tinian "perfection." Pratt, one of the best of the civilian war analysts, wrote The Marines' War at the Marine Corps' request, but on three conditions, all granted: that he have full access to official Marine files and captured Japanese records; permission to interview eyewitnesses; complete freedom of opinion. The result is a fine service history written with clarity and intelligence, one that many Marines will welcome as an authoritative corrective to their...
...Francisco this week would come the vanguard of the dead from the Pacific: 2,992 from Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Peleliu and Iwo Jima.* From Africa in a few weeks would begin another funeral procession. Soon every U.S. city and town, almost every crossroads hamlet, would have a fresh reminder of the price of peace...
...last of the 34 Japanese guerrillas on Peleliu (TIME, March 31) surrendered last week, finally convinced by the loudspeaker broadcasts of a Japanese admiral that the war had ended. They were disarmed and will be repatriated to Japan. But this week the Marine reinforcements had one more job: to investigate reports that more Jap holdouts are still on the loose, farther up the Palau Islands...