The Battle of Peleliu: D-Day (Part 1)

The guns of five US Navy battleships, eight cruisers, 14 destroyers, seven minesweepers, and 18 landing craft converted to rocket launchers open fire at precisely 5:30 a.m. on the 15th of September, 1944. Using coordinates gathered from artillery observers, the warships of Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf's 5th Support Group lob high-explosive shells at the tan, craggy-looking island in the distance. In 30 minutes, the shelling is replaced by waves of 400 carrier aircraft. US Navy Hellcats, Helldivers, and Corsairs drop napalm and fire rockets at enemy positions. Once the ground attack aircraft expend their munitions, the warships open fire again, and the pattern will repeat until 8:30 a.m. each hour. Meanwhile, the men of the 1st Marine Division are preparing for battle. Deep in the bowels of their transport ships, the Marines grab ammunition, grenades, and fill their canteens with water before boarding their amphibious vehicles, tracks, or amtracks. Private First Class Bill Layden of the 5th Marine Regiment recalled watching the bombardment with wishful thinking. I didn't see how the hell anything could live through that kind of punishment. I told myself that maybe all the Japs would already be dead by the time we went ashore. It looks like the whole island was on fire. Aboard a neighboring ship, Private First Class Eugene Sledge is about to experience combat for the first time and replays his feelings from the night before as he watched the brilliant South Pacific sunset. Suddenly, a thought hit me like a thunderbolt. Would I live to see the sunset tomorrow? My knees nearly buckled as panic swept over me. Many other Marines are struck by a sense of looming danger. Corporal Matthew Russo is a grizzled veteran of the 1st Marine Division who will later recall having premonitions of impending death after surviving the battles of Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester. He remembered thinking obsessively, "I'm going to get it. This time, I know I'm going to get my ass shot off." 21 days from now, Russo will wake up aboard a hospital [music] ship with a gaping hole in his lower back. "Damn it, I knew I was going to get my ass shot off." he remembered thinking. "And now I have." The US Marines are about to assault an island that covers just 5 square miles. This is the assault on the Japanese-held island of Peleliu, one of the US Marine Corps' bitterest battles of the Second World War. Why fight over an island about the size of Manhattan? First, it's important to put ourselves in the shoes of the Allied strategists in the summer of 1944. The US Navy has just won a decisive naval victory over the Japanese at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and American ground forces successfully captured the Mariana Islands soon after. Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet, along with General Douglas MacArthur, agree that retaking the Philippines will be the next major campaign. On the 26th of July, 1944, US President Franklin Roosevelt approves an invasion of the Philippines with the first landings on the island of Leyte set for late October. In the meantime, several smaller operations will need to be undertaken in the South Pacific to prepare for such a massive undertaking. MacArthur is concerned about the Japanese garrisons on the Palau Islands, which lie directly south of his invasion route to the Philippines. Peleliu is in the Palau Island chain and lies just over 500 miles to the east of the Philippines. The remote island remained mostly undisturbed throughout its history until 1939, when the Japanese military began aggressively expanding its South Pacific bases in preparation for war. Conscripts, local civilians, and Korean slave laborers were brought in to construct a 6,000-ft long, state-of-the-art runway, which can handle all types of military aircraft. A smaller auxiliary airstrip for fighter aircraft is also constructed on the adjoining island of Ngesebus. For these reasons, MacArthur asked Nimitz to neutralize the Palaus with his available forces. However, this does not mean Nimitz is obligated to carry out MacArthur's wishes. In contrast to the European theater, where all Allied forces operate under the command of Dwight Eisenhower, the United States has a peculiar command structure in the Pacific. MacArthur commands the Southwest Pacific Area, a multinational force consisting mostly of American and Australian units. As commander of the Pacific Fleet, Nimitz oversees operations in the Central Pacific and maintains control over the US Marine Corps. This inefficient command structure frustrates both men throughout the war, as their forces often squabble over the allocation of resources, and each theater frequently executes competing strategic visions. Nonetheless, Nimitz agrees to subdue the Palaus without any pushback. This begs the question, are there alternatives to invading Peleliu that could satisfy MacArthur? In fact, there is a strong argument that Nimitz can accomplish MacArthur's objectives without the need for an amphibious operation against Peleliu. MacArthur's reasoning for taking the Palaus is mostly based on neutralizing Peleliu's airfield. This is Joseph Wheelan, author of Bitter Peleliu, The Forgotten Struggle on the Pacific War's Worst Battlefield. >> It was on Pearl Harbor Day Japanese had bombed Mindanao from [music] the Peleliu airfield. And so, they were worried that the same thing would happen. So, they had to knock out the Peleliu airfield. And that was the reason for the invasion. >> It's important to note that air power is the dominant weapon during the Pacific War, and airfields in far-flung places such as Peleliu or Guadalcanal are extremely valuable to both sides. The establishment of air bases in strategic locations allows one side to patrol sea lanes, as well as provide early warning of enemy naval and air attacks. The earlier Guadalcanal campaign was deemed necessary because the Japanese construction of an airfield in the Solomon Islands would allow them to interrupt communications between the United States and Australia. Modern bases, such as the one on Peleliu, are truly worth their weight in gold. Dissenting voices at the time note that the Palaus have already been neutralized by Allied air power alone. Vice Admiral William Halsey's Western Pacific Task Force launches air strikes on the Philippines and the Palaus using carrier-based aircraft in early September, just as Nimitz completes final preparations for the invasion of Peleliu. Halsey's raids inflict heavy damage, but he is most struck by the lack of enemy resistance. With few, if any, Peleliu based Japanese aircraft still flight worthy, Admiral Halsey believes the island has already been eliminated as an offensive threat. Believing that this means that Japanese air power has been crippled to the point of irrelevance, Halsey sends an urgent message to Nimitz on the 13th of September, two days before D-Day on Peleliu. He advises the following: Plans for the seizure of the Palaus be abandoned. The ground forces earmarked for these assaults instead be diverted to support the Philippines invasion. The invasion of the Philippines to be moved up to take advantage of what he believes will be weak enemy resistance. >> But then, days before the year of the invasion, a Navy pilot that had been um flying over Mindanao and Leyte and all those islands, and shot down. He was uh brought in by some Filipino guerrillas. And he told the Navy that Mindanao was lightly defended, but Leyte, there was no one on Leyte, no Japanese there. And that was further north up the chain. So, they switched, on the recommendation of Admiral Halsey, they switched the target from Mindanao to Leyte at the last minute. And uh so, the Peleliu airfield was totally out of range of that, and was no longer a threat. Halsey recommended to Admiral Nimitz, who was in charge of the whole Pacific operation for the Navy, that they cancel Peleliu. >> Halsey instead proposes that Peleliu be left to wither on the vine, a concept that [music] calls for isolating and starving out Japanese garrisons, rather than assaulting them with amphibious forces. This strategy has already proven successful as a cost effective measure that neutralizes Japanese strongholds without unnecessary Allied losses. The Japanese base at Rabaul, once the target of a proposed amphibious invasion, is instead left to wither on the vine. Months of heavy bombing raids destroy the enemy air forces while Allied submarines choke off supply routes, essentially turning it into a prison for the large and well-entrenched Japanese Garrison. The much smaller and less strategically located Peleliu can receive the same treatment. Admiral Nimitz confirms point three of Halsey's recommendation to move up the invasion of the Philippines, but critically he ignores the first two regarding abandoning the invasion of Peleliu. Nimitz's thinking on this subject is never fully understood as he never speaks publicly on Peleliu and orders his personal papers burned as part of his will. The only justification he gives Halsey at the time is that since the invasion is only two days away, it cannot now be stopped. Historian and co-host of the World War II Life podcast, John McManus, shares his opinion from his book Island Infernos: The US Army's Pacific War Odyssey, 1944. >> It is possible that with the invasion fleet nearing Peleliu, Nimitz thought it too late to cancel the landings, at least without handing Japanese propaganda an opportunity to claim that they had chased away American invaders. Having promised MacArthur's support, the Admiral might well have been reluctant to go back on his word. >> In fact, General MacArthur is already wavering on the importance of taking Peleliu. In an August 1944 conference with war department planners, MacArthur states, "The elimination of the Palau operation would have no effect on speeding up the invasion of the Philippines." However, Nimitz never learns of this since neither leader makes it a priority to communicate with the other. Another flaw in the convoluted command structure in the Pacific. It is plausible that Nimitz sticks with the Peleliu assault because he hopes to maintain good relations with MacArthur. Thus, the invasion of Peleliu goes ahead thanks in part to what is later called bureaucratic inertia. Since the operation is already in motion, it is already too late to stop it. The plan is ominously code-named Operation Stalemate II. The mission is assigned to the 16,532 men of the 1st Marine Division. Led by Major General William Rupertus, the 1st Marine Division, nicknamed the Old Breed by its men, is one of the more experienced units in the American military. Its men and officers have endured harsh fighting throughout the Pacific War, including most notably on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester. Many of the Marines are confident in victory, certain that nothing can be as bad as the battles they've already fought. Sergeant Jim McEnery remembered reassuring a fellow Marine, "I got no particular bad feelings about Peleliu. Based on what they're telling us, maybe it won't be too tough. At least it shouldn't last as long as Cape Gloucester or Guadalcanal." The author Bill Sloan writes, "To the Old Breed veterans, such landings had become routine by now. Another island, another beach, another bunch of fanatical Japanese." In fact, the Japanese High Command is also confident of an American victory, having written off Peleliu as indefensible. The 10,900-strong garrison, including infantry troops from the 14th Division under the command of Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, is essentially left for dead while the Imperial Army pulls resources for the upcoming Philippines campaign. However, Colonel Nakagawa is one of the finest defensive tacticians in the Imperial Army and has turned Peleliu into a death trap for invaders. This is Henry Sledge, son of Eugene Sledge and the author of The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed, A Father, A Son, and How World War II in the Pacific Shaped Their Lives. >> They were the 15th Infantry Regiment. They were highly trained Japanese troops. You know, they were not just second line cannon fodder thrown in to fill the breach and they were, of course, brilliantly commanded by Colonel Nakagawa, who who was just a tactical genius. So, it's been said in many works of World War II Pacific War history, every step closer to the Japanese home islands, the fighting got more and more vicious. >> Peleliu will be the first test of Japan's new military strategy in the Pacific War. >> You know, their whole strategy shifted after the battles in Mariana Islands and uh the sinking of ships, shooting down 600 of their planes at the Battle [music] of Philippines, they uh senior Japanese officials realized they were going to lose the war. And they were certain that that was going to happen. And so, they decided to shift their whole emphasis. Instead of meeting the enemy at the waterline, trying to drive them back into the the sea, which never worked. They would uh fight an attritional battle from now on, which meant that they would uh meet the invaders with artillery and mortar fire at the the beach beachheads, but they would wait inside the islands for the Americans to attack them. And they would defend their well-prepared positions, try to kill as many Americans as possible to force uh the United States to negotiate with Japan, negotiate a peace where they uh the emperor could keep his prerogatives. And they might be able to keep some of their conquest, too. That was the plan. >> The Marianas campaign, along with the Allies' capture of the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, revealed fatal flaws in Japan's prior method of defending against amphibious assaults. Japanese defensive doctrine called for preventing the Allies from establishing a strong beachhead, which meant contesting the landing as the enemy was coming ashore. As such, Japanese commanders constructed most of their heaviest defenses on the likely landing areas. This was often done without proper camouflage, which allowed Allied naval artillery spotters to identify and destroy these positions with heavy gunfire during the pre-invasion bombardment. Should the Allies get ashore, as they often did on the first day of the battle, Japanese commanders were expected to launch immediate counterattacks to drive them back into the sea. These counterattacks usually took the form of massed banzai charges directly into the guns of the entrenched Allies. This would almost always result in needless slaughter, as the Allies could bring the full weight of their superior naval and aerial firepower against these futile attacks, which almost always took place in view of American warships and aircraft. Once the counterattack had failed, the garrison would be so weakened that the stronger Allies could push inland against faltering resistance. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan's overall military strategy had been a lightning war to quickly establish a large empire in the Pacific and lure the Allies into decisive naval battles where their forces could be destroyed. It was assumed that Japanese moral superiority would always carry them to victory and a negotiated peace could be forced on the allies after a series of defeats. With the Japanese home islands now in grave danger, the objective of the new government is to simply survive the war without enduring a humiliating occupation. As of summer of 1944, Japan's new strategy is to exhaust the allies in a grinding war of attrition and hopefully extract an acceptable peace deal. A veteran of Japan's war in China, Nakagawa arrived on Peleliu in March of 1944 and immediately reorganized the island's defensive potential. Beyond the relatively flat southern area is the Umurbrogol Mountain which in reality are a series of coral limestone ridges rising up to 550 ft above sea level. It is made of jagged sheer cliffs with sudden drops and craggy gullies. There are no discernible patterns to the terrain and when stripped of the dense jungle vegetation, the tall ridges resemble a contorted human spine. >> Japanese had built a network of defenses, something like 500 natural and man-made caves in that island. The whole thing was uh the result of a volcanic eruption and so there's a lot of limestone and they dug in the up the limestone, reinforced it with uh concrete, coral. They spent months and months on this. They brought in special tunneling engineers from Japan to enhance these uh defensive positions. [music] They're they're carefully prepared and they were prepared so that they're mutually supporting, too. You'd attack one position, catch fire from another one you didn't even see. It was just devilish. Once the uh jungle veneer was torn away, you could see it was [music] ravines, gullies, cliffs, cave openings. >> The individual hills on the mountain are all closely clustered together, meaning each summit is within machine gun range of those around it. The Japanese employ elaborate concealment methods, including sliding steel doors to hide heavy artillery. The doors open to allow the gun to fire, and then close during reloading to avoid counter battery fire. Following the end of the Peleliu campaign, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi closely studies Colonel Nakagawa's tactics, and later copies the closing steel doors for his own tenacious defense of Iwo Jima. Nakagawa constructs these defenses to be mutually supportive. Any attempts to rush one position can be spotted and fired upon by a second. The ground on Peleliu offers little in the way of sand, with rock hard coral limestone lying only a couple of inches below the surface. Any attempts by the attackers to find shelter by digging foxholes, or as the Marines call them, fighting holes, proves futile. And the fragmentation effect of shell fire multiplies as blasted shards of coral act as additional shrapnel. Nakagawa understands that many of his positions can only be destroyed by direct fire from heavy artillery or by flamethrower tanks. And the cutting roads through the limestone with heavy engineering equipment will be extremely difficult under fire from Japanese soldiers. >> They had a lot of ammunition, they had food, they were prepared. They were prepared to die there, all of them, and most of them did. >> Furthermore, Peleliu's unique terrain will also allow the Japanese to put up a spirited defense of the landing area. Upon his first reconnaissance of the island, Colonel Nakagawa immediately identified the only beach suitable for an invading force to come ashore. American aerial and submarine reconnaissance of Peleliu note some of the more obvious beach defenses, but failed to detect the massive build-up of Japanese fortifications inland. The First Marine Division conducts a week of invasion dress rehearsals on Guadalcanal before setting out for Peleliu on the 4th of September. The Marines will not be alone in this endeavor. 7 mi to the south of Peleliu is the island of Angaur, which will be stormed by the US Army's 81st Wildcat Division at the same time. It is expected that once the much smaller Angaur falls, the 81st Division will be brought in to reinforce the Marines on Peleliu. However, Major General Rupertus is reluctant to cooperate with the army. >> He was determined the First Marine Division do it alone, and that may sound good around a conference room table, but when you're dealing with the tactical situation that they encountered on Peleliu, it's going to take all the assets you have. >> As the man who wrote the famous Rifleman's Creed, Rupertus is a proud Marine and is intensely distrustful of the other armed services. His personnel officer will later write, "He was a very opinionated, difficult man to serve with and for." Furthermore, Rupertus suffers from wild mood swings brought on by depression following the death of his wife and children in the 1930s. His decision-making in the coming battle will spark intense controversy following the war. >> He had fought in World War I and um he was in the Banana Wars uh during the '30s and uh kind of rose through the ranks. He was assistant division commander on the Guadalcanal. Now, the division commander was Archie Vandegrift. After Guadalcanal, he was named commandant of the Marine Corps. So, naturally, Rupertus moved up. He became commander first Marine Division and he commanded them at Cape Gloucester and on New Britain. Uh so, he was he was just in the line in line, you know, that's how it worked. He was good friend of Vandegrift and they took care of each other. He was very aggressive. Once when he was in China, he was stationed in China, his uh wife and child died in one of the epidemics there. And that they [music] said that that really kind of scarred him, you know, that changed him quite a bit. But, uh he was considered a good commander till he got to Peleliu. And uh the problem was that he was really unable to adapt to a new totally new paradigm that faced him on Peleliu. He just kept doing the same thing over and over again. Basically, destroyed an entire regiment. He knew that it wasn't working and he was just despairing at one point. He was in tears. >> The invasion armada arrives off the coast of Peleliu on the 12th of September and Rear Admiral Oldendorf's warships begin the 3-day preemptive bombardment. Most of the naval gunfire is focused on the southwest corner of the island and the only beach suitable for the Marines to land on. US Navy frogmen also clear obstacles from the coral reef, which is around 500 yd from the shoreline. The plan is for the first assault waves to be delivered by amtracs, which can drive over the reef and continue on to deliver their Marines all the way to the beach. Subsequent waves of Marines will be transferred from landing craft vehicle personnel or LCVP's before the returning amtracs ferry them onto the island. To better suppress enemy defenses, the new landing vehicle tracked armored is being used for the first time by the first Marine Division in a combat landing. This version of the amtrac is equipped with 37-mm or 75-mm guns and will go in with the first wave to offer armored support. The bombardment begins anew at 6:30 a.m. on the 13th of September and several potential problems are beginning to emerge. The pre-invasion intelligence reports have claimed that the island is mostly flat aside from the Umurbrogol Mountain. But the detonations of 2,364 14-in 16-in shells, along with the 1,800 500-lb bombs dropped by naval aviation, is removing much of the dense jungle foliage which covers parts of the island. American officers studying Peleliu through their binoculars can now see the vast ravines, steep cliffs, and jagged terrain which define Peleliu. The legendary commander of the First Marine Regiment, Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller, is especially concerned with a massive coral outcropping on the southwestern corner of the island. >> There is a place that sort of jagged out into the ocean. It's called the point. 300 ft high. And it was uh just uh fortified Japanese position. [music] They had 500 troops there. They had uh artillery. They had mortars, machine guns. They had a navy 47 mm navy boat gun, and they were able to look down the beach there, enfiladed that the whole beach, and they could uh hit anybody coming ashore that was in their line of fire. >> Palau specifically asked for the position to be bombarded, but due to reasons still unknown to this day, it is barely targeted. Japanese troops have constructed reinforced concrete bunkers within, and the only way to destroy the position is either a lucky hit from Allied artillery or a costly attack inland to flank the soldiers defending it. On the southern end of the beach is a tiny island which also provides clear fields of fire into the flanks of the Marines disembarking in this area. Should the Americans advance inland, they would run into an impossible mangrove swamp, trapping them in place. The authors, Jim Moran and Gordon Rottman, contend in their book "Palau 1944" that Palau proved to be an attacker's nightmare and a defender's dream. Rear Admiral Oldendorf radios Pacific Fleet headquarters on the evening of the 13th of September to inform Nimitz that his warships have run out of visible targets. Therefore, Nimitz gives permission to cancel a full day of shelling on the 14th of September. In fact, the Japanese garrison has barely been affected by the bombardment, waiting out the hail storm of lead from reinforced concrete [music] tunnel complexes. Colonel Nakagawa fully expects to die in the coming battle, writing to his wife that "I am training for eternity." At the same time, Major General Rupertus remains confident that his Marines will easily prevail. He makes a public proclamation to the men. We're going to have some casualties, but let me assure you this is going to be a short one, a quickie, rough but fast. We'll be through in 3 days. It might take only two. The final bombardment begins at 5:30 a.m. on D-Day, 15th of September, 1944, while the Marines embark on their amtracks. The landing ship tanks, or LSTs, maneuver to 6,000 yd from the shoreline and open their clamshell bow doors. Each LST launches 16 amtracks, which circle until each vehicle is in the water. The amtrack carrying Eugene Sledge and his mortar unit from K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, has just pulled away from their transport ship. Private First Class Merrell Shelton shouts over the din of battle, "Want a cigarette, Sledgehammer?" referring to Sledge's nickname. "You know I don't smoke, Snafu." Sledge shouts back. "I've told you a million times." Shelton laughs. "Yeah, well, I'm making you a bet. Before today's over, you'll be smoking every cigarette you can get your hands on." The amtracks form into assault waves 4,000 yd from the beach at a position known as the line of departure. There, wave commanders in Higgins boats receive directions from signal flags on the destroyer USS Hazelwood telling them when to head for shore. The beaches have been divided into two main sectors, white and orange. Colonel Puller's 1st Marine Regiment will assault the beach subsectors designated white one and white two on the northern flank, while Colonel Harold "Bucky" Harris's 5th Marines will land at orange one and orange two in the center. Finally, the 7th Marine Regiment, under the command of Colonel Herman Hanneken, will land on the southern flank at orange three. The main objective of D-Day is to assault the beach, quickly clear it, and then advance inland to secure most of Peleliu's southern airfield, and advance to the high ground in the northern part of the island. This is wishful thinking. By 8:00 a.m., the first wave is signaled to begin its final run-in to the beach. In the lead are the 72 LVTA's mounted with tank guns, which are not technically tanks, but for brevity, we will semi-accurately refer to them as tanks, of the third armored amphibious tank battalion. These are to land 2 minutes ahead of the line of infantry-carrying amtracs. 18 landing craft infantry gun, LCIG's, move within 500 yd of the coastline to fire 1,200 4.5-in rockets, while four landing craft infantry mortars, LCIM's, fire 4.2-in mortar [music] shells as a continuous rate. The warships fire white phosphorus shells at the shoreline to conceal the first waves as they approach the beach, while more aircraft return to make final strafing and bombing runs. >> Starting when they came into shore, the the first Marine Division had never faced an opposed landing in their two previous campaigns. And uh they were expecting this to be much the same, especially after General Rupertus had uh told them it was going to be a short campaign. They were They were in a good mood. >> A Hellcat fighter is hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire and crashes into the beach, a sobering sight for many of the Marines in the first wave. Clearly, some of the enemy are still alive and fighting back. Things immediately start to go wrong when the white phosphorus smoke screen is blown seaward by the wind rather than landward. This has the double effect of blinding the incoming American assault force and the naval gunfire observers while providing a clear field of fire for the waiting Japanese defenders. Colonel Nakagawa's artillery observers have pre-sighted the area between the line of departure and the 700-yd wide coral reef. Once the amphibious tanks and amtracs enter the kill zone, Nakagawa orders his artillery to open fire. Bursts of water erupt around the amtracs and amphibious tanks. >> And the Japanese destroyed something like 26 of those amtracs before they got to shore. They're just in flames. So, it was a horrible awakening for the Marines. >> It's only a matter of time before the third armored amphibious tank battalion starts taking losses. Although the LVTA has good firepower with a 75-mm gun and 50-cal machine gun, its lightly armored hull stands no chance against 75-mm artillery shells. Within minutes, all five of the LVTAs carrying the first regiment's communication equipment have been hit and destroyed before they have even reached the reef. Nonetheless, the rest of the amphibious tanks advance to the reef and begin trundling over the jagged coral while more vehicles are hit. Some are destroyed by artillery fire while others are blown apart by wire-controlled mines seeded in the reef itself. The Navy frogmen have done their best, but not every mine has been found and disarmed. The Japanese heavy artillery is joined by mortar and machine gun fire the closer the tanks get to the beach. Most of the machine gun and 20 and 25-mm cannon fire is coming from the point and is directed at the incoming first Marine Regiment. Captain George Hunt of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines is approaching the beach in an Amtrack when sparks begin flashing off the metal armor. The tractor's commander shouts, "Down, those are bullets. Heads up, I'm going to spray the trees." before opening fire with a 50 caliber machine gun. There is no doubt that the enemy is alive and defending the island despite the bombardment. At 8:32 a.m., the first tanks crawl up onto the sands of Peleliu, 2 minutes behind schedule. Those which have made it ashore drive straight into a killing ground. Both the American and Japanese commanders knew before the battle that the 2,200 yd long beachhead was the only suitable landing area for an invasion fleet. Now, Japanese artillery, mortars, and small arms fire brackets the area. The biggest initial problem for the Amtrack crews is that they can't spot any enemy targets. The Japanese have been placed artillery pieces in concrete reinforced caves and pillboxes fitted with steel doors, meaning they can close the door after the gun has been fired in order to reload without being spotted. It's a tactic that will be repeated in later battles. The first Amtracks arrive 2 minutes after the tanks and stumble into the same massacre. Sergeant Jim McEnery and Private Eugene Sledge, along with the rest of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines lands at Orange Beach 2 under withering enemy fire. >> Peleliu was incredibly hardly contested >> [music] >> and hardly opposed on D-Day. So, you know, that's his baptism of fire and it was a pretty horrific experience to be your first foray into into combat. McEnery >> Dashes ashore as bullets kick up sand around him before taking cover in a shell hole. Looking around, he is astounded to see a large dog trotting down the beach while bullets whistle overhead. The dog comes to the edge of the shell hole and looks at McEnery before wagging its tail and continuing its leisurely stroll through the mayhem. Sergeant McEnery will later comment, "If that dog can come through such a massive pre-invasion bombardment without a scratch, what about the Japanese?" McEnery spots a group of Japanese soldiers manhandling a 75-mm field gun into place pointing towards the beach. He orders his platoon to take cover before going back to the beach to find an Amtrack. He shouts to the tank commander in the open turret, "Can you take that thing out?" to which the commander responds, "Consider it done." The tank advances up the beach and fires a single shot, which sends the remains of the gun and its operators flying through the air. A nearby Japanese machine gun pit is also quickly knocked out by flamethrower, allowing the fifth Marines to carve out a solid beachhead in the center. By 11:00 a.m., commanding officer Colonel Bucky Harris has established his regimental headquarters and reports to divisional command that his men are advancing inland from Orange Beaches 1 and 2 against scattered resistance. A shaken Eugene Sledge asks his comrades for the first cigarette of his life. >> If you immerse yourself in the story of Eugene Sledge, you are going beneath the rim of the helmet. You are going into the foxhole. You are sitting in the muck and the filth, the mud, the maggots. You are experiencing through one man's eyes that hopeless maul of the personal combat experience. And with The Old Breed, my dad does and I go into it as well, some of the broader scope things to understand, you know, to contextualize what's going on. But with The Old Breed is not an island-hopping treatise. for the south. >> The 7th Marine Regiment faces a more difficult landing. Knocked out amtracs and [music] tanks have blocked most of the approved routes through the coral reef, which forces most of the follow-up waves to squeeze single file through the only remaining gap large enough for armored vehicles. The amtracs then face enfilading machine gun fire from the tiny island to the south of the landing beach. Orange Beach 3 is a maze of barbed wire and pillboxes, which cause heavy casualties to the first Marines who make it ashore. The beach is quickly piling up with both dead and living Marines, along with their equipment, which is posing a problem to follow-up waves. The amtracs need to unload their 24-man complements before returning to the reef to pick up more men. But the beach is becoming too congested. Instead, many approaching amtracs veer off and dismount their troops elsewhere, which leads to confusion, a scattered units, and landing away from their objectives. Ultimately, for the 7th Marine Regiment, enemy fire slackens after a few minutes, and this brief respite allows for Marines to infiltrate inland. An anti-tank ditch is located, which provides cover for those coming ashore. Colonel Herman Hanneken is able to set up his regimental headquarters in the ditch and contacts divisional command. First Battalion of the 7th Marines is able to land without much harassment fire and advances further inland only to be stopped by a large mangrove swamp which had not been detected by pre-invasion reconnaissance. It will take until the afternoon for the battalion to navigate around the swamp. Despite this, Colonel Hanneken reports that casualties are not too heavy and his men are still combat effective. However, the situation is far worse in the north where the first Marine Regiment is being cut to pieces. The first Marines are landing directly in front of the point and paying the price as the Japanese defenders have a dominating view over white one and white two beaches. The first waves are sized down by machine gun fire coming from concealed pillboxes within the point. Japanese soldiers also pop up from spider holes dug into the ground. The Marines attempt to take cover but those who find shelter are immediately pinned down. Cries of corpsman ring out but none of the wounded can be attended to and much less evacuated under such intense enemy fire. Colonel Chesty Puller comes ashore in the first [music] waves to lead from the front alongside his men. Puller is a Marine Corps legend with four Navy Crosses and a Bronze Star to his name. His men have described him as cocky, totally fearless and larger than life but his regiment is facing their worst combat thus far in the war. Corporal Wilford Hanson recalls coming across Puller in the first moments after landing. I was running as hard as I could go when I saw Puller sitting cross-legged in the sand chewing on his corncob pipe and watching the action. I couldn't believe he was there so close to the front and the only way I could keep from stepping on him was to jump right over head. I said, "Hey, Chesty." as I went by, and he yelled back, "Give them hell, Marine." It didn't ruffle him a bit. K Company, 3rd Battalion Commander, Captain George Hunt, has set up his command post 100 yd ahead of Puller in a shell hole. Hunt had assigned his first and third platoons to capture the point, but discovers they have landed too far to the south of their objective, forcing them to fight their way through a hail of enemy fire. Within an hour of landing, a third of the men in both platoons are either dead or wounded. Hunt calls for Second Platoon to provide support, but is unable to find them. He is unaware that Second Platoon has suffered almost 90% casualties in the opening minutes, with 40 out of 45 men dead or wounded. Hunt decides his only option is to order First Platoon, led by Lieutenant William Willis, to take the point in a flanking assault before the entire battalion is wiped out. In the meantime, Hunt will rally the rest of the remaining survivors and follow right behind Willis's attack. Willis quickly improvises an attack on the 300-ft tall point where the Japanese defenders have 6 ft of protection from concrete and coral rock, along with seven machine gun emplacements. First Platoon scampers out of what little cover they have to charge into the blasted jungle landscape. Braving heavy machine gun fire, the Marines advance for 75 yd until they come across a 10-ft deep anti-tank ditch, where they find survivors from Second Platoon. Japanese soldiers pop out of their spider holes dug into the ground to harass the Marines, but Willis's men are able to take cover and fire back at the enemy. Within minutes, Captain Hunt, along with the remnants of third platoon and the company support platoon, arrive to reinforce Willis' small force. After a brief pause, at 10:00 a.m., the Marines attack into the jungle behind the point to outflank the position. Private First Class Fred Fouse and a handful of Marines come across a Japanese soldier who fires a shot at them before disappearing into a pillbox carved into the coral. Fouse is a flamethrower operator who was forced to discard his primary weapon after it was found to be defective. Fouse tosses one white phosphorus and two hand grenades into the bunker entrance and waits a few seconds before charging into the bunker and coming face-to-face with a wounded Japanese officer struggling to point his pistol at him. He fires a burst from his Thompson submachine gun to kill the officer before storming into the bunker's command center. More dead Japanese soldiers are strewn across the floor, apparently killed by the grenades. Private Thomas Hudson follows Fouse into the room and begins looting the bodies while Fouse returns to the surface. Seconds later, three loud shotgun blasts are heard and Hudson reemerges with a shaken look on his face. "Damn, some of those bastards are still alive." By 10:15 a.m., K Company has cleared most of the area but have yet to take the reinforced concrete casemate at the base of the point. The 47-mm anti-tank gun inside has been wreaking havoc on the invasion beaches all morning and must be silenced. Lieutenant Willis volunteers to crawl up the side of the bunker and drop a white phosphorus grenade in front of the opening. Despite sharp coral digging into his skin, Willis places himself directly on the top of the firing port and drops his grenade. The white phosphorus ignites and blinds the Japanese defenders, allowing Corporal Bob Anderson to rush forward and fire a rifle grenade into the gun position. The 47-mm ammunition ignites and three surviving Japanese soldiers are cut down when they try to escape the burning bunker. The point has been taken, but at a frightful cost. Of the 135 men in Captain Hunt's three rifle platoons, just 30 are still combat effective. The battle is just as brutal for the Japanese as American Marines will later count the bodies of 110 Japanese defenders around the point. Lieutenant Willis will later be awarded the Navy Cross for his part in the daring assault. However, Captain Hunt is unaware that the Japanese have managed to seal the gap his men used to flank the position. His men are now cut off, low on ammunition, and have only spotty radio contact with other units. The battle for the point has only just begun as Hunt's men dig in and await relief. By noon, a 1st Marine Division has carved out a fragile beachhead. The 5th Marine Regiment in the center has made the most progress, [music] where the Japanese beach defenses were weakest and the landing forces did not have to face enfilading fire. The 7th Marine Regiment has been stopped by the unexpected mangrove swamp, while the 1st Marines have suffered appalling casualties. The Marines are quickly learning that Peleliu is a miserable place to fight a war. The rock-hard [music] coral ground makes it impossible to dig fighting holes, and the effects of explosions makes jagged coral shrapnel a real danger. The hot Pacific weather is almost overwhelming as temperatures have risen to a scorching 115° F or 46° C. Most of the dehydrated Marines finish their canteen water by noon. Many who experienced D-Day on Peleliu will describe it as the hottest day of their lives. Nonetheless, the fighting continues up and down the beachhead. By 4:00 p.m., the leading elements of the 5th Marine Regiment have reached the southern edge of the airfield, but it has become apparent to Major General Rupertus that none of the D-Day objectives will be met. After consulting with division executive officer Brigadier General Oliver Smith, Rupertus orders the Marines to assume a defensive posture and dig in. Eugene Sledge and the rest of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines stop short of the airfield, but find that digging in in the traditional sense simply isn't possible on Peleliu. One of Sledge's comrades, Private First Class J. DeLeur, later remembered, "My foxhole that night was maybe 3 or 4 in deep, just about enough to get my rump in. The rest of me was sticking out in the open." Instead, men pile rocks and any debris they can get their hands on as improvised breastworks. At just before 5:00 p.m., Sledge looks to the north and sees a line of tracked vehicles kicking up dust as they move across the airfield. He asked the man next to him, "Hey, what are those amtracks doing all the way across the airfield?" The man responds, "Them ain't amtracks. Those are Japanese tanks." As many as 17 Type 95 Ha-Go tanks and 500 infantrymen are moving quickly towards the American lines. The Marines have been told to expect a banzai charge, but not an organized enemy counterattack with armor. Colonel Nakagawa has forbidden banzai charges, which usually end in catastrophic casualties for the attacker and no gain. Instead, this is a disciplined mechanized counterattack backed by an artillery barrage coming from the Japanese guns on Umurbrogol Mountain. The attack is sighted by a US Navy spotter plane, and Brigadier General Oliver Smith alerts 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 5th Marine Regiment. Eugene Sledge and Merrill Shelton set up their mortar in a shell hole, while a platoon sergeant shouts, "Stand by to repel counterattack." Fortunately for the defenders, the eight M4A2 Sherman tanks of companies A and B, 1st and 5th Tank Battalions, have just made it to the front and set up to the right of 2nd Battalion. Meanwhile, four 75-mm howitzers are towed into position behind 1st Battalion and open fire on the enemy as they cross the airfield. The Japanese tank drivers panic and accelerate, leaving the columns of infantry behind as they advance towards the American lines. The Shermans, along with several 37-mm antitank guns, bazookas, grenade launchers, and machine guns shred the enemy columns, knocking out most of the tanks. A Dauntless dive bomber screams in and drops a 500-lb bomb directly into a cluster of enemy tanks before pulling up and strafing the enemy infantry. Only two Japanese tanks managed to break through a thinly held part of the first Marine Regiment's line. Yet, without infantry support, the Japanese armor is doomed. The tanks hurtle over a coral embankment before crashing into a swamp where the crews are quickly dealt with by Marine riflemen. The counterattack has been defeated with all enemy tanks lost and at least half of the infantry cut down in front of the American positions. Other small counterattacks are launched throughout the late afternoon, but none of them succeed in breaking the Marines' lines. Colonel Nakagawa's main mistake was launching his assault too late in the day after American armor had already landed. Had Nakagawa committed his tanks earlier, they could have succeeded in driving the Marines all the way back to the beach. The day on Peleliu ends with the first Marine Division holding a tenuous beachhead on the island. The division has been badly mauled on the first day, suffering over 1,000 dead, wounded, or missing with most of these coming from Colonel Puller's 1st Marine Regiment. The amphibious tanks have taken especially heavy losses as 26 amtracs have been destroyed by enemy shellfire. The intense daytime heat only somewhat dissipates after nightfall as the tired Marines dig in as best they can. The Marines are tortured by thirst and many fall ill to heat exhaustion. Some of the lucky ones are evacuated to hospital ships offshore, but most are trapped in the active combat areas and must stay put for the night. Things are desperate for the Japanese defenders as well. Colonel Nakagawa has used up his armored reserves in the failed counterattacks and the Americans have captured the critical defensive position at the point. However, the bulk of Nakagawa's combat strength is intact, and his men still hold the best terrain [music] on the island. Japanese infiltrators stalk Marine positions during the night and reoccupy areas lost during the day. Three infiltrators managed to slip through the American lines and make it all the way to Brigadier General Smith's command [music] post on the beach before they are caught and killed. Far from the short battle promised by General Rupertus, the Marines on Peleliu are facing an enemy which is learning from its mistakes. Night falls on the island after a hard day of fighting. The 1st Marine Division is on high alert, prepared to repel the seemingly inevitable banzai charge which marked the previous island campaigns. Yet, the enemy doesn't come, only attacking in small groups to infiltrate weak spots in the American line. Most of these infiltration attempts are snuffed out, but veterans of Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester are perturbed by the lack of the usual banzai charge. Instead, the Marines wait out the night in shallow fighting holes completely inadequate for protection against bullets or shrapnel. At the point, Captain George Hunt's K Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment have been reinforced to 36 men as they continued to repel enemy counterattacks throughout the day. Hunt is still cut off from the rest of the 1st Marine Regiment and is low on water, ammunition, and manpower. An amtrac ran the gauntlet in the afternoon to deliver some supplies, including precious water. Unfortunately, the water drums stored on the offshore warships have have contaminated with oil and are undrinkable, adding to the trapped Marines' misery. The Marines take water canteens from dead Japanese soldiers whenever possible, while scrounging whatever weaponry they can find to prepare for the inevitable counterattack. The men wait anxiously behind their makeshift breastworks, listening to the rustling of bushes as unseen infiltrators stalk their positions throughout the night. One of the Marines is Private First Class Fred Fox, who recalled having a sense of foreboding. He just got the feeling that something was going to happen. My foxhole mate felt it, too. I dozed a little, but he didn't sleep at all. At just after 11:00 p.m., the Marines begin hearing hushed voices and the scraping of boots coming from all sides. They whisper urgent warnings to each other as each man prepares to defend their position. Corporal Hanson can't see nothing in the pitch blackness in front of him, but pulls the pin on a grenade and throws it after 3 seconds. After the explosion, the Marines open up with small arms fire, many men using captured Japanese weapons after running out of ammunition for their standard issue kit. A star shell fired from the beach suddenly illuminates the entire area to reveal a swarm of Japanese infantry advancing towards the point. Corporal Hanson remembers the unexpected light revealing a Japanese soldier less than 10 ft in front charging right at him. I had my M1 by my side, holding it by the pistol grip. I came up with it and fired from the hip, and he wasn't there anymore. Hanson resumes throwing grenades while the rest of the Marines fire back with whatever they can get their hands on. The attack is beaten off within 20 minutes, and the enemy falls back in disarray to the blasted remains of the jungle. The screaming of fanatical Japanese soldiers is replaced by non-stop mortar barrages, which wound many of the Americans defending the position, with snipers a constant threat as well. Captain Hunt's men continues to fight off Japanese infiltrators with the help of star shells fired from Marine artillery and US Navy warships, but the enemy pressure takes its toll. By dawn, the wounded on the point outnumber those who are able-bodied, forcing the defenders to rush in medical supplies and ammunition. By late morning, an amtrack carrying supplies and reinforcements finally breaks through to Hunt's position to find just 18 combat effective men remaining. Bill Sloan later writes of that nightmarish night, "Probably only the enemy's failure to realize how fragile and thinly stretched the Marines' defenses were, plus unimaginable courage and determination, had spared Hunt's little crew thus far." In the darkness, they'd endured hours of intermittent mortar attacks and relentless stalking by ghostly infiltrators who came at them from all sides. The Japanese siege of the point will only be broken the following day after 30 hours of intense combat. The sun rises on the 16th of September to reveal another scorching hot day with temperatures well into the 100s in Fahrenheit and 40s in Celsius. Major General Rupertus, the divisional commander, is irritated at the lack of progress the previous day and intends to smash enemy resistance with a quick strike to the north. The 5th Marine Regiment, along with the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marines, are to dash across Peleliu's airfield and clear out the enemy artillery firing on the beachhead from the Umurbrogol Mountain. In the estimation of Rupertus, this should break the Japanese defenses and resistance will disintegrate, much like it had during previous campaigns. In fact, Colonel Nakagawa has placed his best units on the Umurbrogol Mountain and relishes a fight on the terrain of his choosing. Rupertus is falling right into Nakagawa's trap and the main battle for Peleliu is about to begin. Thanks again to Joseph Wheelan, author of Bitter Peleliu, the Forgotten Struggle on the Pacific War's Worst Battlefield. To John McManus, historian and co-host of the World War II Live Podcast, and author of Island Infernos, The US Army's Pacific War Odyssey 1944. And to Henry Sledge, son of Eugene Sledge, and the author of The Old Breed, The Complete Story Revealed, A Father, A Son, and How World War in the Pacific Shaped Their Lives.