History Pgs.67-101
10/9/06
6:04 PM
Page 89
Two Marine Pfcs take time out for a cigarette on Peleliu Island in September, 1944.
Heading for the Philippines (1944)
National Archives
Just when it seemed the Navy and Marines
Most of Nakagawa’s defenders, hunkered down in their caves in the Umurbrogol [a heavily-fortified spine of steep hills running north and south], had no fear of the bombardment, but even the one battalion Nakagawa left deployed to disrupt the landing suffered little from the lightweight pounding. D-Day was September 15, 1944. As preplanned naval gunfire petered out “for lack of suitable targets,” the steel doors of the Umurbrogol rolled open and Nakagawa’s heavy artillery began raining hellish fire on the approaching waves of LVTs. Well-concealed 47mm antiboat guns opened up with enfilade fire from coral promontories on either flank. Heavy machine guns stitched the laboring craft without mercy. It was as deadly and ferocious an opposed landing as the Marines would ever face. D-Day ended with the 1st Marine Division occupying an irregular beachhead two miles long and ranging in depth from a mile in the south to a few feet along [an island promontory called] The Point on the north. The day had been rife with nasty surprises for General Rupertus, and the cost had been much greater than expected: 1,100 casualties, including 200 dead. Total losses were less than D-Day at either Tarawa or Saipan, and Rupertus figured the Japanese were sure to crack now that their perimeter had been so forcibly penetrated. For all his combat experience General Rupertus could never accept the reality that the Japanese had changed tactics, that this Colonel Nakagawa intended to lay low and fight smart for the next ten weeks. Rupertus would keep butting his head against the Umurbrogol in the misbegotten belief that the Japanese defenders would soon degenerate into their traditional self-sacrificing banzai charge, leading to the routine mopup. His three fine regiments would sequentially come to
had perfected the difficult art of amphibious assault against fortified islands, the Japanese abruptly junked their doctrine of perimeter defense and adopted a deadlier strategy. Disrupt rather than oppose the landing; develop “honeycomb” protective positions well inland; avoid the wasteful banzai attacks in favor of small, stinging counterattacks; “bleed” the Americans in a costly, time-consuming battle of attrition. “Disrupt, honeycomb, and bleed” became the blueprint for Japanese tactics at Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa – the three costliest battles of the war for the U.S. Marines. The Marines stormed Peleliu because of an earlier promise Admiral Nimitz made to General MacArthur in the presence of President Roosevelt. It was a questionable military commitment from the onset, and changing events would render the seizure of Peleliu bloodily superfluous. The small, wretched island, the drooping tail of the Palaus, the westernmost appendage of the far-flung Carolines, had no redeeming graces. Peleliu’s oven-hot climate was matched only by its convoluted terrain, the most ungodly scramble of coral cliffs and reeking mangrove swamps a defensive force could pray for. Defending it were some of the most proficient Japanese soldiers the Americans would face in the war. Colonel Kunio Nakagawa commanded 10,000 Japanese troops on Peleliu, including his own infantry regiment, proud veterans of Manchurian border-fighting. Nakagawa had a supreme eye for the land. He saw immediately how suitable Peleliu would be for the new Japanese doctrine of attrition warfare. Major General [William] Rupertus, dour but experienced, still commanded [the 1st Marine Division]. Three veteran colonels led his infantry regiments: Chesty Puller had the 1st Marines, Harold “Bucky” Harris had the 5th, and Herman “Hard Head” Hanneken, the 7th.
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