Top Photo: Scenes at Peleliu. The Two-Thousand Yard Stare, Tom Lea’s captivating painting of a Marine having experienced too much. The Umurbrogol looms in the background with an LVT and naval air helping to clear “Bloody Nose Ridge.” US Army Center for Military History

Most people are familiar with the many storied US Marine Corps battles of the Pacific war. The Corps’ first landings on Guadalcanal, its initial testing of amphibious doctrine at Tarawa, the iconic taking of Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, and the slow, difficult slog on Okinawa are all well-known exploits that provide a greater understanding of the island-hopping campaign and the horror that was the war with Japan. However, one assault often overlooked was perhaps the Corps’ most difficult: Peleliu (Operation Stalemate II). Underscoring its ferocity, future commandant of the Marine Corps General Clifton Cates argued that “the fight for Peleliu was one of the most vicious and stubbornly defended battles of the war.”  Lieutenant General Roy Gieger, commander of the III Amphibious Corps, echoed this sentiment, repeatedly calling it the toughest battle of the Pacific war. Despite these claims, the fight on Peleliu remains in the historical background.

Peleliu is a small island in the Palau archipelago located some 500 miles east of the Philippines. The small, “crab claw”-shaped island extends largely from south to north and is roughly seven square miles. Its geography is composed largely of coral outcroppings with thick jungle undergrowth and an accompanying canopy. Primarily flat, the island accommodated a two-strip airfield at the hinge of “claw.” Despite the mostly flat terrain, the island’s left extension is dominated by a 50 to 300-foot massif called the “Umurbrogol.” This craggy twisted coral structure included cliffs and valleys that rose like a wall roughly a few hundred yards distant from the western beach line. The massif, soon nicknamed “Bloody Nose Ridge,” provided excellent cover and concealment for any defender and was festooned with some 500 naturally formed caves, creating ready-made defensive positions. Unfortunately for the Americans, and due to the jungle cover, amphibious planners underestimated this position’s defensive value. In addition to this natural fortification, the island featured man-made phosphate mines conducive to defensive operations and the storage of weapons/ammunition.  

The 1st Marine Division’s assault on Peleliu included three regiments landing on White and Orange Beaches on the islands southwest corner. The Umurbrogol (Bloody Nose Ridge) massif clearly dominated the islands topography. (US Marine Corps)

On the strategic defensive in late 1944, Imperial Japanese commanders determined that their best course of action lie with the wholesale attrition of American forces. Determined to raise the cost of an Allied victory and hopefully stave off defeat, the Japanese directed their ground forces to hunker down, leverage the defensive terrain of the Pacific islands, and kill as many Americans as possible. No longer would Japanese forces conduct last-ditch “banzai” attacks in futile, largely symbolic efforts, or waste resources with fixed positions on the beach. With this new attritional approach, Japanese troops would “die honorably” in service to the emperor by increasing American casualties and hopefully grind the US offensives to a halt.  

Strategically unimportant, the Palau Islands were home to Japanese airfields and garrisons posing a potential, albeit minor, threat to General Douglas MacArthur’s thrust toward the Philippine Islands. Intended on making good on his “I shall return” promise, MacArthur’s assault on the larger western archipelago initially focused on the island of Leyte. Moving northwest from the West Indies toward Leyte, MacArthur’s right flank remained possibly exposed to Imperial Japanese forces in the Palaus. Given this disposition, the 1st Marine Division was tasked to secure Peleliu with the Army’s 81st Infantry Division taking other islands in the Palau island group.

Then, as now, Operation Stalemate II remained a controversial decision. Admiral William Halsey suggested canceling the operation because Peleliu’s Japanese forces were already isolated and determined their threat did not justify the potential expense. Given the state of the Imperial Japanese army and navy’s ability to threaten growing American combat power, invading the Palaus probably could have been avoided altogether. Regardless of the diminished enemy threat, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz argued that the planned invasion was already underway, and it was too late to cancel the landings. From what the Americans understood, and the estimated size of the Japanese garrison on the island, the operation was expected to take only a few days. Optimistically, 1st Marine Division Commanding General William Rupertus predicted the fighting to be a short one, “a quickie, rough, but fast.”  Failing to fully appreciate the nature of Peleliu’s naturally defensive terrain, surf conditions, and tenacity of the Japanese 14th Infantry Division’s 2nd Infantry Regiment, many planners thought the operation would take only three, maybe four days. They were wrong.  

Previously assigned as part of the Kwangtung Army in China, the Imperial Japanese 14th Infantry Division arrived in the Palaus with the mission of defending the islands as long as possible. With the division’s forces located on the islands of Ngesebus, Koror, Anaguar, and Babelthuap, the 2nd Infantry Regiment’s nearly 7,000-man force, commanded by Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, assumed Peleliu’s defenses. The unit included 24 75-mm artillery pieces, approximately a dozen light tanks, and an assortment of heavy caliber machine guns and mortars. Combat experienced, Nakagawa quickly surmised where the Americans might land on Peleliu and had his heavier weapons pre-registered on these approaches. He further increased his defensive power by constructing concrete block houses, antitank ditches, and beach obstacles in and around these same locations. Furthermore, he committed 1,000 troops on the island of Ngesebus just off Peleliu’s western crab claw to defend its resident airfield.

D-Day on Peleliu

With D-Day set for September 15, 1944, an American armada arrived near the Palaus with 868 ships, 129 of which were part of the assault element. The three days of surface fire support and naval air pelting the island had been preceded by strategic aerial bombardment by US Army Air Forces B-24s dropping over 600 tons of bombs. With this combined effort, the landing force remained optimistic about the three- to four-day prediction. With little intelligence on enemy dispositions, what the Marines did not know was that most of the defenders remained unscathed safely nestled down in the coral caves and mine shafts in and around the Umurbrogol. Unless a round landed directly into the mouth of a cave, such fire had little effect on those inside. The lack of any Japanese response during the pre-landing strikes only encouraged American optimism, believing they had negated or destroyed Nakagawa’s heavier caliber weapons.

The first wave of LVTs moves toward the invasion beaches, passing through the inshore bombardment line of LCI gunboats, September 15, 1944. Cruisers and battleships are bombarding from the distance. The landing area is almost totally hidden in dust and smoke. Naval History and Heritage Command

 

H-Hour was set for 8:30 a.m. The offshore reef line 700 yards off the assault beaches precluded use of landing craft (LCVPs) with Marines heading ashore in amphibious tractors (LVTs). With enemy forces largely intact, Japanese gunners took aim at the LVTs approaching the designated “White” and “Orange” landing beaches. Attacking the island’s southwestern side, 1st Marine Division troops landed abreast with the 1st Marine Regiment arriving at the northernmost White beaches 1 and 2, the 5th Marine Regiment in the center at Orange 1 and 2, and the 7th Marine Regiment in the south at Orange 3. As the LVTs came closer to the shoreline, Japanese defenders opened up with their indirect fire, giving the Americans the first hint that the pre-landing bombardment had been ineffective.  

On the northernmost beach, a battalion from the 1st Marine Regiment secured the division’s left flank and held a key, hotly contested position referred to as “the point.”  By the end of the first day, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, was reduced in size to that of a platoon with little communication to adjacent units or supporting fires. As evening approached, one LVT loaded with ammunition and supplies arrived while evacuating Kilo Company casualties. The newly delivered supplies allowed the reduced company to hold off Japanese counterattacks throughout that first night. The next day, troops from another battalion arrived with the combined units also obtaining fire support. By D+2, the Marines finally secured the position with approximately 500 Japanese troops falling under the American guns. It was a harbinger of what was to come.

A Marine Corps amphibious tractor (LVT) on “Orange” beach at Peleliu on September 15, 1944. Only these tracked vehicles could breach the coral reef several hundred yards offshore to bring troops and supplies onto the island. (US Navy History and Heritage Command) 

At H+60 minutes, all five initial landing battalions made it ashore with follow-on units arriving throughout the morning. Japanese defensive fire became more lethal at the Marines moved inland. General Rupertus believed that offensive momentum was essential and pushed for aggressive action. Although 1st Tank Battalion made it ashore, moving forward was difficult with the approach to the airfield well within Japanese observation and fields of fire. While holding the line and establishing a beachhead that first day, approximately 1,100 Marines were casualties, with more than 200 killed in action. Given the Japanese defenses, most of the D-Day objectives looked beyond the landing forces capabilities causing Rupertus to commit his reserves.  

At 4:50 p.m. on D-Day, Nakagawa counterattacked with his armor assets. Japanese tanks came from the north and headed south over the airfield and into the 5th Marine Regiment’s positions. In a confused melee of combat, Marine formations employed heavy caliber weapons, bazookas, along with the resident armor to repulse and destroy the Japanese tanks. With the counterattack defeated, the 5th Marines moved north halfway up the airfield and settled in for the night. As a result of the day’s fighting, the initial waves established a beach head with depth allowing the landing of artillery and logistic support ashore.  

While the combat was hard enough, troops ashore quickly found the island an inhospitable place. Temperatures rose as high as 115 degrees with water in short supply and heat prostration a problem. One of the few civilian reporters ashore described the hellish environment:

Peleliu is a horrible place. The heat is stifling, and the rain falls intermittently—muggy rain that brings no relief—only greater misery. The coral rocks soak up the heat during the day and it is only slightly cooler at night. [Marines]…wilted on Peleliu. By the fourth day there were as many casualties from heat prostration as from wounds…

Compounding the problem was the use of old oil drums to transport water ashore. Steaming out the drums failed to fully remove the petroleum residue, making the water unpotable. Dehydration became endemic with salt tablets issued to Marines along with water purification tablets for troops leveraging shallow wells ashore that yielded putrid, barely drinkable water. Adding to the misery was the foul smell of corpses and human waste along with an infestation of flies.

Weary Marines take a brief cigarette break during the hard fighting on Peleliu, late September 1944. Naval History and Heritage Command 127-N-97628 

That night, smaller Japanese counterattacks continued along the Marines’ defensive line with little success. While the line held across the frontage, the 1st Marines’ position on the extreme left flank remained tenuous. Rupertus ordered his reserves from 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, to help reinforce the 1st’s position. From this position, Marine units then continued to push up the western claw, taking fire from Japanese troops on Bloody Nose Ridge. Unknown to the Americans, Nakagawa’s command was also suffering: the D-Day counterattack cost him one of his five infantry battalions and most of his armor, along with several hundred dead across the front. Despite these losses, he still had several thousand troops available, remaining largely invisible in Umurbrogol’s caves.  

Over the next few days, the 1st and 5th Marines pushed onto the massif. Movement was slow, and the four-day operation was now turning into a slog. By D+4, the 1st Marine Regiment was a regiment only in name, having suffered over 1,500 casualties. With these losses, III Amphibious Corps Commander Lieutenant General Roy Gieger had Rupertus withdraw the 1st Marines and replace them with the 81st Infantry Division’s 321st Regimental Combat Team, then located at Angaur. Despite Rupertus’s reluctance to accept Army help, the tactical situation required an increasingly joint effort. By the time it was withdrawn on D+5, the 1st Marine Regiment had suffered 1,749 casualties while inflicting more than twice that number of KIA on enemy formations. During their time on Peleliu, the regiment took 10 ridgelines, destroyed three block houses, 22 pillboxes, 13 antitank guns, and negated 144 defended caves. But eventually, the Marines regiments would suffer similarly.

As light observation aircraft began using the pockmarked airfield, the Americans got a better view of Japanese defenses and the terrain. Surrounding the Umurbrogol and moving into the coral structure, American forces soon christened a number of smaller geographic features with names such as “Five Brothers,” “China Wall,” “Wildcat Bowl,” “Death Valley,” and “Baldy Ridge.” By D+7, US forces owned much of the island and negated any threat it may have posed to MacArthur’s flank. But Japanese holdouts continued to fight, holed up in their Umurbrogol defensive positions. Given the Marine losses incurred and the stubbornness of the defenders, Gieger again looked to the Army for support. Having secured the island of Angaur, the 81st Infantry Division transferred both the 321st and 322nd Regimental Combat Teams to Peleliu.  

Clearing the Umurbrogol 

Clearing out the Umurbrogol was a campaign within a campaign. From September 21–29, American forces pushed from north to south, encountering box canyons, ridgelines, and defensive caves. Fanatical Japanese defenders had to be routed out, hole by hole and cave by cave, with the enemy conducting nighttime infiltration raids into the American lines. Infantry supported by flame-throwing LVTs helped clean out lower-level positions in the Umurbrogol, but higher ground enemy defenses required infantry to climb and fight its way to these upper elevations. After making a summit or military crest, American infantry was often too weak to retain the position as Japanese forces fired from other elevations onto the newly occupied location. The fight devolved into a siege.

Running out of infantrymen, fire support troops from 11th Marine Regiment was pressed as “infantrillery” as well as other support troops to help clear massif positions. Engineering bulldozers prepared paths for LVTs in the massif to help clear caves with their flamethrowers. Getting direct fire onto Japanese positions proved problematic. In one instance a 75-mm pack howitzer was disassembled, lifted to a higher elevation, sandbagged in place, and then used to fire into the enemy caves. With the airfield in American hands, Marine fighter squadron VMF-114 assisted in the fight. In perhaps the shortest sorties of the war, the squadron’s F4U Corsairs took off, cycled their landing gear, and dropped napalm in direct support of Marines clearing out caves. After expending their ordnance, they quickly returned to the landing pattern minutes, if not seconds, later.  

By October elements of the 5th and 7th Marines reduced the enemy pocket to an oval shape measuring a few hundred yards in each direction. Even with this, Nakagawa radioed his superiors headquartered on the island of Koror that he still had 700 defenders. With the island isolated, but not fully secured, the Rupertus’s 1st Marine Division was exhausted and finally withdrawn and fully replaced with the 81st Infantry Division. On October 20, Army Major General Paul Mueller assumed responsibility for mopping up remaining Japanese resistance. For the next six weeks, soldiers continued with some of the same methodologies used by the Marines to clear out the defenders. Nakagawa continued his resistance and maintained radio contact with his superiors until November 24, when he made his final transmission. He reported that he burned the regimental colors and directed his remaining 56 men to split into infiltration parties and “attack the enemy everywhere.” One of the few captured Japanese soldiers reported Nakagawa eventually died in his command post by committing seppuku—ritualistic suicide. While the campaign was over for the Americans, in would not be until 1947 when the last Japanese holdouts finally surrendered.

Was it worth it? Removing the Japanese garrisons on Peleliu cost the enemy 10,900 troops KIA with just over 300 captured. Conversely, the Americans suffered some 9,600 casualties, with 1,600 KIA in a protracted struggle that lasted months instead of days. MacArthur’s flank was indeed secured if it ever was really threatened. The Americans eventually refurbished the airfield, and it became a convenient but nonessential air link between Hawaii, the Marianas, and the Philippines. Perhaps the most notable military result came months later when a PV-1 Ventura patrol plane flying out of Peleliu spotted the survivors of USS Indianapolis. The ship had just delivered atomic bomb parts to Tinian and was subsequently sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 29, 1945. With Indianapolis maintaining radio silence, the discovery of the ship’s survivors by the Peleliu-launched PV-1 was sheer luck, saving 316 lives out of the ships original complement of 1,195.  

Tom Lea’s The Price, perhaps the most moving and harrowing depiction of combat in the Pacific. (US Army Center for Military History) 

Perhaps the most public notice of the Peleliu fight came from LIFE magazine artist Tom Lea. His painting The Two-Thousand Yard Stare depicts a Marine with a haunting gaze walking away from Bloody Nose Ridge. The illustration clearly depicts that not all scars are physical. Among his other works communicating the ferocity of the struggle was The Price. This graphic illustration shows a soldier suffering a bloody and grave wound to the entire left side of his body while still afoot. These and his other works covering the Peleliu operation transcend the age and capture, in a unique way, the terrors of the campaign.

An LVT left over from the campaign still ashore on Peleliu. This vehicle currently sits beside the Umurbrogol high ground that took weeks to clear out. The stairs in the background lead to the upper elevations. John Curatola

While Lea’s paintings convey the campaign’s violence, they did not become public until after the island was secured, with Peleliu remaining back page news in late 1944. Given the optimistic outlook of a four-day campaign, most of the reporters assigned to the operation decided to stay afloat and never went ashore. The six who did make the trek ashore left the island having observed only the initial fight. As a result, the accounting of the roughly two-month slog came largely from those who fought it, not from those who were supposed to report it to the American public. In addition to the dearth of resident reporters, other events in the war superseded news of the Peleliu struggle: MacArthur’s return to the Philippines in October and the September failure of Operation Market Garden in Europe eclipsed the hard-won island victory. Not until the 1981 release of Eugene Sledge’s critically acclaimed autobiographical work, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, did the American public finally gain insight and appreciation for the ferocity of the fight. Given what we now know about Operation Stalemate II and the nature of the campaign, it is time to place Peleliu in its rightful place in Corps illustrative lore.