_by Brigadier General Gordon D. Gayle, USMC (Ret)_
On D-Day 15 September 1944, five infantry battalions of the 1st
Marine Division’s 1st, 5th, and 7th Marines, in amphibian tractors
(LVTs) lumbered across 600-800 yards of coral reef fringing smoking,
reportedly smashed Peleliu in the Palau Island group and toward five
selected landing beaches. That westward anchor of the 1,000-mile-long
Caroline archipelago was viewed by some U.S. planners as obstacles, or
threats, to continued advances against Japan’s Pacific empire.
The Marines in the LVTs had been told that their commanding general,
Major General William H. Rupertus, believed that the operation would be
tough, but quick, in large part because of the devastating quantity and
quality of naval gunfire and dive bombing scheduled to precede their
assault landing. On some minds were the grim images of their sister
2d Marine Division’s bloody assault across the reefs at Tarawa, many
months earlier. But 1st Division Marines, peering over the gunwales
of their landing craft saw an awesome scene of blasting and churning
earth along the shore. Smoke, dust, and the geysers caused by exploding
bombs and large-caliber naval shells gave optimists some hope that
the defenders would become casualties from such preparatory fires; at
worst, they would be too stunned to respond quickly and effectively to
the hundreds of on-rushing Marines about to land in their midst.
[Illustration: PALAU ISLANDS
E.L. Wilson
]
Just ahead of the first wave of troops carrying LVTs was a wave of
armored amphibian tractors (LVTAs) mounting 75mm howitzers. They were
tasked to take under fire any surviving strongpoints or weapons which
appeared at the beach as the following troops landed. And just ahead
of the armored tractors, as the naval gunfire lifted toward deeper
targets, flew a line of U.S. Navy fighter aircraft, strafing north and
south along the length of the beach defenses, parallel to the assault
waves, trying to keep all beach defenders subdued and intimidated as
the Marines closed the defenses. Meanwhile, to blind enemy observation
and limit Japanese fire upon the landing waves, naval gunfire was
shifted to the hill massif northeast of the landing beaches.
[Illustration: