_Situated in a cave overlooking the airfield is this heavy caliber
Japanese antiboat gun. It had a field of fire which included the
invasion beaches and the airfield._]
[Illustration: _Damaged heavily in the D-Day bombardment, this Japanese
pillbox survives on the southern promontory of White Beach. Now vacant,
its gun lies on the beach._
Caption and photograph by Phillip D. Orr
]
On the division’s right flank, Orange 3, Major Edward H. Hurst’s 3/7
had to cross directly in front of a commanding defensive fortification
flanking the beach as had Marines in the flanking position on the
Point. Fortunately, it was not as close as the Point position, and
did not inflict such heavy damage. Nevertheless, its enfilading fire,
together with some natural obstructions on the beach caused Company K,
3/7, to land left of its planned landing beach, onto the right half of
beach Orange 2, 3/5’s beach. In addition to being out of position, and
out of contact with the company to its right, Company K, 3/7, became
intermingled with Company K, 3/5, a condition fraught with confusion
and delay. Major Hurst necessarily spent time regrouping his separated
battalion, using as a coordinating line a large antitank ditch astride
his line of advance. His eastward advance then resumed, somewhat
delayed by his efforts to regroup.
Any delay was anathema to the division commander, who visualized
momentum as key to his success. The division scheme of maneuver on the
right called for the 7th Marines (Colonel Herman H. Hanneken) to land
two battalions in column, both over Beach Orange 3. As Hurst’s leading
battalion advanced, it was to be followed in trace by Lieutenant
Colonel John J. Gormley’s 1/7. Gormley’s unit was to tie into Hurst’s
right flank, and re-orient southeast and south as that area was
uncovered. He was then to attack southeast and south, with his left on
Hurst’s right, and his own right on the beach. After Hurst’s battalion
reached the opposite shore, both were to attack south, defending
Scarlet 1 and Scarlet 2, the southern landing beaches.
At the end of a bloody first hour, all five battalions were ashore.
The closer each battalion was to Umurbrogol, the more tenuous was its
hold on the shallow beachhead. During the next two hours, three of the
division’s four remaining battalions would join the assault and press
for the momentum General Rupertus deemed essential.
Following close behind Sabol’s 3/1, the 1st Marines’ Colonel Puller
landed his forward command group. As always, he was eager to be close
to the battle, even if that location deprived him of some capacity
to develop full supporting fires. With limited communications, and
now with inadequate numbers of LVTs for follow-on waves, he struggled
to ascertain and improve his regiment’s situation. His left unit
(Company K, 3/1) had two of its platoons desperately struggling to
gain dominance at the Point. Puller’s plan to land Major Davis’ 1st
Battalion behind Sabol’s 3/1, to reinforce the fight for the left
flank, was thwarted by the H-hour losses in LVTs. Davis’ companies
had to be landed singly and his battalion committed piecemeal to the
action. On the regiment’s right, Honsowetz’ 2/1 was hotly engaged, but
making progress toward capture of the west edges of the scrub which
looked out onto the airfield area. He was tied on his right into Boyd’s
1/5, which was similarly engaged.
[Illustration: D-DAY
(After Rectifying 3/5)]
In the beachhead’s southern sector, the landing of Gormley’s 1/7 was
delayed somewhat by its earlier losses in LVTs. That telling effect of
early opposition would be felt throughout the remainder of the day.
Most of Gormley’s battalion landed on the correct (Orange 3) beach, but
a few of his troops were driven leftward by the still enfilading fire
from the south flank of the beach, and landed on Orange 2, in the 5th
Marines’ zone of action. Gormley’s battalion was brought fully together
behind 3/7 however, and as Hurst’s leading 3/7 was able to advance
east, Gormley’s 1/7 attacked southeast and south, against prepared
positions.
Hanneken’s battle against heavy opposition from both east and south
developed approximately as planned. Suddenly, in mid-afternoon, the
opposition grew much heavier. Hurst’s 3/7 ran into a blockhouse, long
on the Marines’ map, which had been reported destroyed by pre-landing
naval gunfire. As a similar situation later met on Puller’s inland
advance, the blockhouse showed little evidence of ever having been
visited by heavy fire. Preparations to attack and reduce this
blockhouse further delayed the 7th Marines’ advance, and the commanding
general fretted further about loss of momentum.
[Sidebar (page 2): The Divisions and their Commanders
The Peleliu operation was to be conducted by two divisions, one Marine
and one Army. In the Pacific area since mid-1942, the 1st Marine
Division was a veteran, combat-tested organization which launched the
first offensive landing in the Pacific War when it attacked Guadalcanal
on 7 August 1942. After a period in Australia of rest, recuperation,
and training of newly joined Marines, the division made its second
amphibious assault on 26 December 1943 at Cape Gloucester on New
Britain Island. When the division landed on Peleliu, its regiments
(1st, 5th, and 7th Marines, all infantry, and 11th Marines, artillery)
contained officers and enlisted Marine veterans of both landings as
well as new troops. Before World War II ended, the 1st Division was to
participate in one last battle, the landing on Okinawa.
[Illustration: _MajGen William H. Rupertus_]
Major General William H. Rupertus, the 1st Division commander, had been
with the division since early 1942. As a brigadier general, he was the
assistant division commander to Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift
during the Guadalcanal campaign. He took command of the division for
the Cape Gloucester operation. General Rupertus was commissioned in
1913 and served as commander of a Marine ship’s detachment in World War
I. During subsequent years, he was assigned duty in Haiti and China.
Following the Peleliu campaign, he was named Commandant of the Marine
Corps Schools in Quantico. General Rupertus died of a heart attack on
25 March 1945, while still on active duty.
The Army’s 81st Infantry Division--the Wildcats--was formed in August
1917 at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. It saw action in France at the
Meuse-Argonne in World War I, and was deactivated following the end
of the war. The division was reactivated in June 1942. It went to
several Pacific training bases before its first combat assignment, the
landing on Angaur. After securing Angaur, it relieved units of the 1st
Marine Division on Peleliu. When Peleliu was secured, the Wildcats
began training for Operation Olympic--the assault on Japan proper. The
Japanese surrendered unconditionally after suffering two atomic bomb
attacks. As a result, instead of invading Japan, the 81st occupied it.
On 10 January, the 81st Infantry Division was once more deactivated.
[Illustration: _MajGen Paul J. Mueller, USA_]
Major General Paul J. Mueller, USA, the commander of the 81st Division,
was a graduate of the famous West Point Class of 1915. He commanded an
infantry battalion in France in World War I, and during the interwar
period he had a succession of assignments to infantry commands, staff
billets, and schools. In August 1941 he assumed command of the 81st
Infantry Division at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and moved his division
during its training period successively from Florida to Tennessee to
California before its commitment to the battle for Angaur and Peleliu.
General Mueller served on active duty until 1954, when he retired. He
died in 1964.
]
[Sidebar (page 5): The Changing Nature of Japanese Tactics
Japan launched its December 1941 surprise attacks in the expectation
that its forces could quickly seize a forward line of Pacific and Asian
empire. Thereafter, it expected to defend these territories stubbornly
enough to tire and bleed the Allies and then to negotiate a recognition
of Japanese hegemony.
This strategic concept was synchronized with the fanatic Japanese
spirit of _bushido_. Faith in their army’s moral superiority over
lesser races led the Japanese to expect 19th-century _banzai_ tactics
to lead invariably to success. Expectations and experience meshed until
their 1942 encounters with the Allies, particularly with Americans in
the Solomons. Thereafter, it took several campaigns to internalize
the lessons of defeat by modern infantry weapons in the hands of the
determined Allies.
To Americans, these Japanese misconceptions were alarming, but
cost-effective: It was easier, and less costly, to mow down _banzai_
attacks than to dig stubborn defenders out of fortified positions.
By spring of 1944, the lessons had permeated to the highest levels of
Japan’s army command. When General Hideki Tojo instructed General Inoue
to defend the Palaus deliberately and conservatively, he was bringing
Japanese tactics into support of Japanese strategy. Henceforth,
Japanese soldiers would dig in and hunker down, to make their final
defenses as costly as possible to the attacking Americans.
]
[Sidebar (page 7): Naval Gunfire Support for Peleliu
[Illustration:
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 95115
]
In their earlier operations, especially at Guadalcanal, the primary
experience of 1st Division Marines with naval gunfire was at the
receiving end. On New Britain, the character and disposition of
Japanese defenses did not call for extensive pre-landing fire support,
nor did subsequent operations ashore. The naval gunfire to which the
Guadalcanal veterans were exposed frequently and heavily damaged
planes and installations ashore. Its effect upon dug-in Marines was
frightening and sobering, but rarely destructive.
During the planning for Peleliu, the division staff initially had no
trained naval gunfire (NGF) planner. When one arrived, he was hampered
by the cumbersome communications link back to higher headquarters,
Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith’s Fleet Marine Force, Pacific
(FMFPac), in Honolulu, which would provide the essential targeting
information for the division’s NGF plan. FMFPac also would plan
and allocate the available gunfire resources to the targets deemed
important by the division staff’s planners. The preoccupation of
FMFPac with the ongoing Marianas campaigns, as well as illness on the
staff of Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, Commander, Naval Gunfire
Support Group, further limited and constrained the preparations. Heavy
ammunition expenditures in the Marianas reduced ammunition availability
for Peleliu.
Surprisingly, during the delivery of U.S. preparatory fires, there
was no Japanese response. This prompted Oldendorf to report all known
targets destroyed, and to cancel preparatory fires scheduled for D
plus 3. An unintentional benefit of this uncoordinated change in naval
gunfire plan may have resulted in there being more shells available
for post-landing NGF support. But the costliest effect of inadequate
NGF was that the flanking positions north and south of the landing
beaches were not taken out. The selection of naval gunfire targets
could certainly have been done with more careful attention. Colonel
Lewis B. Puller, the 1st Marines commander, had specifically asked for
the destruction of the positions dominating his landing on the division
left flanks. Failure to do so was paid for in blood, courage, and time
during the critical battle for the Point.
Subsequent to D-Day there were numerous instances of well-called and
-delivered naval gunfire support: night illumination during the night
of 15-16 September, the destruction of two major blockhouses earlier
reported “destroyed,” and effective support of the Ngesebus landing
toward the end of the battle.
]
_The Japanese Defenses_
On the enemy’s side, Lieutenant General Sadae Inoue, a fifth generation
warrior of stout military reputation, commanding the _14th Infantry
Division_, fresh from the _Kwangtung Army_ in China, met in Tokyo in
March 1944 with Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo, who was also Minister
of War. Tojo had concluded that Japan was no longer able to hold the
Palaus against growing Allied naval dominance in the Western Pacific.
Instead, he had decided to sell the Palaus to the United States at the
highest possible cost to Americans in blood and time. He ordered Inoue
to take his division to the Palaus, to take command of all Japanese
forces there, and to defend the Palau Islands as long as possible,
denying its use to the Americans--and killing as many as possible in
the undertaking.
As his division sailed to the Palaus, Inoue flew ahead, reconnoitered
his new locale by air for two days, and concluded that Peleliu (with
satellite air strips on Angaur and Ngesebus) was the key to his
defenses. Earlier U.S. attention to Peleliu during the Task Force 58
March strikes seemed to confirm that judgment. To defend Peleliu, Inoue
immediately settled upon a commander, a mission, and a force level.
Peleliu had for some time been under occupation and administrative
command of a rear admiral, who had used his forces’ construction
resources and capability to build blockhouses and many reinforced
concrete structures above ground, while improving existing caves and
tunnels under Peleliu’s rich concealment of overlying jungle, scrub,
and vines.
[Illustration: