“=The Beach ... My First View as I Came Around From the Ramp of our
LVT= _We ground to a stop, after a thousand years, on the coarse
coral.... And we ran down the ramp and came around the end of the LVT,
splashing ankle-deep up the surf to the white beach. Suddenly I was
completely alone. Each man drew into himself when he ran down that
ramp, into that flame. Those Marines flattened in the sand on that
beach were dark and huddled like wet rats in death as I threw my body
down among them._”]
In these underground installations, the admiral’s personnel had well
survived the Task Force 58 March attacks. Above ground, planes and
installations were demolished. As Task Force 58 departed, the Japanese
emerged, repaired what they could, but continued to focus upon
underground installations. Together with a few Korean labor troops,
their numbers totaled about 7,000, most of them lacking training and
leadership for infantry action.
Leadership arrived in the person of Colonel Nakagawa, with his
6,500-man _2d Infantry Regiment (Reinforced)_. They had long
battle experience in China. They were armed with 24 75mm artillery
pieces, some 13-15 light tanks, about 100 .50-cal. machine guns, 15
81mm heavy mortars, and about 30 dual-purpose antiaircraft guns.
Already on the island were a large number of very heavy (141mm)
mortars, naval antiaircraft guns, and rudimentary rocket launchers
for sending up large, unguided naval shells. Most significant, the
regiment had Colonel Nakagawa and his battle-disciplined officers and
noncommissioned officers. Nakagawa had already been awarded nine medals
for leadership against the Chinese and was viewed as a “comer” within
his officer corps.
Immediately upon arrival, Nakagawa reconnoitered his prospective
battle area from the ground and from the air. He identified the
western beaches, the Marines’ White and Orange Beaches, as the most
probable landing sites. He immediately ordered his troops to dig in and
construct beach defenses. At this time, a bureaucratic conflict arose.
Vice Admiral Seiichi Itou, who was the senior officer and the senior
naval officer on Peleliu, resented being subordinate to an Army officer
much junior to him.
From Koror, Lieutenant General Inoue dispatched Major General Kenjiro
Murai to Peleliu, to assume island command and to maintain “liaison”
with Colonel Nakagawa. Murai was young, highly regarded, and, as the
personal representative of Lieutenant General Inoue, was considered
senior to the admiral. He left Nakagawa’s operational mission firmly in
Nakagawa’s hands, as Inoue intended. Throughout the campaign, Nakagawa
exercised operational control, and was assisted and counseled, but not
commanded, by General Murai.
Nakagawa had a sound appreciation of his mission, of the situation,
and of American firepower. He turned his attention to the fullest use
of his principal advantage, the terrain. He so deployed and installed
his forces to inflict all possible damage and casualties during the
anticipated landing, and then to defend in depth for as long as
possible. On Peleliu, that offered a vertical as well as a horizontal
dimension to the defense.
He surveyed and registered artillery and mortar weapons over the
width and depth of the reef off both eastern and western beaches, with
planned heavy concentrations along the fringe of the western reef. In
this he anticipated the American need to transfer follow-on waves from
landing craft to the reef-crossing amphibian vehicles. He registered
weapons on, and immediately inland from, the water’s edge, to subject
landing troops to a hail of fire. Off-shore he laid 500 wire-controlled
“mines.”
[Illustration: