_A Marine war dog handler reads a note just delivered by canine
messenger, a Doberman Pinscher, one of the breeds used in the Pacific.
This Marine has a pump shotgun._]
By the end of D plus 4, the two battalions had cleared the main body
of the eastern peninsula and had reached Purple Beach from the rear.
The defenses were most impressive, but many were unmanned. Those enemy
troops encountered seemed more interested in hiding than in fighting,
leading to speculation that Nakagawa’s trained infantry had been moved
west to the fight on D-Day and/or D plus 1. By D plus 5, Purple Beach
was cleared, as were the long peninsulas southwest and northeast of
Purple Beach. On D plus 6, 2/5 seized the two islands immediately north
of the northeast peninsula, and the next day occupied the small unnamed
islet just 1,000 yards east of the northern ridges of Peleliu.
From that position, and positions elsewhere on the other islands, and
near Ngardololok, there appeared to be many opportunities to attack
by fire against the cave-infested north-south ridges of central and
northern Peleliu. Such positioning of heavy weapons would be very
difficult, but relative to the intense infantry battles underway
in Umurbrogol, such difficulties seemed acceptable. Many of the
prospective targets could have been vulnerable to direct, flat
trajectory fire across the front of U.S. units advancing north in
central Peleliu. Corps artillery units had conducted such direct fire
training before embarking for the Peleliu campaign. Such tactical
advantages and opportunities from the eastern peninsula were advocated
but never exploited. Only later, in the fighting for northern Peleliu
was the 5th Marines able to secure point-blank, heavy, single-gun fire
support.
_Encirclement of the Umurbrogol Pocket_
With southern and eastern Peleliu captured, there now began an
encirclement of the Japanese defenders in central Peleliu, and an
attack against the Japanese defending northern Peleliu and nearby
Ngesebus and Kongauru. This was the obvious next tactical phase for
combat on Peleliu. However, securing it was less necessary for the
basic Peleliu tactical and strategic goals than for the mopping-up of
the island. As the 1st Marine Division’s Assistant Commander, Brigadier
General Oliver P. Smith, later phrased it, “by the end of the first
week, the Division had control of everything on the island that it then
needed, or later used.”
The airfield had been seized, was under repair and improvement, and in
use. It was no longer any threat, if it had ever been, to MacArthur’s
long-heralded return to the Philippines. Peleliu’s best logistical
beach (Purple) had been secured, providing a secure logistic axis to
the main battle areas. The Japanese defenders in their caves, and in
northern Peleliu and on Ngesebus, retained some capability to harass
American rear installations, but that was sharply curtailed by the
Marines’ counterfire.
Only two significant Japanese capabilities remained: they could
bitterly resist from their cave positions and they had a limited
capability to reinforce Peleliu from Babelthuap. Such reinforcement
could only be by small-unit infiltration, which faced U.S. naval
screening operations in the area. Likewise, American encirclement of
the stubborn Umurbrogol Pocket faced two obstacles. First was the lack
of additional maneuver regiments from III Amphibious Corps’ reserve.
General Geiger in fact had no corps reserve pending the release of some
units from the forces involved in the seizure of Angaur. That landing
by the 81st Infantry Division (less the 323d RCT) had been launched on
17 September, after which there was no corps reserve.
The operation on Angaur, the planning which attended it and the
decision on its timing, impacted heavily upon the Peleliu operation.
The naval planners early on proposed landing on Angaur before Peleliu.
Only when Major General Julian C. Smith, commanding Expeditionary
Troops/X-Ray Planning Group, explained that such timing would invite
the numerous Japanese in northern Palau to reinforce Peleliu was
it agreed that Angaur be assaulted only after the Peleliu landing
was assured of success. However, the Angaur landing was initiated
before the Peleliu landing had been clearly resolved. The commanding
general of the 81st Division wanted to land as soon as possible, and
he was supported in his view by his naval task unit commander, Rear
Admiral William H. P. Blandy. Opposing the 17 September date for the
Angaur landing was Marine Major General Julian Smith. Smith argued
that committing the element of III Corps Reserve before the Peleliu
operation was more fully developed would be premature. His advice was
ignored by Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson.
A related decision on 17 September committed the III Corps’ final
reserve to the Ulithi landing. The task was assigned to the Western
Attack Force, which was ordered to seize Ulithi with “available
resources.” Over General Smith’s advice, Wilkinson chose to commit
the entire 323d RCT, the 81st Division’s other maneuver element. The
321st subsequently and successfully occupied an undefended Ulithi while
reserves were sorely needed at Peleliu.
By 20 September, the 81st Division had defeated or cornered all
survivors of Angaur’s 1,400 defenders. The 81st’s commander declared
Angaur secure. He tasked his 322d RCT to complete the mop-up, and
reported to General Geiger that the 321st RCT was available for further
operations. The lack of enough troops to begin encircling Umurbrogol
was no longer an obstacle.
The other obstacle to reinforcing the division on Peleliu and
encircling the Pocket lay in the thinking of General Rupertus, who
clung to a belief that his Marines could do it without help from the
Army. The III Corps plan tasked the 81st Division to reinforce the
Marines in seizing Peleliu and then to relieve the 1st Marine Division
for the mop up, but the general continued to exhort his commanders to
“hurry up.”
Earlier, General Rupertus and Colonel Puller had shrugged off a
suggestion from the 5th Marines’ “Bucky” Harris that they take a look
at the Umurbrogol Pocket from the newly available light planes of
Marine Observation Squadron 3. Harris’ own aerial reconnaissance, made
immediately after those planes arrived on 19 September, had altered
his view of the Umurbrogol from sober to grave. It convinced him that
attacking the Pocket from the north would be less costly than the
originally planned and ordered attempts from south to north. Both
Puller and Rupertus responded to Harris that they had their maps.
[Illustration: _Once the troops entered the Umurbrogol Mountain, they
found sinkholes and difficult terrain much as pictured here. Japanese
soldiers in the caves and heights above could fire at will at the
Marines, who were like so many “fish in a barrel.”_
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 108432
]
The prelanding scheme of maneuver was built on the tactical concept
that, after capturing the airfield, the 1st Marine Division would push
north along a line across the width of the main or western part of the
island. Once abreast of the southern edge of Umurbrogol, that concept
and maneuver scheme were reflected in a series of four west-to-east
phase lines, indicating an expected linear advance, south to north.
Clearly, it was expected that the advance along the flatter zones
west and east of Umurbrogol would be at approximately the same pace
as that along the high-central ground of Peleliu. Such thinking may
have been consistent with Rupertus’ prediction of a three-day assault.
Developments in Sabol’s sector to the west, and in the 5th Marines’
sector to the east, apparently did not change division-level thinking.
Until additional forces became available, such a linear advance may
have seemed all that was possible.
Even so, there was no apparent reexamination of the planned
south-to-north linear advance, and for days after the Pocket was sealed
off at its northernmost extremity, the division commander kept ordering
attacks from south to north, generally following the initial landing
plan. As had been revealed to “Bucky” Harris in his early aerial
reconnaissance of the Umurbrogol Pocket, such attacks would offer
little but casualties. Troops, heavily supported, could advance into
“the Horseshoe” and into “Death Valley,” but the positions they reached
then proved untenable and withdrawal was usual at day’s end.
Some part of this thinking may have well come from the inadequacies
of the map in use. The 5th Marines in early October produced a new
and more representative sketch map. It located and identified the
details within Umurbrogol sufficiently to facilitate maneuver and fire
coordination.
That mapping effort, incidentally, led to the misnaming of Honsowetz’
Hill 100, where Captain Everett P. Pope earned his Medal of Honor.
The 5th’s mapping team, launched after Harris’ regiment was committed
against the Pocket, encountered Lieutenant Colonel Walt, the regimental
executive officer, on Hill 100 during their sketching, and so named the
hill.
Even after General Geiger had ordered General Rupertus on 21 September
to stand down Puller’s shattered 1st Marines, General Rupertus
expressed the belief that his Marines, alone, would shortly clear the
entire island. After taking a closer look at the situation on the
ground, Geiger ordered RCT 321 from Angaur and attached it to the
Marine division. Encirclement of the Umurbrogol Pocket now became
tactically feasible.
Capture of northern Peleliu and Ngesebus became more pressing with the
discovery on 23 September that some part of the enemy’s substantial
troop strength in the northern Palaus was being infiltrated by barge
from Koror and Babelthuap into northern Peleliu.
Although the naval patrol set to protect against just that reinforcing
action had discovered and destroyed some of the Japanese barges, most
enemy troops seemed to have waded ashore on the early morning of 23
September. Colonel Nakagawa suddenly had reinforcements in the form of
a partially mauled infantry battalion in northern Peleliu.
_Encirclement of Umurbrogol and Seizure of Northern Peleliu_
A plan to encircle the Pocket, and deny reinforcement to northern
Peleliu was immediately formulated. General Rupertus’ staff was closely
attended by selected III Corps staff officers, and General Geiger also
was present.
The plan called for two regiments to move up the West Road, the Army
321st Infantry leading in the attack, and the 5th Marines following.
The Marines were to pass through the Army unit after it had gone beyond
the Pocket on its right, and the 5th would continue then to take
northern Peleliu and Ngesebus.
[Illustration: COMMITMENT OF