The 321st RCT, by now battle tested, was tasked to push up the West
Road, alongside and just atop the western edge of coral uplift which
marked the topographical boundary between the flat western plain, and
the uplifted coral “plateau.” That plateau, about 300 yards west to
east, constituted the western shoulder of the Pocket. The plateau rose
some 30-80 feet above the West Road. Its western edge, or “cliff,” was
a jumble of knobs and small ridges which dominated the West Road, and
would have to be seized and cleared to permit unharrassed use of the
road.
Once the 321st RCT was past this up-lift, and the Pocket which it
bounded, it was to probe east in search of any routes east through
the 600 yards necessary to reach the eastern edge of that portion of
Peleliu. Any opportunities in that direction were to be exploited to
encircle the Pocket on the north.
Behind the 321st RCT, the 5th Marines followed, pressed through, and
attacked into northern Peleliu. Hanneken’s 7th Marines relieved the
1st, which was standing down to the eastern peninsula, also relieving
the 5th Marines of their then-passive security role. The 5th was then
tasked to capture northern Peleliu, and to seize Ngesebus-Kongauru.
This maneuver would involve the use of the West Road, first as a
tactical route north, then as the line of communications for continued
operations to the north. The road was comparatively “open” for a
distance about halfway, 400 yards, to the northern limit of the Pocket,
and paralleled by the ragged “cliff” which constituted the western
shoulder of the up-lifted “plateau.” That feature was no level plateau,
but a veritable moonscape of coral knobs, karst, and sinkholes. It had
no defined ridges or pattern. The sinkholes varied from room-size to
house-size, 10 to 30 feet in depth, and jungle- and vine-covered. The
“plateau” was generally 30 to 100 feet above the plain of the road.
Some 200-300 yards further to the east, it dropped precipitiously off
into a sheer cliff, called the China Wall by those Marines who looked
up to it from the southern and eastern approaches to the Pocket. To
them, that wall was the western edge of the Pocket and the coral
“plateau” was a virtually impassable shoulder of the Pocket.
[Illustration: ISOLATION OF UMURBROGOL