Victory at Peleliu: The 81st Infantry Division's Pacific Campaign 0806141549, 9780806141541

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Fox Day for Angaur
2 Angaur Secured
3 Ulithi and Ngulu Atolls
4 Angaur Bowl
5 Romauldo Hill
6 The Wildcats Land on Peleliu
7 The Army Takes Control on Peleliu
8 Victory at Peleliu
9 After the Battles
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Victory at Peleliu

CAMPAIGNS AND COMMANDERS General Editor Gregory J. W. Urwin, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Advisory Board Lawrence E. Babits, East Carolina University, Greenville James C. Bradford, Texas A&M University, College Station Robert M. Epstein, U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas David M. Glantz, Carlisle, Pennsylvania Jerome A. Greene, Denver, Colorado Victor Davis Hanson, California State University, Fresno Herman Hattaway, University of Missouri, Kansas City J. A. Houlding, Rückersdorf, Germany Eugenia C. Kiesling, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York Timothy K. Nenninger, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Bruce Vandervort, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington

Victory at Peleliu The 81st Infantry Division’s Pacific Campaign

Bobby C. Blair and John Peter DeCioccio

University of Oklahoma Press : Norman

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Blair, Bobby C. (Bobby Charles), 1941– Victory at Peleliu: the 81st Infantry Division’s Pacific Campaign / Bobby C. Blair and John Peter DeCioccio. p. cm. — (Campaigns and commanders) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8061-4154-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Peleliu, Battle of, Palau, 1944. 2. United States. Army. Infantry Division, 81st. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Regimental histories— United States. I. DeCioccio, John Peter, 1948–2004. II. Title. D767.99.P4B55 2011 940.54%2666—dc22 2010033221 Victory at Peleliu: The 81st Infantry Division’s Pacific Campaign is Volume 30 in the Campaigns and Commanders series. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources, Inc. $ Copyright ∫ 2011 by Bobby C. Blair and Marlene DeCioccio. Published by the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior written permission of the University of Oklahoma Press. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This work is dedicated to Samuel Sylvester (Buddy) Blair, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, who died at Radar Hill, Peleliu Island, and who helped inspire the telling of this story Rocco DeCioccio, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, who also helped inspire the telling of this story John Peter DeCioccio, Rocco’s son, who first dreamed of telling this story All the Wildcat veterans, living and dead, who served in World War II and who made this story possible You will never be forgotten, and may you receive the recognition you deserve.

Contents

List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments

ix xi xv

Introduction 1. Fox Day for Angaur 2. Angaur Secured 3. Ulithi and Ngulu Atolls 4. Angaur Bowl 5. Romauldo Hill 6. The Wildcats Land on Peleliu 7. The Army Takes Control on Peleliu 8. Victory at Peleliu 9. After the Battles Epilogue

3 33 48 74 86 102 119 168 200 245 253

Notes Bibliography Index

257 285 297

vii

Illustrations

Photographs Tuffy, the Wildcat mascot Pre-invasion aerial view of Angaur Shrine Hill 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, in southern Angaur Company G, 322nd RCT, in Bloody Gulch Going on patrol View of Angaur Bowl Wildcat casualty receiving blood plasma 321st RCT arriving on Peleliu Wildcats struggling up a slope Wildcats at Dead Man’s Curve Action in Mortimer Valley Warning to souvenir hunters Bulldozed trail in Wildcat Bowl Peleliu cemetery

8 17 60 63 71 89 95 107 125 133 141 194 212 221 244

Maps Palau Islands Angaur Island Securing Angaur Island, 17–20 September 1944 ix

10 14 52

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Ulithi Atoll Breakthrough into Angaur Bowl, 26 September 1944 Last Japanese stronghold on Angaur, 30 September 1944 Peleliu Island Central Peleliu The Pocket, 17 October 1944 Eliminating the Pocket, 17 October–27 November 1944

76 92 99 126 132 172 208

Preface

My cousin Samuel Sylvester ‘‘Buddy’’ Blair was killed on Peleliu while serving with Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, U.S. Army. He was eighteen years old. He died a hero: in addition to the Purple Heart, he was awarded the Silver Star, posthumously, for saving the lives of five soldiers. Fifty-five years after his death, I started a quest to learn more about his activities on Angaur and Peleliu. I read several books about the battle on Peleliu to get a feel for what he must have experienced. To my dismay, these books presented very little information about the 81st Infantry Division’s activities on Angaur, Peleliu, and Ulithi, while they provided in detail the horrible ordeal of the 1st Marine Division on Peleliu. I wanted to know why the marines received so much attention and the army so little. For answers, I searched for and interviewed veterans of the 81st Infantry Division (known as the ‘‘Wildcats’’). In so doing, I met J. Peter DeCioccio, whose father also served in Company B, 321st Regiment. Peter wanted to write a book about the 81st Infantry Division in World War II to honor his father, Rocco. He had already obtained a large amount of information by interviewing veterans. Since both of us were researching the division, he asked me to join with him in writing the book, which I agreed to do. We collaborated for several years before his premature death in 2004. Many of the veterans had encouraged us in this effort, and they asked me to carry on with the book, and with the consent of Peter’s family, I did. xi

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PREFACE

I obtained copies of typewritten 81st Infantry Division unit reports and histories with the aid of personnel at the U.S. Army Military History Institute and the National Archives. I searched newspaper and magazine archives for articles written at the time of the battles. I used official and unofficial army, marine, and navy histories of the battles. I continued to interview veterans of the division, now in their seventies and eighties, many of whom found it emotionally difficult to talk about their war experiences, but did so for posterity. Even with this research in hand, I had trouble reconciling it with the historical literature. Such literature simply does not present the full story of the ghastly Peleliu battle, and downplays the equally gruesome Angaur battle. Perhaps this is because information in present scholarship originally came from high-ranking navy and marine commanders shortly after the war, whose own agendas and biases conceivably prejudiced their accounts. My interviews with the veterans aroused my curiosity about certain other issues. Some said their Angaur maps were inaccurate, especially as to terrain around Romauldo Hill. Additionally, maps showing the Japanese defenses indicated few Japanese fortifications around Angaur Bowl and Romauldo Hill, but these were the most fortified areas on Angaur. The maps for Peleliu were also flawed, especially with respect to terrain and defenses around Bloody Nose Ridge. Also, many Wildcat veterans believe that the battles for Peleliu and Angaur were a waste of American lives, since the capture of these islands contributed little to the war’s outcome. Lastly, these veterans voiced their disappointment that they never received recognition for their service on Angaur and Peleliu. To resolve these matters, I researched the intelligence-gathering and planning phases along with the authorization activities for this entire operation, codenamed Operation Stalemate II, the invasions of Peleliu, Angaur, and Ulithi Atoll. I also tried to surmise the reasons for the lack of attention and recognition given to the army during and after these battles. Therefore, the goal for Victory at Peleliu: The 81st Infantry Division’s Pacific Campaign is to render a new assessment of Operation Stalemate II, especially the battle of Peleliu, by providing the in-depth history of the 81st Infantry Division’s role in capturing Pele-

PREFACE

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liu, Angaur, and Ulithi Atoll, and thereby complement historical accounts of this campaign. Furthermore, I hope this new assessment will bring to the Wildcats the recognition they deserve. Bobby C. Blair Shawnee, Oklahoma December 2009

Acknowledgments

I want to thank all the Wildcat veterans who graciously completed questionnaires, sent us letters with background information and pictures, emailed us with information and answers to our questions, granted interviews in person and by telephone, and encouraged us every step of the way. Not a single Wildcat veteran whom we contacted refused to help us. I have listed the names of these veterans in the bibliography, and while only a small number of these are mentioned in the book, they all contributed to it. Sadly, many of them have since passed away, but in these pages the memory of their service to their country lives on. I especially appreciate the veterans who went beyond the call of duty in answering our questions, encouraging us, and helping us avoid factual errors. These include: Corwin Berry, Company I, 321st Regiment; Nolton Brown, Mine Platoon, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment; Steve Dombrowski, Company C, 323rd Regiment; Thomas Climie, Service Company, 321st Regiment; Ed Frazer, 317th Artillery; James Green, Company C, 323rd Regiment; James Ijames, Company C, 323rd Regiment; Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert Lindloff (ret.), Company A, 710th Tank Battalion; Brooks Nicklas, Company G, 322nd Regiment; Colonel George A. Rasula (ret.), Company G, 321st Regiment; Richard Neal Smith, Company B, 306th Medical Battalion; and James Yetter, Company K, 323rd Regiment.

xv

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the personnel at the Shawnee, Oklahoma, and Cocoa Beach, Florida, libraries and at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for helping us get the books, articles, and military reports we needed for our research. I am indebted to Theresa M. Roy, Gregory Tavormina, and Erika Thompson in the Still Pictures Unit of the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland, for their help in obtaining many of the photographs used in this book. I also want to thank Charles Rankin, editor-in-chief; Steven Baker, my manuscript editor; Steven Weingartner, copyeditor; and the staff at the University of Oklahoma Press not only for helping me complete the final manuscript but also for having the patience to stick with me during the entire production process. Finally, I need to thank Marlene DeCioccio for giving me the opportunity to make Pete DeCioccio’s dream for this book a reality. Bobby C. Blair

Victory at Peleliu

Introduction

T

he president took hold of the long bamboo pointer and touched Mindanao in the Philippine Islands on the large wall map of the Pacific Ocean. Then, wheeling around, Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked, ‘‘Well, Douglas, where do we go from here?’’∞ For two years, forces commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, commander in chief of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), had been advancing steadily toward Mindanao from their start-point in Australia, landing on Bougainville, New Britain, and more recently on the northern coast of New Guinea at the town of Hollandia and on the island of Biak. At the same time, the forces of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA) and commander in chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC), had been moving forward to Mindanao by island hopping through the South and Central Pacific from the Solomon Islands through the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, and most recently with the seizure of Saipan and the ongoing invasion of Guam in the Mariana Islands. Now, in 1944, this ‘‘dual-drive’’ offensive to defeat Imperial Japan was about to merge and become a single thrust. But, after Mindanao was taken, would the next objective be Formosa, as favored by the Admiral Ernest J. King, chief of Naval Operations and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Leyte and Luzon, as MacArthur insisted?≤ For three hours on Thursday night, 27 July 1944, the pointer

3

4

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changed hands. In a room inside a stately mansion overlooking Waikiki Beach set aside for President Roosevelt’s use, Nimitz and MacArthur took turns at the map. On behalf of Admiral King, Nimitz presented strategic arguments for invading Formosa. MacArthur used moral as well as strategic arguments in pressing for the liberation of the Philippines. Freeing the Filipinos from Japanese oppression was a moral obligation, according to MacArthur, who said the honor of America was at stake. Also present at the meeting, Admiral William D. Leahy, President Roosevelt’s chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, listened to the arguments, but remained silent. When the meeting ended at midnight, President Roosevelt had not made a decision. These leaders agreed to resume the meeting the next day. The final meeting lasted until noon. The persuasive General MacArthur had made his point. Leyte and Luzon would be invaded. As previously planned and now confirmed in the presence of President Roosevelt and Admiral Leahy, and as a prelude to the Mindanao invasion, the forces of MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz would invade Morotai and the Palau Islands, respectively, on 15 September 1944.≥ That afternoon, the president, Leahy, MacArthur, and Nimitz toured army and navy bases on Oahu. Dressed in khakis with helmets, light packs, and rifles and lining both sides of the main highways in Camp Heeia, Camp Kahuka, and Fort Hase were the more than fourteen thousand soldiers of the 81st Infantry (Wildcat) Division. As the ‘‘Present arms!’’ command passed along the line, Roosevelt, MacArthur, and Nimitz, crowded in the backseat of a red convertible borrowed from the local fire chief, drove by. Little did the men at attention know that these leaders passing in front of them had just determined their fate, for they were destined to be part of the invasion force for the Palau Islands.∂ The 81st Infantry Division had a distinguished pedigree extending back to the First World War, when it fought in the Meuse-Argonne battle during the final days of the conflict. Organized in 1917 as a newly authorized draftee division, it took its fighting name from Wildcat Creek, flowing through Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where it trained. In addition, the 81st Division became the army’s first division to wear a shoulder patch, which was round with a black, angry wildcat profiled on a background of olive drab, red, blue, or another

INTRODUCTION

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color according to the role of the wearer’s unit in the division. General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I, realizing the patch increased morale and esprit de corps, quickly authorized it as part of the uniform and ordered all divisions to develop such insignia. By 1942, all units in the 81st Infantry Division wore the same patch, a black wildcat on an olive drab background with a black border. The division was deactivated at Hoboken, New Jersey, on 11 June 1919; after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, it was reactivated at Camp Rucker, Alabama, on 15 June 1942.∑ In World War II a division was a large unit, numbering over fourteen thousand officers and men, but it was the U.S. Army’s smallest unit containing all vital weapons and services. While normally a part of a larger force, such as a corps, it could execute a limited, independent action. For the 81st Infantry Division, to accomplish its primary mission of capturing and holding territory, it had combat units consisting of the 321st, 322nd, and 323rd Infantry Regiments, and the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop. Each regiment had three infantry battalions, a service company, a medical detachment, an antitank company, and a cannon company. Each battalion had three rifle companies and one heavy weapons company equipped with 81mm mortars and heavy .30-caliber machine guns. Each rifle company had three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon armed with 60mm mortars and light .30-caliber machine guns. Each rifle platoon had three rifle squads consisting of nine riflemen and a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) team of three men. The primary duty of the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, with 155 officers and men, was to gather intelligence on the enemy for the commanding general, but it was also to carry out specific combat tasks as ordered. Of the entire division, only about nine thousand men were combat troops. Supporting the three regiments were the 81st Division Artillery, with three 105mm howitzer batteries, the 316th, 317th, and the 906th, and one 155mm howitzer battery, the 318th; the 306th Engineer Combat Battalion; and the 306th Medical Battalion. The division’s special troops included the Division Headquarters Company, Military Police Platoon, Band, 81st Signal Company, 81st Quartermaster Company, and 781st Ordinance Company.∏ For the draftees arriving at Camp Rucker, fifty-two weeks of required training, kicked off by seventeen weeks of basic and advanced

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basic training, started at the end of June. Unit training began on 25 October 1942 and concluded on 23 January 1943. An extension of unit training, combined-arms training, began immediately thereafter and continued for the next three months. During this time, select Wildcats participated in a very demanding training program at the 81st Division Ranger School. From February through mid-April, small groups of men from all the divisional units attended the school until about 60 officers and 750 enlisted men had graduated as Wildcat Rangers, trained for special combat missions. Over the next two months the 81st Infantry Division participated in war games and maneuver training in Alabama’s Conecuh National Forest and in middle Tennessee. The division then moved to Hyder, Arizona, for desert training, which continued into mid-November 1943. Up to this point the training the 81st Infantry Division had undergone was standard for all army divisions and was designed to prepare them for combat in the European Theater. By the end of November, however, it had been decided that the 81st Infantry Division would go to the Pacific Theater. Accordingly, the 81st was sent to the West Coast for amphibious training. At Camp San Luis Obispo, California, the Wildcats practiced in various amphibious operations under the command of marine major general Holland M. ‘‘Howlin’ Mad’’ Smith. Training activities included climbing up and down landing nets, transferring back and forth between transport ships and landing craft, landing on beaches, and learning how to swim. During this training phase, many men were declared unfit for overseas duty and removed from the division— a sure sign that combat was near. At the same time, the division received replacements, thus bringing it to combat strength. The next stop for the 81st was Camp Beale, California, where the Wildcats underwent small-unit training (for example, conducting platoon-size attacks on fixed fortifications). Also at Camp Beale, individual capabilities were evaluated and route marches were conducted.π Most important, the Wildcats prepared for overseas movement. Individual records were brought up to date, immunizations received, insurance and allotment forms verified, teeth examined, and identification tags checked. Several officers secretly left the division at this time to observe the battle on Saipan. They rejoined the division overseas.

INTRODUCTION

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Moving by echelon from late May through 26 June, the 81st Infantry Division traveled by train from Camp Beale to Camp Stoneman, just east of San Francisco. This was the last chance for the Wildcats to relax, get more immunizations, make phone calls, and write letters home. A few days later, upon leaving Camp Stoneman, the Wildcats passed under a banner that proclaimed, ‘‘Through These Portals Pass the Best Damn Soldiers in the World,’’ and every man believed it. The Wildcats then boarded transports in San Francisco Bay, and from 29 June through 9 July 1944 the ships carrying the 81st Division passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. The Wildcats had to guess at their destination, but they were headed for Oahu, Hawaii, to the Jungle Training Center. The last boatload of Wildcats rounded Diamond Head and passed into Honolulu Harbor on 16 July.∫ Major General Paul J. Mueller, commander of the division, and his staff flew to Hawaii from San Francisco and established the division headquarters at Schofield Barracks on 6 July. Two days later, the division headquarters moved to Fort Hase and commenced planning for the invasion of Angaur Island in the Palaus. The arrival in Hawaii went smoothly for everyone except Tuffy, the official mascot, a wildcat given to the division in 1942. Tuffy became so important to the Wildcats that Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson authorized the animal to accompany the division overseas. However, authorities representing the Territory of Hawaii unexpectedly placed Tuffy in quarantine, and there he remained until after the conclusion of combat operations. Almost everyone in the division and its attached units spent six demanding days and two nights in intense training at the Jungle Training Center, learning the basics of fighting and living in a tropical environment. Other elements of training included working on small unit problems such as setting up defensive perimeters, conducting patrols, and tank-infantry-artillery coordination. Lastly, the division conducted amphibious rehearsals on Maui, testing the Angaur invasion plan.Ω During the rehearsals, the Wildcats had to climb up and down landing nets when transferring between the transports and the landing craft. For some men this was a terrifying ordeal, especially when high seas caused the small boats to rise and fall precipitously on the waves. James Yetter, Company K, 323rd Regiment, recalled that

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Tuffy, the wildcat mascot of the 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, follows behind the armored car carrying Major General Paul Mueller, commanding general, and Brigadier General Marcus Bell, assistant division commander, in a formal review of the division. Tuffy was perhaps the most unusual, and most revered, mascot of any army division in World War II. Courtesy National Archives (111-SC-347358).

‘‘there were a few guys that froze on the rope ladder. When they froze on that rope, with their hands clamped on it, they were locked on there. I took two guys off, and it took all the strength I had to open their hands off the rope. One guy in our outfit said, ‘I can’t make it,’ and he let loose and fell back into that little boat. They took him somewhere to a hospital because he was messed up.’’∞≠ The time came for the division to ship out. When the assault convoy carrying the 81st Infantry Division (Reinforced)∞∞ left Pearl Harbor on 12 August 1944, with supplies and equipment combat loaded for Angaur, only the top commanders knew that a small island in the Palaus was the target. No one could foresee that the Wildcats would eventually fight alongside and finally replace the famed 1st Marine Division in a battle the Marines would list with Iwo Jima and Okinawa as the bloodiest and most difficult in their history. Preliminary planning for the invasion of the Palaus had been under way since late 1943 by Nimitz’s staff, but it began in earnest in March 1944. The Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA), had the responsibility for distributing intelligence information to the various planning groups involved in the operation.∞≤ Unfortunately,

INTRODUCTION

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the center’s staff possessed very little information about the Palau Islands and had trouble getting accurate information throughout the planning process. The Palau Islands, along with other German possessions in the Pacific, had been mandated to Japan by the League of Nations after World War I. Because the Japanese had restricted visitors to the Palaus since the 1920s, JICPOA personnel could not find anyone who had firsthand knowledge of these islands.∞≥ The JICPOA routinely obtained its intelligence from photographs, captured Japanese documents, prisoners of war, and intercepted and decoded Japanese military radio transmissions (ULTRA). For planning purposes, photographs usually provided the best intelligence. Consequently, aerial reconnaissance of the Palau Islands began in March 1944 and continued until a few weeks before the invasions, but never produced satisfactory information. Thick vegetation around the coasts and heavy jungle foliage over most of Angaur and Peleliu obscured the terrain and Japanese defensive positions. In addition, excellent Japanese camouflage hid or disguised fortified positions in open areas. Later, when information from ULTRA messages and captured documents from the Japanese Thirty-First Army headquarters on Saipan, which also controlled activities in the Palaus, arrived piecemeal at JICPOA, this information could not be confirmed by photographs. While the ULTRA messages and the Saipan documents agreed with one another, the JICPOA analysts did not trust information that could not be substantiated in photographs. The result was that the 81st Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division lacked intelligence on terrain, enemy defenses, and the number and equipment of the Japanese defenders as they put together their attack plans.∞∂ On 10 May 1944, Nimitz issued the Joint Staff Study on the Palau operation, which initiated Operation Stalemate, the codename for the operation to capture the Palau Islands. Detailed planning by the assigned assault and support forces began immediately.∞∑ The assault forces, consisting of the army’s 7th, 77th, and 81st Infantry Divisions, as well as the 1st Marine Division, would attack an estimated forty thousand Japanese troops in the Palau Islands. The army’s 27th Infantry Division would be in area reserve. Admiral Nimitz sent out the first warning order for Operation Stalemate on 29 May. Nimitz intended to capture the entire Palau group with two corps of ground troops. The III Phib Corps, marine

Palau Islands. Map by John Gilkes.

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Major General Roy S. Geiger commanding, comprising the 1st Marine Division commanded by Major General William H. Rupertus and the 81st Infantry Division commanded by Major General Paul J. Mueller, would attack Peleliu and Angaur, respectively. The XXIV Corps, army major general John R. Hodge commanding, comprising the 7th and 77th Infantry Divisions, would invade Babelthuap, with its estimated twenty thousand Japanese defenders. The 27th Infantry Division remained the reserve force. The invasion was now scheduled for 8 September.∞∏ Reconnaissance and intelligence analyses during June indicated that Angaur was suitable for a heavy bomber airfield and that it was weakly defended compared to Babelthuap with its airfield. In addition, adjacent to Angaur, Peleliu and Ngesebus had airfields in place or under construction. Accordingly, the planners concluded that Babelthuap would not be worth the cost of capturing it. Therefore, they decided to drop the invasion of Babelthuap; invade Angaur, Peleliu, and Ngesebus to get the desired airfields in the Palau Islands; invade Ulithi to get the needed fleet anchorage; and take Yap to get another airbase. This new strategic plan, now designated Operation Stalemate II, encompassed a two-phased effort. First, seize Angaur and Peleliu using the III Phib Corps with Babelthuap neutralized by U.S. planes and ships. Second, twenty-five days later, capture Yap using the army’s XXIV Corps, and Ulithi using the navy with an army unit.∞π The date for the operation became 15 September, to coincide with MacArthur’s invasion of Morotai. Although the navy and marines would control the operation, the army would supply four of the five assigned divisions.∞∫ Admiral William ‘‘Bull’’ Halsey, recently appointed commander of the Third Fleet, had control of the entire operation, and he took charge of the planning process on 17 June. Immediately thereafter, he started voicing objections to Operation Stalemate II. After thinking it over, he thought Ulithi might be useful as an anchorage, but he did not believe that capturing Angaur, Peleliu, and Yap would be worth the cost in casualties. As hard as he tried, he never brought Nimitz around to his view, but he never changed his mind, and he went to his grave knowing he was right.∞Ω During July, marine major general Julian C. Smith, commander of the X-Ray Provisional Amphibious Corps—which had been tasked to

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conduct the Peleliu and Angaur invasions while the III Phib Corps fought on Guam—successfully argued against the original plan to invade Angaur before Peleliu. Obviously, the airstrip on Peleliu was the primary target, and the Japanese knew this. General Smith believed the Japanese would reinforce Peleliu from Babelthuap as soon as the army invaded Angaur, making the marines’ task much more difficult. The planners agreed with him, reversing the attack plans for Operation Stalemate II. The landing of the 1st Marine Division on Peleliu would now take place on 15 September, with the Wildcats invading Angaur on 16 September, codenamed Fox Day. Smith had previous experience at fighting the Japanese, having commanded the 2nd Marine Division at Tarawa.≤≠ On 6 July 1944, the day that General Mueller arrived in Honolulu from San Francisco, Rear Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson, commander of the Third Amphibious Force, told Mueller that Stalemate II had replaced Stalemate I. Now Mueller learned that in the first phase of the operation, his 322nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) would invade Angaur, estimated to have between two hundred and three hundred Japanese defenders, and the remainder of the division would be in corps reserve. In the second phase twenty-five days later, the 321st RCT would invade Ulithi Atoll, with its estimated three hundred to six hundred Japanese defenders. During this second phase, the 322nd and 323rd RCTs would be in corps reserve. If the 322nd RCT was still engaged on Angaur, only the 323rd RCT would be in reserve. After completing the two phases, the 81st Infantry Division would garrison Ulithi, Angaur, Peleliu, and Yap. Previously, Mueller’s staff had made plans for being the reserve for the XXIV Corps in taking Babelthuap. Now he had to scrap those plans and formulate attack plans for the Angaur and Ulithi invasions. Mueller’s staff had somewhat better information for making its attack plans than did the 1st Marine Division. The maps showing terrain and Japanese defenses on Angaur were poor, but at least the aerial photographs indicated that Angaur’s southern beaches were more heavily fortified than the northern ones. Mueller wanted to land troops on two beaches simultaneously, and now he selected two northern beaches, codenamed Red and Blue. Mueller had completed the attack plans for Angaur when the JICPOA informed him on 22 July that information from the captured Saipan documents listed one Japanese reinforced regiment, possi-

INTRODUCTION

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bly less one battalion, totaling twenty-five hundred to three thousand troops on Angaur instead of the previous estimate of two hundred to three hundred defenders. Mueller now revised the attack plans to have two RCTs land simultaneously, the 322nd RCT on Red Beach and the 321st RCT on Blue Beach. The 323rd RCT would be the III Amphibious Corps reserve. The 322nd RCT would capture the northwestern half of Angaur to Saipan Town, and the 321st RCT would capture the southeastern half of the island. This was the preferred plan, but Mueller also submitted two alternative plans to Julian Smith on 26 July. At a meeting of commanders on 28 July the preferred plan was approved. Later, one more major change was made in the division’s role in Operation Stalemate II. In late August, in view of the JICPOA revising upward the number of Japanese defenders on both Angaur and Peleliu, the navy planners thought the entire division might be needed in the southern Palaus, so the division was relieved of the Ulithi operation. However, working with Admiral William H. P. Blandy, commander of the Angaur Attack Force, attack plans for Ulithi had been prepared and could be used if necessary. The justification for the Carolines campaign changed as circumstances caused changes in its planning. The eventual reason for invading Angaur, Peleliu, and Ulithi was to provide air and sea bases for neutralizing Japanese bases and operations in the Carolines, including the northern Palaus and Yap, and for making further advances in the western Pacific, including the Philippines.≤∞ As plans for Stalemate II evolved, preparations for the landings in the Palaus also moved forward. In two days of strikes in March 1944, aircraft from the navy’s fast carriers bombarded Ulithi, Yap, and Woleai and dropped six hundred tons of bombs on the Palaus and sowed mines in the approaches to the harbors and passageways. A second carrier raid came in July. During June and July, MacArthur’s bombers from the Fifth Air Force and the Thirteenth Air Task Force bombed the Palaus and other targets in the western Carolines and did aerial reconnaissance on them. At the same time, submarines reconnoitered and photographed the islands. In July and August, ‘‘frogmen’’ surveyed the reefs, beaches, and currents of Angaur and Peleliu. Unfortunately, neither the submarines nor the frogmen gathered useful information on shore defenses. Fifth Air Force aircraft

Angaur Island. Map by John Gilkes.

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continued their strikes from late August until mid-September, dropping about eight hundred tons of bombs on the Palaus in nighttime and daylight raids. Task Force 38 returned to the western Carolines on 6 September and conducted operations in the area through the 12th.≤≤ Divided into four battle groups, each containing two large and two light carriers, along with several battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, the task force conducted both air and sea bombardments of the islands. The battle groups encountered little Japanese resistance, indicating that Japanese air and naval power on these islands had been effectively eliminated.≤≥ On 15 August, Major General Roy Geiger and the III Phib Corps replaced Major General Julian Smith and the X-Ray Provisional Amphibious Corps in charge of the Peleliu and Angaur invasions. Smith then assumed his previous responsibility as Commanding General, Expeditionary Troops, Third Fleet. Organizationally, if not operationally, Geiger now reported to Smith, as did army major general John Hodge of the XXIV Corps, in charge of the Yap invasion. Admiral Halsey had full authority over both land and sea forces. Despite his reputation as an aggressive fighter, Halsey opposed taking these islands as being strategically unnecessary, considering the cost, and he would soon weigh in with his own somewhat unexpected proposal concerning Operation Stalemate II.≤∂ The Carolines are the largest collection of islands and island groups in the world, extending more than seventeen hundred miles across the western Pacific Ocean, with the Palau Island group at the extreme western end. The Palaus are a chain of about three hundred islands, some ten of which are inhabited, stretching over approximately one hundred miles in a southwest to northeast direction.≤∑ The strategic importance of the Palau Islands in late 1944 was their proximity to Mindanao in the Philippines, about 550 miles to the east. Angaur, shaped like a pork chop with the bony tip down, is the southwesternmost island in the Palaus. It is quite small, less than a mile at its widest point and less than two and a half miles in length, with a total area of about fifteen hundred acres. Like the other islands of the Palaus, Angaur is a limestone and coral formation and mostly flat. Because there are no streams, the inhabitants got their drinking water by collecting rainwater in cisterns; however, the island had two swamps,

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the most significant one located just behind the southeastern beaches designated Green Two and Three on pre-invasion maps and the other just south of Lake Aztec. The areas of Angaur that are not flat are in the northwest quarter of the island. Two of these are depressions left by the mining of phosphate, first by the Germans in the early 1900s and later by the Japanese. Two small lakes are on the sides of the largest phosphate diggings: Lake Aztec on the eastern edge and Lake Salome to the west. North of Lake Salome, hilly terrain begins and continues north, culminating in Romauldo Hill, which at two hundred feet is the highest point on Angaur. Unlike adjacent Peleliu and most of the islands in the Palaus, a fringing reef only partially surrounds Angaur. A narrow reef extends down Angaur’s west shore from the northwest corner to the south end of Black Beach. The break extends about five hundred yards to Saipan Town. Here the reef resumes and widens after that, reaching the widest point at the southwest corner of the island. A narrow reef then wraps around the bottom tip of Angaur and follows up the eastern shore to its terminus at Blue Beach. The rest of the eastern and northern shores are free of a fringing reef, and so approachable by landing craft without the difficulty of an unpredictable bottom. Steep cliffs at the waterline twenty to forty feet in height are another feature of the shoreline on Angaur. In northeastern Angaur, cliffs bracket Blue and Red Beaches, the beaches picked for the invasion, with Red Beach also having a large rock twenty to thirty-five feet high at its center. The location of Angaur, just seven degrees north of the Equator, determines its climate. In 1944, average monthly rainfall was estimated at sixteen inches from May to September and six inches the rest of the year. The average humidity hovered around 82 percent. The mean temperature was pegged at eighty degrees with a daily range of ten degrees. However, during the invasion, it was blisteringly hot, with temperatures reaching 115 degrees. At the time of the landings, dense vegetation covered all of Angaur except the phosphate mining areas and the towns, Saipan Town and Middle Village, located south of a phosphate processing plant. The thickest growth was behind Green Two and Three Beaches, and in the high ground in northwest Angaur. Plant cover was tropical in nature, rain forest and a coconut plantation. No wild animals were

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Oblique air view of Angaur, northeast to southwest, with Red Beach at bottom center and the phosphate plant at top center. Right of the phosphate plant is the white lighthouse on Palomas Hill; farther right is the wooded, circular rim of Angaur Bowl. Note the railroad routes radiating from the phosphate plant. Photograph taken on 27 July 1944. Courtesy Real War Photos.

reported on Angaur, nor did disease pose a serious threat, with only dengue fever and dysentery as possible problems. The phosphate processing plant on the west coast at the center of the island was the largest building on Angaur. A system of narrowgauge rail lines served the plant. The longest, dubbed the Southern Railroad by the Americans, crossed the center of the island. The western end began at a freighter-loading pier and, after passing the processing plant, the line continued to Rocky Point on the east coast. Four spurs branched off from the Southern Railroad. The shortest, which was unnamed, went south to a small cluster of houses known as Middle Village. The remaining three led north. The westernmost of these, called the Western Railroad, forked after a short distance with the eastern branch, becoming the so-called Milwaukee Railroad, which continued to the phosphate diggings on the north shore. The west fork, keeping the name Western Railroad, passed to

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the east of Lake Salome, then branched into several short spurs that fanned out into the hilly terrain. The second spur to the north off the Southern Railroad was called the Northern Railroad. This line passed to the east of the main phosphate diggings. It also had a spur, the Seaboard Railroad, which swung east and came around in an arc to the north shore diggings. The final spur was the Pacific Railroad which ran northeast in a direct line to the bottom of Red Beach. In addition to rail lines, there were three roads on Angaur. All were eight to twelve feet wide with a crushed coral surface and suitable for light traffic only. One connected Saipan Town with the phosphate plant. Another led from Saipan Town east to a radio station near Rocky Point. A second radio station was located adjacent to the phosphate plant. The last followed the west coast to the coconut plantation at the bottom of the island. In the final months before the American invasion, intelligence reports indicated that the Japanese had hurriedly improvised defensive positions in all of Angaur except the Romauldo Hill area. The Japanese constructed anti-boat barricades in the waters just offshore, with mines sown in the water inland of the barricades and on the beaches, at all the possible landing sites except Blue and Red Beaches. On the western beaches, they strung barbed wire across the beach and at the vegetation line. Further inland, Japanese defenses consisted of machine-gun nests, anti-aircraft and artillery emplacements, antitank barriers, caves, blockhouses, roofed bunkers and dugouts, fire trenches, and mortar positions, as well as ‘‘spider holes’’ (one-man firing pits)—all mutually supporting with interlocking fields-of-fire. The placement of the fortifications indicated the Japanese anticipated the landings somewhere in southern Angaur.≤∏ The reinforced 1st Battalion, 59th Infantry Regiment, 14th Division, Japanese Imperial Army, manned the defensive positions on Angaur in September 1944. Major Ushio Goto commanded this force, known as the Angaur Sector Unit. Overall, about fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred disciplined, well trained, and experienced Japanese troops, recently transferred from Manchuria, garrisoned Angaur.≤π In planning the defensive strategy for Angaur, Goto followed the same directive as his counterpart on Peleliu, Colonel Kunio Nakagawa. On 11 July 1944, the Japanese headquarters on Koror issued a

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policy statement titled, ‘‘Palaus Sector Group Training for Victory.’’ This document, though issued under the signature of General Sadae Inoue, was probably the work of his chief of staff, Colonel Tokechi Tada, whom the Americans regarded as an excellent staff officer. This document established the defensive strategy employed at Angaur and Peleliu, and later used at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Colonel Tada derived this strategy from instructions issued by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo, based on the lessons learned at Saipan. After the Saipan battle, the Japanese military leadership acknowledged that American amphibious invasions could not be defeated at the beachhead, if at all. Therefore, they promulgated a new island defensive strategy based on the belief that if Japan could not win the war, perhaps the conflict could be prolonged, thus causing many more American casualties. The Japanese believed the American people would not accept a long war with many casualties, and would force a negotiated peace in place of the Allies’ unconditional surrender demand. The new strategy called for the Americans to fight on fortified ground chosen by the Japanese defenders, who would fight to the death without suicidal banzai charges. While this strategy would be more fully developed at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Angaur and Peleliu would be the testing grounds. Among other things, Tada’s policy document stated: ‘‘The ultimate goal of this training is to minimize our losses in the severe enemy pre-landing naval and aerial bombardment and, on the very night of the enemy landings, to take advantage of the fact that their equipment is not fully consolidated, to destroy their beachhead at one blow.’’ It went on: ‘‘Compared with our ‘short sword’ the Americans have a ‘long spear’ with which to do battle. . . . We must first resolutely penetrate to the enemy and then we shall display our short swords and slash to the very marrow of his bones.’’ Following this strategy meant remaining concealed and not returning fire during the pre-invasion bombardment by the American ships and planes. It did require contesting the American landings at the beachhead, and counterattacking the landing forces the first night, when they were most vulnerable. Thereafter, the Japanese defenders would remain hidden in defensive positions, ambushing the Americans as they drew near. Sniping from camouflaged positions and infiltrating American lines at night became the main offensive actions; counterattacks would be undertaken only when deemed

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prudent. Just as importantly, this policy banned surrender and any suicidal banzai charges. It was not enough to die for the emperor; one had to kill as many Americans as possible before dying a glorious death. As the actual battles for Angaur and Peleliu showed, Major Goto and Colonel Nakagawa clearly understood the deeper meaning and strategies of the ‘‘Palaus Group Sector Training for Victory’’: fight to the death and make the Americans pay the maximum price in blood for every yard. Both Japanese commanders chose high ground to make their final stands. They transformed this high ground, Romauldo Hill on Angaur and the Umurbrogol ridges on Peleliu, into formidable defensive strongholds consisting of fortified caves on multiple levels connected by miles of horizontal, vertical, and lateral tunnels, known as fukkaku positions.≤∫ Finally, in addition to the Japanese troops on Angaur, there was a civilian population, both Japanese and natives.≤Ω Sailing from Hawaii on 12 August 1944, the transport convoy carrying the reinforced 81st Infantry Division moved southwest across the vast Pacific Ocean, men and equipment combat loaded for action. On 24 August, after losing a day crossing the International Date Line, the transports hove to off Koli Point, Guadalcanal Island. Two days later, after leaving Honolulu on 8 August, the slower-moving LSTs (Landing Ship, Tanks) arrived.≥≠ The 1st Marine Division had been recuperating and training on Pavuvu, a small island near Guadalcanal, since May 1944, after its successful invasion of Cape Gloucester.≥∞ Now, for the first time, Major General Paul Mueller and his staff from the 81st Infantry Division met face-to-face with Major General William Rupertus and his staff from the 1st Marine Division. The army and marine staffs held these meetings on Pavuvu to discuss their respective roles in the upcoming invasion. The roles for the two combat divisions were well defined in the battle plans. The 1st Marine Division would invade Peleliu, the primary target, with the 81st Infantry Division being the designated reserve force. The 81st Division would reinforce the marines only upon request by Rupertus and, if so deployed, report to him. No one expected the marines would need help; so, after the marines had established a foothold on Peleliu, the 81st Infantry Division would be released from its reserve

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role in order to accomplish its primary mission of invading Angaur Island. After both islands had been captured, the 81st Infantry Division would occupy both and mop up any remaining Japanese. From the first introductions, a noticeable aura of mistrust permeated the meetings. To say the least, Rupertus wanted nothing to do with the untested 81st Infantry Division. When the marines desperately needed help on Peleliu, Rupertus argued against using the Wildcats in the battle, and only grudgingly did so upon direct orders by Major General Geiger.≥≤ Admiral Halsey had previously ordered both the 81st Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division to hold final divisional practice landings on Guadalcanal before traveling in the same convoy to the Palau Islands. The 81st Infantry Division held three practice landings at Cape Esperance.≥≥ After the final practice landing, the assault troops for Angaur Island, those in the first six waves, moved from the transport ships to LSTs. Already loaded on the LSTs were the LVTs (Landing Vehicles, Tracked). These tracked, armored amphibian tractors, alternately known as ‘‘amtracks’’ and ‘‘amphtracks,’’ would take the men to the beaches over any reefs they might encounter.≥∂ Because of their slow speed, the LSTs, carrying both the army and marine assault troops, with the accompanying escort ships, left for the Palau islands on 4 September 1944, four days before the faster transport and cargo ships so that the whole convoy could rendezvous simultaneously near the Palau Islands.≥∑ Dawn on Tuesday, 12 September, came amid the thunder of largecaliber naval guns from the ships of Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf’s Western Gunfire Support Group as they shelled Peleliu and Angaur. Minesweepers cleared the waters around these islands and Kossol Passage, and underwater demolition teams cleared paths to the invasion beaches. Carrier planes also bombed and strafed the islands, flew anti-submarine and combat air patrols, and protected the route of the transports from Guadalcanal.≥∏ During the day the shelling of Peleliu and Angaur was slow and deliberate, targeting airfields, gun emplacements, defensive positions and other installations from the beaches to a depth of two hundred yards inland, and likely troop concentrations. At night, the shelling was light and meant to harass the Japanese. As well, warships bombarded the islands of Babelthuap and Koror north of Peleliu, targeting

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aircraft, ships, barges, sampans, and any other watercraft that might be used by the Japanese to transfer troops to Peleliu and Angaur.≥π When the naval guns fell silent on 12 September, aircraft swarmed to strike predetermined targets and targets of opportunity. The first attack lasted two hours. This pattern of naval bombardment followed by air attacks continued during daylight hours for two days. To keep their positions concealed, the Japanese did not return fire. The three-day pre-invasion bombardment would prove less than satisfactory, primarily due to poor maps (the result of an overall lack of information about the islands), ammunition shortfalls attributable to the extended fighting on Guam, and the enemy’s refusal to return fire and thus reveal their positions (a function of their new defensive tactics). The duration of the bombardment was also inadequate, comparing unfavorably with the thirteen days given to Guam. The shell tonnage fired at Peleliu in those three days nearly equaled that fired at Tarawa in three hours. The maps failed to show many of the defensive positions around the beaches, which went unscathed and so later gave grief to the assaulting marines. On the other hand, additional shelling might not have been more effective in causing enemy casualties, because the Japanese stayed in caves and bunkers nearly impervious to naval and air bombardment. Nonetheless, it would have blasted away more of the foliage around the beaches and on the ridges, thus exposing more of the severe terrain and defensive positions awaiting the marines. The bombardment of Angaur was deemed more satisfactory, primarily because of the lack of resistance during the northern landings.≥∫ During the pre-invasion bombardment of Angaur and Peleliu, ships carrying the 81st Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division continued their journey northwest across the Pacific from Guadalcanal to the Palaus. For several days after leaving Guadalcanal, the top command still had not revealed the target to their troops. Many men found out from an unexpected source. Robert F. Entrican, Company C, 322nd Regiment, heard Tokyo Rose over the ship’s public address system. ‘‘As we were going, she said, ‘We know you are coming to Angaur. You keep coming because we will be waiting for you.’ ’’≥Ω Indeed, the Japanese knew not only that the Wildcats were coming but that the invasion was eminent. A Japanese submarine dis-

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covered and started following the long convoy. The submarine radioed the convoy’s position as being two hundred miles south of the Palau Islands and heading north. The Japanese commanders in the Palau Islands received this information and prepared for an immediate assault.∂≠ As the troop convoy neared the Palaus, Admiral Halsey made an incredible last-minute bid to cancel Operation Stalemate II. The admiral had recently obtained information that further convinced him that Yap, Peleliu, and Angaur were not worth their cost in casualties the Americans were likely to sustain. He feared Peleliu could turn into another Tarawa, where American casualties totaled 1,115 dead and missing and 2,292 wounded in a seventy-two hour battle. The marines’ Holland Smith, now a lieutenant general and commander of the V Phib Corps, who considered the Tarawa operation a waste of lives and effort, voiced the same opinion.∂∞ It should be remembered that establishing an American base in the Philippines was a major strategic objective in the Pacific War. Achieving that objective now appeared at hand, with MacArthur scheduled to invade Mindanao on 15 November, followed by Leyte on 20 December. In planning the Mindanao invasion, MacArthur wanted the Palaus captured to protect his right flank, and independently, Nimitz wanted the southern Palaus, Yap, and Ulithi as bases for supporting the Mindanao invasion. Now, on 12 September, after Mitscher’s carrier raids on the Palaus, Yap, and Mindanao and in the central Philippines had been met with only token resistance, Halsey believed Leyte could be invaded immediately. After thinking it over, on 13 September, two days before the scheduled landing on Peleliu, Halsey sent a message to Nimitz at Pearl Harbor urging the immediate cancellation of the invasions of the Talauds, Palaus, Yap, and Mindanao in favor of an earlier attack on Leyte. He also recommended that the troops scheduled to take part in the seizure of these islands go to MacArthur. Halsey acted courageously in sending these recommendations to Nimitz. Their adoption meant changing the strategy already approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Other military personnel were thinking along the same lines, but perhaps not so boldly. MacArthur’s staff was already considering bypassing the Talauds and moving directly to Mindanao. It would seem that both MacArthur and Nimitz,

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and their staffs, knew the existing Japanese capabilities in this part of the western Pacific and realized such audacious moves were possible. Halsey just gave these leaders the opportunity to act. After receiving Halsey’s recommendations and deliberating for about one hour, Nimitz decided to continue with the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu, but to cancel the invasion of Yap. He immediately relayed Halsey’s recommendations, omitting the proposal about the Angaur and Peleliu invasions, to the Joint Chiefs with his offer to loan MacArthur the XXIV Corps (the Yap invasion force, now consisting of the 96th and 7th Infantry Divisions), immediately, and the ships of the Third Amphibious Force (assigned to Operation Stalemate II) as soon as possible. The Joint Chiefs, in general agreement with Halsey’s proposal, passed this information on to MacArthur, whose chief of staff, Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland, approved it two days later in MacArthur’s name, recommending 20 October as the target date. With the offer of the XXIV Corps and the ships of the Third Fleet, Sutherland knew that MacArthur would not forgo this opportunity to move on to Leyte, thus saving time and lives. With the top three Pacific commanders, Halsey, Nimitz, and MacArthur, in general agreement, the Joint Chiefs radioed their decision to MacArthur and Nimitz to bypass Mindanao and advance the invasion date for Leyte by two months, to 20 October. In addition, Nimitz now had to assign the XXIV Corps to MacArthur; send all the transport ships, after unloading, used in the Stalemate II Operation to Southwest Pacific ports for shipping men and supplies to Leyte; temporarily assign all the fire support ships and escort carriers used in the Palaus operation to Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, commander of the Seventh Fleet under MacArthur, to help cover the Leyte invasion; and seize Ulithi immediately.∂≤ This decision by the Joint Chiefs removed any tactical and strategic necessity for the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu. Originally, Operation Stalemate had the goals of protecting MacArthur’s right flank during his Mindanao campaign and of obtaining air and naval bases for supporting his activities. However, by September the situation in the western Pacific had changed from the previous spring and summer when Operation Stalemate was being planned. The Japanese in the Palaus did not now present any threat to

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MacArthur’s Philippine operations. Attacks by the fast carrier groups and MacArthur’s land-based bombers had destroyed all the Japanese air and naval capabilities on Yap, in the Palaus, and in other locations in the western Carolines. Furthermore, it would be impossible for the Japanese in the future to repair, build, or use naval and air facilities in the Palaus as long as the warships of the Third Fleet freely roamed this area of the Pacific and planes from bases in the Marianas, the Admiralties, and portions of New Guinea flew over these islands. In fact, as previously mentioned, according to Major General Paul Mueller, by the time of the invasions protection of MacArthur’s right flank had ceased to be a reason for the Caroline operation. In addition, the advancement of Leyte’s invasion date to 20 October, almost a month before the previously scheduled invasion of Mindanao, made it doubtful that the airfields on Angaur and Peleliu could be useful in preparing for the Leyte invasion. For example, the heavy bomber base on Angaur was projected to be operational only five days before the Leyte invasion, and the fighter base on Peleliu was intended only for strikes around the Palaus and the western Carolines. Also, seizing Ulithi would negate the need for Kossol Passage as a naval base. This decision affected the invasions of Angaur, Peleliu, and Ulithi in another way as well: all the ships of the Third Fleet involved in Operation Stalemate II now received instructions to report to Manus and Hollandia as quickly as possible to prepare for the Leyte invasion, rushing the unloading of III Phib Corps’ men, supplies, and equipment. From this time forward, the return to the Philippines received priority treatment.∂≥ Admiral Nimitz never discussed why he continued the Palau invasions. No doubt Halsey’s recommendations put him in a terrible quandary that needed quick decisions. That Nimitz essentially agreed with Halsey’s recommendations is evidenced by his willingness to bypass Yap and lend MacArthur the XXIV Corps and ships of the Third Fleet. The XXIV Corps was combat loaded and already on the way to Yap when it was diverted to Manus. Evidently, Nimitz did not place any value on Yap, and did not fear any resistance from the approximately eight thousand Japanese troops and two airfields located there. This presents an interesting conundrum. If Halsey had not made

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his recommendations to cancel the invasions, would Nimitz have gone ahead with the invasion of Yap when he obviously did not think it necessary? Since the Yap invasion force was already underway to Yap, the answer is yes, he would have. Is this also true for Angaur and Peleliu? At this late date, Nimitz could not cancel any of the invasions without the Joint Chiefs’ approval, which probably would not be given unless MacArthur also approved. If MacArthur was willing to bypass Mindanao with its seventy thousand Japanese troops and twelve airfields near his left flank, why did Nimitz not at least recommend to the Joint Chiefs to bypass Angaur and Peleliu with thirteen thousand Japanese troops and one airfield five hundred miles from MacArthur’s right flank? He could have requested permission to delay the invasions for a few days until the Joint Chiefs and MacArthur approved or disapproved Halsey’s recommendations. He chose not to do so. Why, then, did Nimitz decide so quickly to continue with the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu when it was not actually necessary to do so? Current scholarship offers possible reasons, such as that Nimitz believed Halsey, known for his aggressiveness, was being too aggressive, especially considering his initial and continuing displeasure with Operation Stalemate II, and his inexperience at commanding massive operations and planning strategic actions. However, this does not seem a likely reason, because Nimitz essentially endorsed Halsey’s recommendations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by offering to lend MacArthur the XXIV Corps and the ships of the Third Fleet. Another supposition is that he continued to believe that naval bases and airfields in the Palaus could be used for further movement north toward the Japanese home islands. Again, this does not appear reasonable with the Americans also occupying Leyte and Ulithi Atoll. A different proposed reason is that Nimitz believed the airfields on Peleliu and Angaur, as well as the anchorage at Kossol Passage, could still be used in the invasion of Leyte. An argument against this reason is that Ulithi Atoll was to be occupied as quickly as possible, making needless the occupation of Kossol Passage. In addition, with all the air power available from the fast carrier groups and the jeep carriers planned for the Leyte invasion, it would appear that the bombers on Angaur would not be necessary, even if available. Besides, the air

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base on Peleliu was to be used to contain the Japanese on Babelthuap and Yap, but there would be no need to do so if Angaur and Peleliu were not occupied, and the firepower at Ulithi could handle any potential problems from Yap. Another possible reason is that the operation had progressed too far to stop. The pre-invasion bombardment had commenced, and the troop convoy had almost reached the Palaus. Without question, canceling the invasions at this late date would have boosted the morale of the Japanese public and been a costly logistics nightmare for the Third Fleet. However, it would have spared the Americans about ninety-six hundred casualties and preserved the integrity of two divisions. That Nimitz made the decision to continue with the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu very quickly after receiving Halsey’s recommendations suggests that he believed he had no other choice, probably because of self-interest and political reasons. For one thing, he did make a commitment to MacArthur to invade Peleliu on the same day that MacArthur’s forces invaded Morotai. He made this commitment to MacArthur in the company of President Roosevelt and Admiral Leahy at the strategy meeting the previous July in Hawaii. Now, with MacArthur out of touch observing radio silence on his way to Morotai, obviously the Morotai invasion would continue as planned. It would be in Nimitz’s and the navy’s interest for him to keep his promise and invade Peleliu.∂∂ No doubt, other factors influenced this decision. For example, the army and navy were feuding at this time in the Pacific and in Washington, D.C. For some time, the army had wanted control of all ground operations in the Pacific, including the amphibious invasions currently under Nimitz’s command. The dispute had caused bitterness between some high-ranking officers in both services. Also, the U.S. Congress was investigating the possibility of unifying the military services under one department, with the army having control over all ground operations and the army air force having control over all air operations. This would eliminate naval aviation and most of the marine corps. The navy and marine corps obviously resisted this endeavor, using a public relations campaign to gain supporters among the American public. It would leave a nasty taste in Nimitz’s mouth to now delay the invasions and ask MacArthur to relieve him of his commitment, essentially putting MacArthur and the army in charge of his operation.

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In addition, during this time the Joint Chiefs were working on commands and strategies for the final drive to the Japanese home islands. Both the army and the navy wanted to control this operation. The army pressed for one ground-force commander not under navy control, MacArthur, to lead the invasion of Japan. The navy saw no need for an invasion of Japan; it wanted Nimitz in charge of a bombardment and siege operation of the Japanese home islands. Although not deciding on a strategy, the Joint Chiefs agreed that invasion plans needed to be prepared as a possible option. Because of this indecisiveness by the Joint Chiefs, Nimitz vied with MacArthur to be the supreme commander in the Pacific.∂∑ Additionally, the possibility exists that more was decided at the Honolulu strategy meeting influencing Nimitz’s decision than previously thought. Admiral Leahy wrote in 1950 that both MacArthur and Nimitz agreed that Luzon should be captured after Leyte, and that Japan could be forced to accept the Allies’ terms of surrender by using air and sea power without invading Japan. This agreement was contrary to the positions of their superior officers. Perhaps a quid pro quo agreement was reached: Nimitz agreeing to support MacArthur’s position of liberating the Philippines instead of King’s stance of invading Formosa, in return for MacArthur’s support for not invading Japan, as believed necessary by army chief of staff General George C. Marshall. MacArthur believed taking Luzon was the key to controlling the South China Sea, thereby interrupting Japan’s supply line for oil, rubber, and food from Borneo and the Dutch East Indies and forcing the Japanese to accept unconditional surrender. Previously, Leahy had made it clear to the Joint Chiefs that he did not support an invasion of Japan. An agreement of this type, with the tacit approval of President Roosevelt, would put Nimitz in position to be the supreme commander in the Pacific, and the navy in charge of the final drive to Japan.∂∏ To indicate just how politically charged this situation was, some authors believe that another type of secret agreement stemming from this strategy meeting might have existed between President Roosevelt and General MacArthur. This supposed agreement consisted of President Roosevelt’s support for invading Luzon in return for MacArthur’s press releases touting battlefield successes enhancing Roosevelt’s 1944 presidential campaign efforts. Could such an agreement

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have extended to MacArthur being named supreme commander in the event of an invasion of Japan?∂π Also intriguing is a press conference with presidential secretary Stephen Early at the Octagon Conference in Quebec, held 12–16 September 1944. At this conference, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Combined Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed plans for ending the war in the Pacific. It was during this meeting that the Joint Chiefs received Halsey’s recommendation for an earlier invasion of Leyte. Early reported that the question of a ‘‘super’’ command in the Pacific had not been discussed between the Americans and the British at Quebec; this question had already been decided. When asked if it had been decided at the meeting at Pearl Harbor, Early replied that he could not say, nor would he comment on any proposed command structure for it. When specifically asked about a recent speech by New York’s Republican governor, Thomas Dewey, advocating that General MacArthur be named supreme commander in the Pacific, Early again declined to comment.∂∫ Regardless of whether Nimitz believed he or MacArthur might be named supreme commander, in this political environment it would have been in his, and the navy’s, best interest to support MacArthur and stick with his promise to invade Peleliu, without delay, even if an invasion was not necessary. By letting go of the XXIV Corps, he must have believed that he retained sufficient force to quickly capture Peleliu, Angaur, and Ulithi. We do not know if Nimitz knew that his attacking forces lacked accurate information on the terrain and the Japanese defenses, or that the 1st Marine Division did not have the customary numerical advantage over the enemy defenders. He could not possibly have known that the Japanese had implemented new defensive tactics, or that the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division would provide amazingly bad leadership. We do know that after making this fateful decision, he worried about it. One can only imagine how he felt as the casualty reports kept pouring into his headquarters.∂Ω Nimitz’s decision to invade Angaur and Peleliu turned out to be potentially very embarrassing to him, the navy, and the marine corps, especially since the last was being scrutinized for elimination by the U.S. Congress.∑≠ Nevertheless, in the final analysis, Nimitz decided to do what he thought was in the best interests of himself and the

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navy and best for the conduct of the war, even though his decision meant that many marines and soldiers would die for little apparent reason. In short, his decision was a gamble that the battles for Angaur and Peleliu would be quick and easy, and he lost. He had to spend the rest of his life living with that, and that is the price of leadership. Two days after Halsey sent his message to Nimitz, just before dawn on Friday, 15 September 1944, the convoy carrying the 81st Infantry and 1st Marine Divisions steamed into the waters of the Palaus. It was a sparkling clear day with unlimited visibility. Soldiers packed the rails of the ships to get a better view of the islands. This was D-Day for the 1st Marine Division. H-Hour was scheduled for 0800. Ships and boats of all sizes and descriptions steamed around the islands. Although it was the marines who faced imminent danger, the Wildcats were also tense as they watched the preparations for assaulting Peleliu, knowing it would be their turn on the morrow.∑∞ Private First Class Robert Voss, Company F, 323rd Regiment, was aboard a transport. ‘‘The first time we saw the island in the morning it was green and just plush as can be. The destroyers were in closer to the shore. The cruisers fired over the destroyers, and then way back were the battleships firing over all that with the big guns. The flames and smoke were just spectacular. Then the dive bombers came in; they went straight down. The fighter pilots kept strafing the beaches. It was quite a sight.’’∑≤ As the pounding of Peleliu continued and the marines formed their assault waves, the Angaur Attack Force steamed slowly north. Later in the morning, it received word that the marines had landed. The Wildcats waited anxiously to hear about the progress of the marines. The more quickly the marines could establish a firm foothold on Peleliu, the more assured the 81st would be of landing on Angaur the next day.∑≥ The transfer of additional troops to the LSTs halted the northward movement of the convoy at midmorning. By noon, the Angaur Task Force stood off Namai Bay at Babelthuap, where the Wildcats began to form assault waves to confuse the Japanese high command as to the next point of attack. The destroyer screen fired on a village near Melekelok Point, at the southern end of Namai Bay, but the Japanese did not respond. After a feigned landing, men and equipment reloaded on the ships, and the convoy again moved north.

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Late in the day, more news reached the division about the marines’ attack on Peleliu. The marines had widened their grip to a beachhead three thousand yards long by five hundred yards wide, and had beaten back three counterattacks by the Japanese. One counterattack across the airfield cost the Japanese twenty tanks.∑∂ It appeared the marines were quickly gaining the upper hand. Sadly, however, the information reaching the Fremont, Admiral Blandy’s flagship, with General Mueller aboard, did not truly reflect the savage and desperate fighting taking place on Peleliu, or the high number of casualties suffered by the marines. In expectation of receiving approval for the attack on Angaur on the following day, 16 September, the Wildcats were issued assault rations late in the afternoon. These included K rations, candy, cigarettes, and matches in a transparent, waterproof bag. Ammunition was distributed, and newly updated maps given out. The navy as a farewell gesture prepared a special evening meal consisting of carefully hoarded steak, chicken, strawberries, and other delicacies. However, 15 September ended without an order authorizing Fox Day. The next day was hot and clear, and it dragged by as the Wildcats waited for approval to assault Angaur. During the night the Japanese had counterattacked the marines on Peleliu, but at dawn the marines were once more on the offensive.∑∑ Meanwhile, the convoy carrying the 81st had sailed back to the waters around Angaur, and at least one soldier noticed signs that all was not well on Peleliu. ‘‘As we waited offshore, looking out we could see bodies floating—bodies of dead Marines,’’ said Private First Class Ed Frazer of Headquarters Battery, 317th Artillery Battalion. ‘‘We couldn’t retrieve them because we were set to go and could be called at any moment. We were anxious to get on land as the LSTs were floating powder kegs and there was sporadic mortar fire from their very heavy mortars.’’∑∏ Despite the brutal and intense fighting taking place on Peleliu, by noon on 16 September, Admiral George H. Fort, commander of the Western Attack Force, and General Geiger deemed the situation sufficiently satisfactory for the release of the 81st from floating reserve. They gave permission to proceed with the assault on Angaur, perhaps at the urging of Mueller and Blandy. Fox Day for Angaur was set for Sunday, 17 September. ‘‘George Hour,’’ the time of the landings, was 0830.∑π That same day, Halsey reinstated the Ulithi operation to be ex-

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ecuted with resources at hand at the earliest possible time. With the 81st Division’s 321st and 322nd RCTs scheduled for invading Angaur, Admiral Wilkinson ordered the 323rd RCT to seize Ulithi. This left the marines without any reserves. The veteran of Tarawa, General Julian Smith, sensing what was happening on Peleliu, argued against releasing all of the 81st Infantry Division from reserve duty, but he was ignored.∑∫

1 Fox Day for Angaur

T

he navy started an intensive pre-landing bombardment of Angaur before dawn on 17 September 1944. Private First Class William Somma, Company B, 321st Regiment, was among the thousands of soldiers and sailors watching the Fox Day bombardment. ‘‘We could see the battleships bombarding the island.’’ he said. ‘‘There were two, one on each end, just bombing away, and the island became a mass of smoke and fire. It’s encouraging to see because you think the navy did all the work. But, that wasn’t the case.’’∞ First Sergeant Ed Collins, Antitank Company, 321st, recalled the remarks of the man next to him: ‘‘I was standing on the ship with a Japanese [Nisei] interpreter watching the smoke rise from Angaur, hearing him say, ‘That’s what the sons-a-bitches need!’ ’’≤ The bombardment, which continued after the assault troops landed, was not a random raking of the island, but a planned shelling of the invasion beaches and inland targets.≥ In addition, escort carrier planes swarmed over Angaur from 0748 to 0800, attacking areas behind the beaches.∂ At 0400, the navy served the Wildcats aboard the LSTs and transport ships a hearty meal of pork chops and steak, mashed potatoes, and peas. After eating, the assault troops boarded their LVTs and readied themselves for action, eager to prove that they could live up to their creed: ‘‘Wildcats never quit, they win or they die.’’ Shortly after 0530, the LVTs containing the first six assault waves roared down the 33

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ramps of the LSTs into the ocean. After circling for two hours, each wave proceeded to the line of departure, some twenty-five hundred yards from shore.∑ In each wave, one landing craft followed the other until opposite the line of departure. At this point, each craft turned ninety degrees and crossed the line of departure going toward the beach. Each succeeding wave crossed the line of departure at a specified time interval behind the preceding wave. For the assault troops in the LVTs, it took approximately fifteen to twenty minutes to reach the beach after crossing the line of departure.∏ Leading the first wave of LVTs toward Blue Beach were seven LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) gunboats firing 20mm and 40mm guns and rockets. At Red Beach, six LCIs led the charge; two of them were equipped with the conventional guns and rockets, the other four armed with three 4.2-inch mortars.π At exactly 0830, the first wave, consisting of five LVTs and five LVT(A)1s (Landing Vehicle, Tracked [Armored], or, simply ‘‘amphibian tanks’’ or ‘‘amphtanks’’), each armed with a turreted 37mm cannon and two .30-caliber machine guns, slowly climbed out of the water and onto Blue Beach. The first wave reached Red Beach six minutes later. On the beaches, the amphtanks peeled off, moving to cover and protect the flanks as the LVTs dropped their rear ramps and the soldiers of the 321st and 322nd Regiments rushed from the vehicles. The following five waves landed within minutes of each other, and within a span of twenty minutes all six assault waves had landed on both beaches.∫ The final run to the beaches was largely but not entirely unopposed. The landing crafts coming into both beaches received sporadic rifle fire while mortar shells fell among them. Luckily, the mortar shells missed, and the initial landings came off quite smoothly.Ω Even so, for those like William Somma, the scene may not have been reassuring. ‘‘You could see dead bodies floating in the water off the island. It was Japanese. That was my first sight of combat.’’∞≠ Hitting Blue Beach were the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 321st RCT.∞∞ ‘‘After landing on Blue Beach, I looked around and saw every member of my squad lying on their stomachs watching me,’’ said Staff Sergeant John Spielmann, squad leader for the 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, B Company. ‘‘I heard an officer yell to get off the beach, and I got up and started running. I glanced over my shoulder and my squad was right behind me.’’∞≤

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Private First Class Roy Bergeron, 3rd Platoon, Company B, 321st RCT, remembered, ‘‘On Blue Beach, we lost one man and killed two Japs. My buddy that I stayed with on the ship all the way over, he was the first one got killed. Hess [Private First Class Charles R. Hess] was his name. They came out of a pillbox and shot him right on the beach. The pillbox was about one hundred yards in front of us.’’∞≥ Landing abreast on Red Beach in a column of companies formation, the 322nd Regiment’s 1st and 3rd Battalions encountered smallarms fire and occasional mortar rounds. But when the fifth wave landed, Japanese machine guns opened up on the left flank of the beach. Time correspondent John Walker observed this incident and later wrote, ‘‘For a moment the beach seems quiet as a line of men in greenish drab, herring bone-twill jungle uniforms moves over a rise in the background. Then a Jap pillbox at the extreme left of the beach coughs machine-gun fire. Two Americans drop, riddled, and other troops are pinned down momentarily. But an amphtank rolls into position 30 yards away, pumps shells into the pillbox, then stands guard.’’∞∂ After the first six waves had landed, supporting waves began arriving in LCVPs (Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, popularly known as Higgins boats).∞∑ Private Clifton Dantin landed on Blue Beach with the 321st Antitank Company. ‘‘We trained with the 57mm and the 37mm, and we went over with the 37mm guns. That day we didn’t have much action. That night our squad slept in the big [antitank] ditch.’’∞∏ After securing the beachheads, the 321st and 322nd RCTs had two objectives for Fox Day. First, drive inland 275 to 500 yards to the 0-1 line. Second, and the most important, join the two regiments together to reduce the chance of either regimental landing team being rolled up from the flank during an expected counterattack in the night. To accomplish the second objective, the invasion plan had the area between Cape Ngatpokul and Cape Ngariois being bypassed by the front line troops heading for the 0-1 line. The bypassed area would be cleared after the two regiments had joined.∞π The success of the landings was attributable to several factors. Unlike nearby Peleliu, the Japanese garrison on Angaur was too small to defend all of the possible landing sites. As a result, Major Goto had to guess at the most likely place for the Americans to come ashore. He

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chose Green Beaches Two and Three on the southeast side of Angaur, the best landing beaches on the island, and elaborately fortified them. But, he guessed wrong. American planners decided on the cramped, narrow Blue and Red Beaches on the northeast side of Angaur because photographs showed them to be less heavily defended. Another factor was the absence of a fringing reef at Blue and Red Beaches, allowing the supporting LCIs to come near the shore, firing mortars, rockets, and machine guns. To compensate for his lack of troops, Major Goto positioned the remainder of his men around the center of the island where he could readily move them to meet the Americans wherever they landed. Here again, the Americans foiled his plans. Angaur’s small size allowed navy guns to blanket the island during the landing, forcing the Japanese defenders to remain concealed. In addition, continuous strafing and bombing by planes up to the moment the Wildcats landed also hampered movement by the defenders. Finally, the 323rd RCT, in reserve, further confused and misguided the enemy. Even as the first waves streaked to shore, soldiers of the 323rd RCT formed assault waves off the west coast of Angaur. After a feigned landing, the troops returned to their ships. We do not know how much this affected the thinking of Major Goto; at least he had to pause, withholding a full response until the situation became clear.∞∫ On Blue Beach’s left flank, Company B had the tough assignment of moving south about five hundred yards around Rocky Point, reducing Japanese defensive fortifications along the way, and occupying the 0-1 line from the shore northward to Company A on its right. Companies A, E, and F, in that order from south to north, were to move in a generally westward direction to occupy the 0-1 line, all the while maintaining contact with the companies on their flanks. Company G, on the right flank of Blue Beach, was to move northward to achieve the linkup with the 322nd RCT, and then occupy the 0-1 line near the regimental boundary.∞Ω Although Japanese resistance consisted only of scattered mortar, sniper, and machine-gun fire, movement inland off Blue Beach progressed slowly, with both battalions advancing only one hundred yards in the first hour of the invasion. An antitank ditch and wall

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just behind the beach, a few pillboxes, and strands of barbed wire slowed the Wildcats. Mines presented another problem. Just beyond the beach, a jumbled mass of shattered tree trunks, limbs, and severed vines resulting from the pre-invasion bombardment also hindered the forward movement.≤≠ Yet support waves continued to land, resulting in a dangerous concentration of men and equipment on the beach. Finally, armored bulldozers arrived. Once the armored bulldozers started cutting trails inland through the jungle, the situation began to ease, although Japanese mortar fire continued intermittently during the day. In addition to the armored bulldozers, Sherman tanks now added their punch to the drive inland after air strikes destroyed several pillboxes. A change in terrain also helped the frontline troops, as farther inland the dense coastal jungle gave way to open ground. By 1000, the Wildcats had extended the beachhead to an average depth of two hundred yards. Japanese resistance remained light, and the invasion seemed to be gathering momentum.≤∞ At 1140, Colonel Robert F. Dark, commander of the 321st RCT, landed on Blue Beach and assumed command of his regimental combat team. He established his headquarters by Blue Beach. At the same time, the 3rd Battalion, the division reserve, landed and assembled on the northern edge of the beach. In an effort to link up with the 322nd RCT, Company G bypassed pillboxes on the northern edge of Blue Beach. Planes called in at 1137 bombed and strafed these Japanese emplacements, but could not knock them out. The Japanese defenders in them continued to harass and slow the Wildcats moving north. Companies A, E, and F driving primarily westward into the center of Angaur encountered less Japanese resistance, and before 1200 reported that they had reached the 0-1 line. On the south end of the beach, Company B, trying to push south along the coast, encountered the strongest Japanese opposition. Pillboxes, bunkers, and caves in the Rocky Point area, part of the Green Beach Three defensive system, gave cover to Japanese artillery, mortars, machine gunners, and snipers. Heavy fire from these fortifications made advancement south extremely hard and slow. Rocket, bombing, and strafing attacks by the carrier planes did not even slow the rate of fire. Additionally, the Japanese had heavily mined this area.≤≤

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On Angaur, as on Peleliu, the Japanese commanders integrated defensive positions, including machine-gun nests, bunkers, pillboxes, blockhouses, antitank ditches, rifle pits, and interconnecting tunnels and trenches, into a defense in depth. Every position covered and supported the others. If one was overrun, it could be fired on and perhaps regained with a swift counterattack. Furthermore, wherever possible, defensive positions utilized local terrain and materials. In the case of Angaur and Peleliu, this meant putting defensive positions in natural and fabricated caves in coral and limestone cliffs, and making other fortifications from dirt, rocks, coconuts, and sand. The Japanese often reinforced these positions with coconut logs, sand-filled ammunition boxes and oil drums, and sometimes with steel reinforced concrete. Some of these fortifications had multiple firing slits facing in different directions. These caves, bunkers, pillboxes and blockhouses were often impervious to naval, air, and artillery bombardment. Food, ammunition, and water were stockpiled in specially built storage areas, and protected sleeping compartments were constructed as well. Masters at jungle camouflage, the Japanese took great care in making their defensive works difficult to spot. Well-disciplined Japanese troops held their fire until the American soldiers were almost on top of them. Periodically, the Japanese would allow the Americans to pass them by, and then attack from the rear. Very seldom did the Wildcats actually see the Japanese soldiers they were attacking.≤≥ Once revealed, destruction of a system of Japanese strongpoints required knocking out and capturing one, holding it, then attacking the next. It was a coordinated effort involving riflemen, BAR men, flamethrowers, bazookas, and demolition teams. When possible, tanks, planes, and ships joined the fray. In the Rocky Point area, the job of blowing up the entrenched Japanese on Fox Day fell to Sergeant Nolton Brown and his demolition squad from the Mine Platoon, 321st Antitank Company, attached to Company B.≤∂ ‘‘We’d spot a cave, pillbox, or bunker, and we’d crawl until we could get close enough to the side or edge to place a charge,’’ said Brown, explaining how his team attacked the fortifications around Rocky Point. ‘‘Most of the time on a satchel charge we’d use a fifteensecond fuse. We’d throw some, but most of the time we’d crawl up there and get them placed where we wanted.’’ A twenty-pound sat-

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chel charge was carried in a shoulder bag. The strap for carrying the bag over the shoulder also allowed it to be thrown at or into a fortification. ‘‘After we blew them with satchel charges, we’d use a flamethrower just to finish them off, see we got everything in there.’’ If we wanted to blow something in a certain direction, well, we used shape charges. The fuse was the tricky part. You wanted the charge to explode as quickly as possible so the Nips would not have time to throw them out but enough time for you to get clear. So it depended on the location and terrain as to what fuse you used. Most of the time the smallarms fire would keep their heads down. They didn’t want to get shot any more than we did, so you let the bullets fly and they kept their heads down. Sometimes, we’d use flamethrowers. We would throw a little fire at them, and then throw a satchel charge.≤∑ Around noon, Lieutenant Colonel Lester J. Evans, commander of the 1st Battalion, sent three patrols inland to the west and south, and they received only light sniper fire. With the major resistance coming from the coastal areas, the way into the interior of Angaur appeared wide open. Although some localized, hard fighting had taken place this morning; casualties had been light. During the morning of Fox Day, the 321st RCT had one man killed and nine wounded.≤∏ The 1st Battalion, 322nd RCT, under the command of Major William R. White, landed on the right flank of Red Beach. Companies A and C advanced west by northwest to capture Cape Pkul A Mlagalp and the area south of it to the 0-1 line. Company B moved inland in a southwestwardly direction to the 0-1 line. Thirty minutes after landing, the 1st Battalion had broken through the dense coastal jungle into open terrain. A patrol from Company C pushed across Cape Pkul A Mlagalp and reached the north coast of Angaur by 1022. Finding that the Japanese had abandoned the pillboxes and bunkers in this area, the Wildcats occupied all of Cape Pkul A Mlagalp by 1120. Continuing to move west and southwest, the battalion soon reached the 0-1 line, where the men prepared temporary defensive positions, awaiting approval to advance again. However, gaps existed along the front line,

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especially between Companies A and C, resulting from some units taking the easier route inland along the tracks of the Seaboard Railroad, and then spreading out into the jungle along the 0-1 line. On the left flank of Red Beach, the 3rd Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Leonard L. Cutshall, faced conditions more like those on Blue Beach: dense jungle debris with no clear paths and an antitank ditch behind the beach. Responsibility for the linkup with the 321st RCT resided in its left flank units, Companies K and L. Company I, on the right flank of Company K, was to move inland and make contact with Company B of the 1st Battalion on the 0-1 line.≤π Company L moved southeast following the coast with Company K on its right. Company I tried to move to the southwest. These companies faced obstacles much the same as those facing Company G of the 321st RCT, a jumble of twisted and tossed jungle debris, scattered pillboxes, bunkers, and snipers using small-arms fire, mortars and machine guns to hold up the advance. In addition to fortified caves in the cliffs around the coast, the 3rd Battalion unexpectedly met a pocket of resistance from a ridge south of Red Beach, from which the Japanese were lobbing mortar shells to the eastern end of the beach. Nevertheless, the 3rd Battalion reported gains of two hundred yards by 1000. Even though the 3rd Battalion encountered more Japanese resistance and more difficult terrain than did the 1st Battalion to the north, by 1100 it had reached segments of the 0-1 line. After destroying the enemy positions on the ridge south of Red Beach, the Wildcats of Company I formed tank-infantry teams with the Sherman tanks of Company B, 710th Tank Battalion, which had landed on Red Beach at 0958, and raced inland down the Pacific Railroad, pushing 150 yards beyond the 0-1 line, creating a salient in the front line. The Company I Wildcats subsequently fanned out and made contact with the infantry Company B to its right. However, by noon, Companies K and L remained several hundred yards shy of the regimental boundary and the 0-1 line. During the morning, like Blue Beach, Red Beach also became congested with men and equipment. This time the culprit was not entirely difficulty moving inland. Three Higgins boats bringing in support troops had smashed into the beach, were stuck in the sand, and had to be pulled out. Other craft bringing in men and equipment

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had to work around this mess. In addition, the Japanese started firing mortar shells at both flanks of Red Beach, slowing the unloading of supplies. Mortars shells falling on the northwest end of the beach came from Romauldo Hill. The navy tried to lay a smoke screen around that area, but mortars and sniper fire continued sporadically through the day. Starting at 0900, armored bulldozers started clearing paths through the jungle to relieve the congestion. Boat traffic accelerated as the beach became better organized. At 1130, the 2nd Battalion, the regimental reserve, landed and moved into an assembly area near the beach. By 1230, Colonel Benjamin W. Venable’s command post of the 322nd RCT was up and running on Angaur.≤∫ Private First Class Brooks Nicklas, 2nd Battalion, Company G, remembered landing with the reserves: ‘‘Soldiers were unloaded on one part of the beach while other supplies, artillery, medical supplies, ammunition, food, water, tanks, gasoline, and bulldozers were moving in on other sections. There were a few dead Japanese and some burning pillboxes as we went to our positions. There were also some of our men being brought back that had been wounded, and some were dead. The heat was terrible and we almost collapsed under the load.’’≤Ω By noon, Major Goto still had not made any major moves to stop the American advance. He only sent some men north to observe the action, and a company of men to the Rocky Point area. The combination of naval gunfire and air strikes eliminated any potential movement and counterattack to the north. He kept his men sheltered in bunkers.≥≠ As Major Goto considered his options at noon on Fox Day, so did General Mueller. The slow progress inland annoyed Mueller, especially considering the light Japanese resistance. The linkup of the two regiments had not taken place, and Company B, 321st RCT, had made little progress at Rocky Point. Additionally, to avoid the rugged terrain, some of the Wildcats had funneled into paths going inland, either along railroad tracks or behind tanks and bulldozers breaking through the tangled jungle. This allowed a few well-situated pillboxes and snipers to slow down a whole column of men and created gaps along the front lines. It was indeed fortunate that Major Goto could not

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organize a counterattack to take advantage of these gaps. Apparently, this was not unusual. Gaps appeared in the front lines on Guam and Peleliu, and the Japanese never took advantage of these opportunities. The only real success of the morning occurred on the western flank of Red Beach where the 1st Battalion, 322nd RCT, dug in along the 0-1 line. General Mueller had to decide if he should advance the battalion forward to the 0-2 line, forming a salient and exposing its flanks, or to let it remain at the 0-1 line until after the regimental linkup and all units had consolidated along the 0-1 line. Perhaps due to the lack of Japanese resistance, he decided to be aggressive. At 1245, he ordered the 1st Battalion, 322nd RCT, to advance to the 0-2 line, about four hundred yards further on. He ordered the 3rd Battalion, 322nd RCT, to vigorously push south to meet the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, a movement that might take some of the pressure off the latter unit.≥∞ As General Mueller was finding out, Major Goto had abandoned most of the defensive positions in northern Angaur, choosing instead to defend southern Angaur, the most likely area for invasion. Moving inland to the south and west, the Wildcats encountered only a few Japanese defenders in pillboxes and bunkers, but snipers in the jungle presented problems. These snipers proved extremely deadly to the Wildcats. Frequently in trees, Japanese snipers used climbing spikes for quickly getting into the jungle canopy, where they secured themselves in place with a safety rope. Japanese sniper training emphasized concealment, camouflaging both their bodies and their rifles, and mediumrange action.≥≤ Rocco DeCioccio, a rifleman in Company B, 321st RCT, recalled one sniper who was particularly hard to find. ‘‘Anyone who moved was getting shot. We couldn’t see this Jap. We finally spotted him and killed the son of a bitch. He was underneath a tree. Somehow he got under the trunk and was firing out from a little hole between the roots.’’≥≥ After extensive patrolling in their front, Companies A, E, and F, 321st RCT, drove beyond the 0-1 line meeting little resistance. However, the advance on the flanks remained a slow, methodical process. On the south flank of Blue Beach, Company B spent the afternoon destroying Japanese positions around Rocky Point. Because of the

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strong defensive positions around the northern edge of Rocky Point near the coast, some Wildcats moved inland to flank them, and came upon a major obstacle, a large blockhouse. After destroying it, the Wildcats found the bodies of thirty Japanese soldiers inside.≥∂ At 1250, Companies F and G attacked the pillboxes and bunkers along the north flank of Blue Beach, strong points bypassed earlier by the Wildcats and subsequently attacked from the air with little success. Now, riflemen with demolitions and flamethrowers went to work on each position. After an hour, Company G had come within 350 yards of the RCT boundary. Yet, continuing heavy fire from a pillbox and a pocket of snipers near the boundary still blocked the joining of the two regimental combat units.≥∑ Second Lieutenant George Rasula, Company G, the 321st RCT officer in charge of linking up with the 322nd RCT, led a patrol north searching for that unit. Rasula had practiced the linkup during the final exercises on Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal. He recalled: My company was the right flank company of our battalion, and we were the right flank battalion of the regiment, so there was nothing to our right but jungle blown out by the navy’s big guns and the aerial bombing before we landed. Some distance beyond the jungle to our right was our sister regiment, and to connect the two was my job. Part of the plan was to use colored smoke grenades as signals to make sure they wouldn’t shoot us and we wouldn’t shoot them. When they gave me the grenades aboard ship, I thought of an idea to make sure I’d remember the meaning of each color. What I did was write the meaning in Finnish on each grenade, willing to bet there was no enemy in the islands who could read the Finnish language. I moved out to the right with about a half squad from 3rd Platoon. My mission was to make contact with the left flank of the 322nd Infantry Regiment, which had landed on Red Beach. I had rehearsed this mission in my mind many times on the LST, but one thing which cannot be rehearsed is the tension experienced once you get on the ground. However, I believe that only lasted the first half hour as nothing happened. We just maintained direction, negotiating the mess of blown trees. We moved slowly, very slowly, my scout in

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front, flankers on each side, and a few behind me, each man watching his assigned direction for just about anything, especially movement. Official reports differ as to what happened next. One report states that at 1620, a patrol from Company K, 322nd RCT, made visual but not physical contact with a patrol from the 321st RCT inside the 321st RCT zone. Another account acknowledges the patrol, but that it did not make any contact at all. Regardless of these accounts to the contrary, Rasula does remember making physical contact with a patrol from the 322nd RCT: I recall being as concerned with the right—the beach direction—as I was with the front and left. We didn’t know where the Jap defenses were in that sector. Then, about two hours into the patrol, the lead scout signaled ‘‘stop’’ and motioned me to come forward. Ahead of us about one hundred yards was a small group of American soldiers looking off to our left front; they had not seen us. My main concern then was to make contact without being shot. That’s when I pulled the pin on the recognition smoke grenade and threw it to our front and we concealed ourselves, except for keeping them in sight. When the grenade made its ‘‘smack’’ sound and smoke began billowing, we immediately saw them pointing as they took cover. Then, after about a half minute of silence, one of them stood up, looked in our direction and waved his hand, and that’s when I did the same. After meeting and exchanging information about the Japs—we assumed there were none in that sector—I moved my patrol back in the direction we came. By the end of the day, I had reported our findings to the battalion commander. The attack plan called for Company G to move inland to the 0-1 line at the RCT boundary but, inexplicably, the company instead attacked along the coast. As a result, at the end of the day, it had advanced about one hundred yards in the wrong direction, never making contact with the 322nd RCT.≥∏ At 1400, on the 322nd’s right flank, the 1st Battalion still occupied the 0-1 line. At 1415, Colonel Venable, as instructed by General Mueller,

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ordered the 1st Battalion to seize the 0-2 line north of Lake Aztec. Advancing rapidly against little or no opposition, but into increasingly more difficult terrain, in less than two hours the 1st Battalion accomplished this, with the Wildcats along the north coast of Angaur pushing three hundred yards beyond 0-2. At 1400, on the left flank, the Wildcats from Company I still sat on the 0-1 line in contact with Company B. Patrols then went eight hundred yards to the west, toward Lake Aztec, without making contact with the enemy. Afterward, at 1555, Colonel Venable ordered the 3rd Battalion to advance to the 0-2 line south of Lake Aztec, and to press the drive southeast to linkup with the 321st RCT. Company L advanced southeast along the coast toward Cape Ngatpokul, destroying Japanese fortifications along the way. Company K moved south toward the 0-2 line, sending out patrols to find the Japanese and the 321st RCT. It was one of these patrols that met Lieutenant George Rasula’s patrol. During the afternoon, two battalions of the division artillery arrived on Red Beach. By 1625, the 906th Field Artillery Battalion, temporarily detached from the 323rd RCT, had established firing positions around Cape Pkul A Mlagalp, recently cleared by the 1st Battalion. By nightfall, the 316th Field Artillery Battalion had established firing positions south of Red Beach.≥π At 1530, General Mueller ordered that both regiments move independently to the 0-2 line. Near Red Beach, the 1st Battalion collapsed the salient along the north shore of Angaur beyond the 0-2 line to shorten its perimeter. Companies K and L continued advancing to the south to link up with the 321st. When the advance ended, Company K had made it almost to the 0-2 line and the regimental boundary. Company L, traveling a much more torturous route along the coast, was still several hundred yards short of the regimental boundary. At Blue Beach, Companies A, E, and F, 321st RCT, had moved forward toward the 0-2 line. Colonel Robert Dark, after inspecting the area, decided that they could not reach the line before nightfall, and that the ground between them and the 0-2 line did not offer suitable fields of fire, and ordered them back to the 0-1 line. On the left flank, where the fiercest fighting occurred, Company B made a night perimeter with its left flank near Rocky Point, its right flank tied in to Company A.

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At 1700, General Mueller released the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, the division reserve, to Colonel Robert Dark to strengthen the Blue Beach defenses. Colonel Dark placed them in positions behind the 2nd Battalion. At the same time, Company C, the 321st regimental reserve, moved north to aid Company G in a last-ditch effort to link up with the 322nd RCT before nightfall. Not being able to make the linkup, Company C captured Cape Ngariois, and put its right flank on the coast with its left flank tied in to Company F. Company G took positions in the rear of Company C, becoming the regimental reserve.≥∫ During the late afternoon, the Wildcats confirmed that the Japanese knew several weeks in advance of the pending attack on Angaur. Papers found on a dead Japanese soldier revealed that Japanese intelligence had informed the Angaur defenders that an enemy amphibious force had left Hawaii in early August for landings in Palau. These documents also contained orders to defend Angaur.≥Ω The end of Fox Day found the 322nd RCT, except Company L, dug in at or near the 0-2 line. Troops of the 321st RCT were generally at or near the 0-1 line, with the exception of the right and left flanks where the Japanese resistance had been the greatest. As the linkup had not been accomplished, both regiments had to bend and anchor their lines on the shore, making separate beachheads. The Wildcats prepared for the expected Japanese counterattack, and waited nervously.∂≠ Adding to their uneasiness, artillery shells screamed overhead, and the explosions ripped open the night. The 316th and 906th Field Artillery Battalions maintained a steady fire on all known or suspected Japanese positions and routes leading to Blue and Red Beaches, while fire support ships shelled the western half of Angaur.∂∞ The tendency to fire weapons unnecessarily was common that first night. ‘‘That night we experienced itchy trigger-fingers,’’ said George Rasula. ‘‘When someone down the line would fire a shot, it automatically caused the line to begin firing until commanders and leaders would get up and yell like hell for it to stop.’’∂≤ Illuminating flares fired from ships offshore as well as from mortars onshore added to the Wildcats’ anxiety. Because the Japanese liked to fight at night, the Americans tried to turn the night into day. Descending slowly from high above on parachutes, the swinging flares emitted a sinister greenish-white light that caused shadows to

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jump and dance bizarrely. The effect led one soldier near Keith Axelson, Company K, 321st RCT, to fire repeatedly. ‘‘I remember spending the first night crouched between the huge roots of trees in a swampy area. All night long flares were floating down and one idiot would fire his rifle just as the last shadow would fade away. It was always just one round.’’∂≥

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he Japanese were active during the evening and night of Fox Day. Despite continuous shelling by the 81st Division Artillery and ships offshore, Major Goto surreptitiously withdrew much of his remaining force from southern Angaur to the fortified, rugged terrain of northwest Angaur in and around Romauldo Hill. Here, consistent with the earlier-mentioned policy directive ‘‘Palau Sector Group Training for Victory,’’ the Japanese garrison would make its last stand, fighting to the death with no banzai charges. At noon on Fox Day, Major Goto had few options open to him for halting the Wildcats’ advance. By late afternoon, realizing he could not defeat the large American force with his small garrison, he felt relieved that the Wildcats had not occupied more of northern Angaur, thus blocking his escape route to Romauldo Hill. After sundown, when the carrier planes had left the skies overhead, he started his withdrawal north, leaving a small number of troops behind to mislead the Americans as to the location of the main force, and to slow down and harass the Wildcats’ advance. Infiltration and judicious counterattacks under the cover of darkness were consistent with the ‘‘Palau Sector Group Training for Victory’’ policy, and the Japanese made nighttime particularly difficult, dangerous, and terrifying to their foes. Japanese soldiers were trained and adept at night fighting, and on this night the Japanese skillfully

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infiltrated American lines, sneaking up to the Wildcats in their foxholes and attacking them with knives and grenades. One infiltration group struck at a forward position defended by three Wildcats operating a machine gun. Private First Class Robert Crochet of Company M, 322nd RCT, was one of the defenders.∞ He remembered, ‘‘Me and my two buddies, Walter Greenland and Joseph Amato, were on the railroad tracks where it made a V, jungle all around. The Japs hit us at about three o’clock in the morning, and we were [alone]. They threw a hand grenade that tore up our machine gun. I was left with my .45. My second gunner had a .45 and the third guy a rifle and hand grenades.’’ They fended off the infiltrators for two hours; then, ‘‘The Jap that threw the grenade that landed in the foxhole with us—the Japs hit their helmets to arm the grenades—when he did that, he was maybe ten feet from me. I shot him with my .45. Later, my sergeant said he had a hole right between his eyes. That grenade wounded me and killed Amato.’’≤ Major Goto saved his major effort for just before dawn. After probing the extreme left flank of Company B, 321st RCT, a reinforced company of Japanese troops, around two hundred men, launched a counterattack around 0500. An intense mortar barrage preceded the attack, striking the command post of the 1st Battalion and wounding the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lester J. Evans, and four members of his staff. An infantry assault immediately followed this mortar barrage, supported by Nambu light machine guns and so-called knee mortars (actually grenade launchers). The Japanese struck near the shoreline along a narrow front at Rocky Point, with the obvious intention of driving north and rolling up Blue Beach. Instantly, pandemonium broke loose. The well-trained and experienced Japanese soldiers came running out of the darkness, yelling, screaming, and shooting at the tired, scared, inexperienced Wildcats. The Americans had been awake all night, shooting at strange sounds and shadows, but now they could see the peril—a veritable horde of Japanese soldiers charging straight at them, intending on killing and running over them as quickly as possible. But Company B had established its defensive perimeter well. Wildcats all along the line started firing back at the Japanese.≥

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Private First Class Roy J. Bergeron, 3rd Platoon, was in a foxhole near the beach. ‘‘They started coming . . . in the morning, hollering, ‘Get up, Joe! Get up, Joe!’ That’s all they hollered and we heard them say ‘Get up Joe!’ right until they got to our foxhole. Then they put a machine gun across our hole and shot at the other guys. They didn’t know we were in that hole behind the tree. So I took my rifle and put it alongside their barrel. When they’d shoot, I’d pull the trigger. That happened about four times in maybe a half hour. By then our ammunition was running out—no grenades, and I had three or four rounds left. We only had three men left in our squad of twelve.’’∂ This unexpected, concentrated firing along the southern defensive perimeter provoked needless and dangerous firing by service units on the beach. ‘‘I was pinned to the ground with the enemy to my front and the engineering party to my rear,’’ recalled William Somma of the 1st Platoon.∑ Company B and its supporting units stopped the Japanese twice, but the resolute enemy eventually penetrated the line at various places. The Wildcats nearest the coast retreated fifty to seventy-five yards and established a new defensive perimeter just north of the Southern Railroad. At dawn, seven navy planes flew in and conducted two air strikes, bombing and strafing the Japanese attackers near Rocky Point. Additionally, the 710th Tank Battalion’s Provisional 81mm Mortar Platoon laid down a barrage all along Company B’s front. Staff Sergeant John Spielmann had his 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, dug in to the right of the Wildcats on the beach. He recalled, ‘‘Anything moving out in the darkness was assumed to be the enemy. One problem was the land crabs. They made noise crawling through the grass, but [my] squad could not fire and give up their positions unless they were sure it was the enemy. That night we went through a Japanese banzai charge. When the morning came, there were dead enemy troops all around.’’∏ At 0618, Colonel Robert Dark reported to division headquarters that the Japanese attack had been stopped. Shortly after 0630 Company G, in regimental reserve at the north end of Blue Beach, started moving south to replace the beleaguered Company B, which became the 1st Battalion’s reserve. At 0730, believing the Japanese force had been shattered, Colonel Dark issued orders for the 321st to jump off at 0900, and seize the 0-2 line.

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But the Japanese were not finished. As the 2nd Battalion, 321st, started its advance at 0905, a relatively weak counterattack developed along the northern front line occupied by Companies C and F. During this counterattack, as Company G started occupying Company B’s positions at 0935, the Japanese again attacked in force at Rocky Point. Now, with the Japanese attacking simultaneously at two different locations, calls were sent out for supporting fire. Carrier planes bombed and strafed along the front lines, and an LCI gunboat positioned offshore Rocky Point fired rockets and its 20mm and 40mm guns at the onrushing Japanese. By 1000, the Wildcats of Companies C and F had repulsed the attacking Japanese to their front with machine-gun and mortar fire. Further south, however, the Japanese had forced Company G’s left flank back toward the beach from the north side of the Southern Railroad; but, by 1010, the Americans had crushed the attack. Considering his small force, it is hard to understand why Major Goto would sacrifice an entire company in an action that was bound to fail. Perhaps he meant to cover his withdrawal to the northwest, and to convince the Americans that the main Japanese force was in southern Angaur—in which case, he succeeded.π The previous evening, General Mueller had issued orders for the 321st RCT to seize the 0-2 line, halt there and occupy the line. The 322nd RCT was to capture all of northern Angaur and advance to the 0-4 line. Thus, his plan was to have the 321st act as a pivot as the 322nd wheeled around the northwest side of Angaur and drive south to Saipan Town. The completion of this maneuver would have the Wildcats holding a line stretching from one coast to the other, with all of northern Angaur in their control. They then could advance to capture southern Angaur, where they believed the main Japanese force to be. General Mueller landed on Red Beach at 0925, and established his command post nearby. He was not a happy man. His regimental combat teams failed to link up on Fox Day, and so had not advanced as far inland as he had hoped against the light Japanese resistance.∫ Handicapped by the same type of haphazard firing from rear units on Red Beach as the 321st had experienced from Blue Beach, the 322nd RCT’s attack developed slowly after the troops moved out at 0900. On the north flank, the 2nd Battalion passed through the lines of the

Securing Angaur Island, 17–20 September 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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1st, the latter becoming the regimental reserve. The 2nd Battalion’s assignment that morning was to move along the north coast to Cape Pkulangelul, turn south, capture Romauldo Hill, and then link up at the 0-4 line with the 3rd Battalion driving south and west. This turned out to be easier said than done. Whereas the inland terrain in the northeastern part of Angaur had been more or less open on Fox Day, the terrain encountered by Company G, leading the way along the north coast, became increasingly difficult. Dense jungle, rocky coral formations, and vertical cliffs seventy-five feet high hindered the company’s movement and proved impassable to the accompanying tanks of Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, which had landed the previous evening. The tanks, unable to proceed, returned to the rear. Company G bogged down in this rough terrain, and by 1500 the 0-3 line still had not been attained, although patrols had reached Cape Pkulangelul. The terrain and the stifling heat reduced the day’s progress to about three hundred yards.Ω ‘‘Our maps didn’t show the coral rock and the fact that you couldn’t navigate over it,’’ said Brooks Nicklas, Company G. ‘‘We threw away all of our entrenching tools, gas masks, and everything we didn’t have to have, and all day long we tried to move through it, and couldn’t.’’ Even though Company G was only a few hundred yards north of Major Goto’s headquarters and his main force of defenders, they saw nary a Japanese. Major Goto was not yet ready to disclose his position. On the south flank, the 3rd Battalion met little resistance. The stubborn enemy of the previous day had withdrawn to Romauldo Hill. Led by a platoon of Sherman tanks, Company K moved rapidly forward, stopping only to demolish empty bunkers and blockhouses. The swift advance by the tank-infantry teams, following the Pacific Railroad, led to the development of a salient pointing toward the bombed out phosphate plant just west of the Pacific and Southern Railroad junction. Company I moved southwest on the right of the Northern Railroad, joining Company K just west of the Pacific and Southern junction. Company L followed Company K down the Pacific Railroad, joining them near the railroad junction. All three companies met little enemy resistance.∞≠ Around noon, navy planes, responding to an air strike request by the 321st RCT, mistakenly fired on Wildcats from the 322nd RCT.∞∞ Kenneth Andersen, a rifleman in the 1st Platoon, Company L, 322nd

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RCT, remembered, ‘‘We were moving across this clearing and we saw the planes coming, but, they were ours, so nobody took cover until they started shooting and the bombs fell.’’ Seven American soldiers were killed and forty-six wounded. When General Mueller heard about the air strike and the resulting casualties, he ordered that all air strikes on Angaur be halted until further notice. At midday, following the tank-infantry teams, Company K had advanced and mopped up the salient that now included the phosphate plant, coming to within three hundred yards of the west coast of Angaur. These tank-infantry teams also advanced to the edge of Saipan Town and south to Middle Village. On Blue Beach, the attack finally got underway at 1035. The entire front line of the 2nd Battalion moved out, driving generally north, and finally established contact with elements of Company L, 322nd Infantry, near the 0-1 line and the RCT boundary. This linkup of Blue and Red Beaches trapped some Japanese snipers in the heavily wooded area between Capes Ngatpokul and Ngariois. The 2nd Battalion sent mop-up detachments, each about a platoon in size, into this area with instructions not to leave any breathing Japanese behind them. After linking up with Company L, 322nd RCT, the 2nd Battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter D. Clainos, advanced southwest toward the Southern Railroad and the 0-2 line with his Companies E, F, I, and C abreast, from left to right. Earlier, Company I had replaced Company G as the regimental reserve, and was subsequently assigned to the 2nd Battalion. Because the heavy undergrowth, light sniper fire, and oppressive heat slowed the advance, Clainos had his troops break contact with the 322nd troops and changed direction more to the south. Nevertheless, the 2nd Battalion ended up one hundred yards short of its objective, the 0-2 line. In the evening, patrols from the 2nd Battalion encountered Company L, 322nd RCT, near the Pacific and Southern Railroad junction. During this time, at Rocky Point, the well-entrenched Japanese now stymied Company G trying to push south along the coast. Advancing Wildcats met withering fire from highly fortified defensive positions at the southern end of Rocky Point.

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Realizing the extent of the enemy positions, Colonel Dark ordered a flanking movement to attack the Japanese fortifications from the rear, the inland side. Company G literally crawled 250 yards to the north end of Green Beach Three while Company A drove west. At first, an antitank minefield slowed the tank-infantry teams used to spearhead the westward drive. Later, after advancing one hundred yards, the infantry platoons wheeled south. In some areas, tanks fired their 75mm cannons and .30-caliber machine guns to break through the dense jungle. Although the tanks drew little enemy fire, the Japanese dropped mortar shells on the advancing Wildcats. Later, Major William L. Porte, acting battalion commander during the hospitalization of Lieutenant Colonel Lester Evans, pulled Company G back to tie in with Company A. That night, the 321st RCT established its defensive perimeter from Rocky Point to and along the Southern Railroad to its junction with the Pacific Railroad, near Company L, 322nd RCT.∞≤ As of 1800 on 18 September, casualty reports had cumulative losses for the 81st Infantry Division at 22 killed and 177 wounded, about one-third of those from friendly fire. Over two hundred dead Japanese had been counted, but withdrawing Japanese had carried off other dead and wounded. These relatively light casualty figures for both the Wildcats and the Japanese appeared to confirm intelligence reports that the main Japanese force waited in southern Angaur. The Wildcats now controlled most of northern Angaur, except for the relatively small northwest pocket at Romauldo Hill, located in terrain so jagged that all attempts to enter it had failed. Combat patrols around that area, however, had not met any resistance. On the other hand, the main resistance to the Wildcat advance came from the area south of Rocky Point. This, again, bolstered the opinion that the Japanese waited in southern Angaur for the Wildcats. At 2030, a call to the 316th Field Artillery Battalion for artillery rounds to the front of the 2nd Battalion, 321st Infantry, led to more casualties from friendly fire when five shells landed short, injuring eighteen men in Company E and one man in Company F. Medical personnel quickly evacuated the wounded, but four of the wounded men in Company E later died aboard ship.∞≥ The morning’s indiscriminate firing from the beaches, the attack on friendly troops by navy planes, and the inaccurate artillery shell-

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ing caused the Wildcats on the front line to be skeptical of all support fire. The Japanese added to the Wildcats’ discomfort by firing their artillery and mortars at the Wildcats simultaneously with the firing of the 81st Division’s own weapons. Often the Wildcat artillerymen in the rear would get calls from the front line to cease firing because they were hitting their own men, when the artillerymen knew this could not be the case. This trick worked until the Wildcats could distinguish between Japanese and American fire, but that would take a few more days.∞∂ The 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop landed on Red Beach and sent a combat patrol to help mop up the Japanese snipers between Capes Ngatpokul and Ngariois. In the jungle, the Wildcats searched for the Japanese snipers with death being one misstep away, but the Japanese remained hidden, waiting for easier prey. It soon arrived. At 1600, the 317th Field Artillery Battalion landed at Blue Beach and occupied this area.∞∑ That night, Battery C, 317th Field Artillery Battalion, posted Private Thomas R. Garrie as an outpost guard for the unit. ‘‘He was in a foxhole and was infiltrated by Japanese. He unloaded a clip on them, reached down to get another clip, and a Japanese soldier fell in on him. He could hardly move around, but he beat the guy’s brains out with the butt of his carbine and threw him out of his foxhole. He stayed in the foxhole until morning. The field artillery commander sent a group up to get him; they thought he was dead. When they got there, they found Japs scattered all over the place, and he was still in the foxhole. They counted thirteen that he killed that night.’’∞∏ Although the 81st Division had nearly achieved its objective for the day, it had in fact gained little ground, and still had not drawn out the main Japanese force. Accordingly, General Mueller ordered both regimental combat teams to attack at 0730 the next day. He wanted to occupy all the territory north of the 0-5 line, including Saipan Town, Middle Village, and Romauldo Hill. More importantly, he wanted to find the Japanese force and defeat it. General Mueller wanted results in a hurry, perhaps because his immediate superior, General Roy Geiger, had visited Angaur on that day. General Geiger wanted Angaur secured, and quickly. Not only did Geiger want construction started on the bomber airstrip, but also,

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more importantly, he believed that the Wildcats would soon be required on Peleliu, where the marines were being decimated. Colonel Lewis B. ‘‘Chesty’’ Puller’s 1st Marine Regiment (the word ‘‘regiment’’ is not normally in the marine unit’s designation, thus the 1st Marine Regiment is normally referred to as the 1st Marines), had suffered especially heavy losses. Two companies in its 1st Battalion were nearing combat ineffectiveness, its 3rd Battalion was now onethird its original size, and 18 September had been another especially bloody day for them.∞π At 0600 on 19 September, on the defensive perimeter’s left flank near Rocky Point, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, relieved the 1st Battalion, which, less Company G, became the division reserve. Company G went into regimental reserve. The attack jumped off at 0730 as planned. Tanks from Companies A and C, 710th Tank Battalion, led the attack. In line from east to west, and advancing south, were the infantry Companies K, L, E, F, I and C. The line slowly moved forward three hundred yards without Japanese resistance, when suddenly machine-gun fire from three pillboxes stopped Company L in its tracks south of Rocky Point. By 0900, Company L, was again advancing after demolishing these Japanese positions and killing the defenders. The advance continued south with Company K moving along the coast and Company L about three hundred yards inland. Before long, Company K came upon a system of integrated strong points consisting of two large pillboxes and occupied caves about 150 yards north of Green Beach Three. Colonel Dark called for artillery and mortar fire on the pillboxes, but the advancing Wildcats continued to meet intense automatic weapons fire and coordinated mortar barrages every time they threatened one of these Japanese positions. Heavy casualties resulted.∞∫ Private First Class Keith Axelson was one of the Company K Wildcats assaulting these Japanese positions. He recalled: I remember moving up to attack a bunker which had been stalling our advance. This bunker, I believe, was to the left of Rocky Point. Apparently, it was defended by a 90mm antiaircraft piece firing airbursts right above us. Getting into position took some time. On the way, I recall ducking to the

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ground as machine-gun fire passed overhead. My first real direct taste of death—a Japanese soldier had been blown in half, legs to the right of me, torso and head on the left. His body and head appeared to be standing in a foxhole. I was lying on his viscera, still connected to both body parts. Moving forward I saw another Japanese to my right lying face-up with flies in his eyes. Alongside of him was an unexploded fourteen-inch naval shell embedded in the earth. We soon were in a skirmish line in front of the invisible bunker.∞Ω When we were thirty to forty yards in front of the bunker, the stuff began raining on us, shrapnel whizzing everywhere. I recall going up and back several times. By this time, an LCI moved up very close to shore on our left and began a heavy bombardment with rockets. I remember that well, scared but happy, and wondering how anything could live through it. I found out soon enough. On my last advance, we ran into the same defense. While crawling over a log I felt like something or some one had hit me with a baseball bat. I’ve heard this description many times in my life with regards to wounds, and it still remains the most apt. I could look over my right shoulder and see blood pouring out. I began calling for Georgolis, our medic. At the time, I don’t remember feeling any pain. Georgolis appeared rather quickly and soothed my fears. He convinced me I was not bleeding to death and bandaged me. I began crawling back and out of line. As soon as I could, I crouched and worked my way back further. About one hundred yards out of the line, I was shot by a sniper in my arm. This time I just waited, alone. A while later a guy driving a Weasel came by and offered me a ride back. At the aid station I was checked over, I recall refusing morphine, and being taken to the field hospital.≤≠ Tanks from the 3rd Platoon, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, aided Company K’s attack on the bunker. One tree-burst killed a tank commander and severely wounded the platoon leader, but the tanks finally destroyed the position. It contained two 77mm guns.≤∞ Reaching the edge of a swamp—the existence of which had eluded aerial reconnaissance because of the heavy jungle canopy—behind Green Beach Three, Company L turned east to attack the Japanese

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positions holding up Company K. However, several attempts by both columns to converge on the fortified positions failed because of the torrential machine-gun and accurate mortar fire. Meanwhile, elements of the 2nd Battalion had reached the western side of the swamp. The 2nd Battalion had moved rapidly forward at 0730, seizing Middle Village by 0900. Along the way, the Wildcats destroyed abandoned Japanese bunkers and pillboxes to prevent their reoccupation. The 322nd Infantry jumped off at 0730. Stretching from the north shore of Angaur to the center of the island were the 2nd, 1st, and 3rd Battalions, in that order. The objective of the 2nd and 1st Battalions, attacking southwest, was to occupy all ground north of the 0-4 line. Romauldo Hill was to be encircled from the south and mopped up by the 2nd Battalion, which also had the responsibility of preventing any enemy from escaping the battle zone to Red Beach via the north coast. With the attached Sherman tanks of Company B and one platoon from Company C, 3rd Battalion’s mission was to capture Saipan Town, and then move south to the region between the 0-4 and 0-5 line. The 3rd Battalion advanced with two companies abreast, Company K on the right and Company I on the left, with the Cannon Company in support. These Wildcats quickly captured Saipan Town against token resistance. From Saipan Town, the 3rd Battalion swept south toward the 0-5 line. At the same time, the work of rooting out and killing bypassed Japanese troops got underway with mop-up teams thoroughly combing streets and shattered buildings in Saipan Town and fortifications along the west coast.≤≤ Kenneth Andersen, one of the Wildcats clearing out snipers in Saipan Town, recalled, ‘‘You were on one side of the street and your partner was on the other side, and you worked together as a team, watching each other’s back. My partner across the street, he shot a Jap [behind me] that I couldn’t see.’’≤≥ At the beginning of Fox+2 (19 September), the 1st Battalion, now the regimental reserve, was located in northern Angaur between the 0-1 and 0-2 phase lines. Ordered to move southwest at the beginning of the attack, it advanced through the wooded area between the Milwaukee and Northern Railroads. It arrived at the phosphate plant at 1100. However, upon arrival, it found that the zone of operation west

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Shrine Hill, captured on 19 September 1944, as viewed from the wrecked phosphate plant. Courtesy National Archives (111-SC-261201).

of the plant was too small for three battalions. As its mission was to support the 3rd Battalion, which did not need its help, the 1st Battalion was ordered to assemble as the regimental reserve northeast of the phosphate plant near the plant’s acid storage area between the Western and Northern Railroads. Meanwhile, Companies E and F of the 2nd Battalion, coming from the north, passed north of Lake Aztec and west of the Milwaukee Railroad, and marched south to the Milwaukee-Western Railroad junction. At the railroad junction, they made contact with the 1st Battalion, already placed on reserve duty. They then continued on to the phosphate plant, where the assault troops wheeled right, advancing west-northwest to envelope Romauldo Hill. Company G, meanwhile, remained in the north as a reserve. Two small hills immediately fronted Companies E and F. Along the west coast, west-northwest of the phosphate plant, rose Shrine Hill, and farther north, Palomas Hill, also called Lighthouse Hill because of the now destroyed lighthouse on its summit. A ridge about one hundred feet high connected these hills, and both hills stood guard over the Romauldo Hill region. About noon, when the Wild-

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cats of Companies E and F approached Shrine Hill, they encountered heavy enemy fire for the first time. Caves occupied by Japanese infantrymen covered the hills and surrounding area, which the Wildcats attacked using a combination of tank fire, automatic weapons, flamethrowers, and demolitions. Company E started up Shrine Hill while Company F attacked Palomas Hill. Company E scaled Shrine Hill and soon captured the summit and its Shinto shrine. The main threat came from the western slope where the Wildcats probed a large cave and provoked a counterattack by approximately thirty Japanese soldiers. The Wildcats killed many of them and drove the rest back into the cave that the engineers sealed, entombing them. After personally inspecting the frontline positions during these advances, General Mueller met with his assistant division commander, Brigadier General Marcus B. Bell, and with the commanders of the two RCTs, Colonels Robert Dark and Benjamin Venable, south of the phosphate plant. After reviewing the situation with his commanders, General Mueller ordered them to capture all of Angaur before dark. This certainly appeared possible. The Japanese were not in Saipan Town or Middle Village, and the only resistance encountered this morning was at the Green Beaches and around Shrine and Palomas Hills. Judging by the number of Japanese killed, the remaining defenders were greatly outnumbered. At the same time, the Wildcats were gaining experience and becoming more combat effective. Although Angaur was not yet secured, it certainly looked as if the situation was well in hand. No longer needing the 906th Artillery Battalion, General Mueller issued orders to have it reattached to the 323rd RCT and be reembarked for the movement to Ulithi Atoll. He also authorized Colonel Dark to use the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, the division reserve, in his efforts to secure quickly the Green Beaches. In accordance with General Mueller’s new orders, Colonel Dark, in the early afternoon, revised the plan of maneuver in the 321st RCT zone. The 3rd Battalion would continue attacking south along the coast toward the Green Beaches. The 2nd Battalion, with tank support, would move down the regimental boundary to Angaur’s west coast to capture southern Angaur, and then push east to surround the

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Green Beaches. The 1st Battalion, released from division reserve after serving in that capacity for only about six hours, would move into the area vacated by the 2nd Battalion and attack the Japanese fortifications at the Green Beaches from the rear. It was a difficult mission insofar as the battalion had to pass through swampy terrain to get to the beaches; moreover, the battalion now consisted only of Company B, Headquarters Company, and a section of Company D, since Company A was now attached to the 2nd Battalion for its advance south. Deciding to find out what awaited them in southern Angaur, Colonel Dark authorized a tank-infantry reconnaissance patrol into this area as recommended by the 710th Tank Battalion commander.≤∂ This patrol left the swamp area at 1330 moving southwest to Road Junction 18 (RJ 18) near Garangaoi Cove. From there, the tanks moved less than a mile east to the south end of Green Beach Two, and then north to contact the 1st Battalion west of Green Beach Three at 1700. Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff, commander of the 1st Platoon, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, recalled this mission: ‘‘We never ran across one Jap. The infantry was riding on the back of the tanks, and when we got to those positions, they would dismount, go over, poke around there, and see if there was anyone there, but they never ran across one Jap. By that time, they had all gone up in the hills.’’≤∑ Following the armored patrol to the southwest, the 2nd Infantry Battalion reached the north edge of a coconut grove at 1600. This position was along the west coast about eight hundred yards north of the south shoreline. Since the 2nd Battalion had not reached the southern shore of Angaur, the companies moved in a column to the east and established a defensive perimeter, facing south, stretching from just below Green Beach Two on the east coast, passing south of the swamp, and across the island to the west coast. An armored bulldozer cut a swath through the jungle in front of the entire line to provide a clear field of fire for the night. The tanks at Green Beach Three moved south and took positions near this perimeter. If the main Japanese force was at the southern end of Angaur, it was not going to get out. Meanwhile, the 3rd Battalion driving south knocked out the caves and bunkers along the east coast and reached the north edge of Green Beach Three by sunset. The 1st Battalion had worked through the swamp west of the Green Beaches, advancing six hundred yards by nightfall against stiff Japanese resistance. It then tied in on the north

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Wildcats of the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, searching for the main Japanese force believed to be in southern Angaur, 19 September 1944. Courtesy National Archives.

with the 3rd Battalion, and secured its right flank near the swamp. This, in combination with the 2nd Battalion stretching across the island south of the swamp, isolated the remaining Japanese in southern Angaur on Green Beaches One, Two and Three.≤∏ While the 321st RCT advanced in southern Angaur, the 322nd RCT continued its efforts to envelop Romauldo Hill in the north while simultaneously moving south to the 0-6 line. With Company E on Shrine Hill, Company F, now reinforced with Company B, continued fighting near Palomas Hill. These forces succeeded in taking the hill and the surrounding area by late afternoon. Before nightfall, the 2nd Battalion sent a patrol north on a trail along Black Beach to flank the Romauldo Hill area on the west, but it received heavy machine-gun fire from a wooded ridge that ended the venture. Concurrently, Company G, released from regimental reserve and now at the phosphate plant, advanced north along the Western Railroad with the goal of flanking Romauldo Hill on the east. After following the Western Railroad three hundred yards north from its junction

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with the Milwaukee Railroad, the Wildcats discovered that it passed through a deep cut with steep banks fifty to seventy-five feet high. Company G stopped before the cut and sent patrols up both banks. On the top of the ridge, the patrols viewed a shallow, roughly triangular basin with its apex at the railroad cut. It was both broad and deep, the base being nearly 400 yards wide and about 350 yards north of the apex. It contained Lake Salome, a shallow lake two hundred yards in diameter, and a network of short railroad spur lines near the apex. Depressions, coral pinnacles, low ridges, trenches, and undergrowth pocked its floor. Steep, rough coral ridges, seventy-five to one hundred feet high, covered with heavy jungle growth that camouflaged both natural and fabricated caves and tunnels, surrounded it on all sides. It was really a huge coral pit created from the strip mining of phosphate ore and converted by the Japanese into a devilish defensive position. The Wildcats named this area Angaur Bowl. From the ridge top, the Wildcats spotted a small group of Japanese moving through the undergrowth near the southern portion of the bowl, each soldier camouflaged with bundles of grass tied to their backs. The Wildcats sprayed them with light machine-gun fire, and the Japanese quickly responded. From within Angaur Bowl, including the surrounding ridges, unseen Japanese returned the Wildcats’ fire with artillery, mortar, machine-gun, and rifle fire. Perhaps the Wildcats did not yet realize it, but they had just found the main Japanese force.≤π In the south, the 3rd Battalion had advanced to Garangaoi Cove and set up a night perimeter from there back to Saipan Town. At Garangaoi Cove, it tied in to the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, which extended the defensive perimeter to the east coast of Angaur. With all of the 81st Division’s combat troops in central and south Angaur, and with the first inklings that the main Japanese force resided around Romauldo Hill, General Mueller and Colonel Venable became concerned about the men and activities around Red Beach, now relatively unprotected. Colonel Venable ordered the 1st Battalion, 322nd RCT, north to set up an arc perimeter anchored on the north shore and stretching past Lake Aztec to the Pacific Railroad. This created a gap between the 1st and 2nd Battalions, but considering the rough terrain in the gap, it seemed a safe thing to do. The Wildcats captured their first Japanese prisoner late in the afternoon. They found him severely wounded in a dugout on Red

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Beach, which he had occupied for the past six days. Upon interrogation, the prisoner gave his name, unit, and the information that all troops except his battalion had left Angaur for Babelthuap the previous June, leaving about twelve hundred Japanese soldiers on Angaur. Based on the information provided by the prisoner, the intelligence personnel of the 81st Division now estimated that around eight hundred Japanese had been killed, leaving perhaps four hundred to fight.≤∫ On 20 September (Fox + 3), 2nd Battalion’s objective remained the encirclement and mopping up of Romauldo Hill. After withdrawing from Palomas Hill the previous evening and digging in near the phosphate plant, Companies E and F, supported by five Sherman tanks, had orders to recapture the area around Palomas Hill and attack Romauldo Hill from the southwest. At the same time, Company G, supported by the Cannon Company, would again thrust through the railroad cut leading into Angaur Bowl, thus attacking the pocket from the south. It was hoped that by attacking from the west and south simultaneously, a breakthrough into the bowl could be made. While the 1st and 3rd Battalions remained in their defensive positions, Companies E and F jumped off at 0730 and by 0900 had occupied Palomas Hill and turned it into an observation post. During the battle for Palomas Hill and the surrounding area, the Wildcats captured substantial amounts of food and equipment, including four 75mm guns, but no Japanese defenders. After capturing Palomas Hill, Companies E and F attacked northeast toward the southwest ridges of Angaur Bowl. They discovered the going impossible because of the rough terrain and Japanese resistance. These Wildcats came under extremely heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from the bowl area, and progressed only yards northeast of Palomas Hill before dark. As during the previous afternoon, Company G moved up the Western Railroad to the cut. The Wildcats set up mortar and machinegun positions atop the banks of the cut to support the movement into the bowl. Next, the Cannon Company sent three M8 self-propelled howitzers (actually M5 light tanks modified to carry 75mm howitzers) in single file through the fifty-yard-long cut into the bowl.≤Ω The Japanese had the cut zeroed-in from caves and other defensive positions on the high ground around the bowl, and they had sown mines

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along the railroad bed in the cut. Upon emerging from the cut’s exit into the bowl, the M8s initially met only heavy small-arms fire; however, the leading M8 was dangerously exposed. The second M8 remained behind the leader near the exit. A third M8 remained in the cut. Soon an onslaught from all types of weapons hit the Wildcats. The M8s returned fire with both their 75mm howitzers and 0.50 caliber machine guns at the concealed enemy. At 1300, one of the two leading M8s ran over a mine, disabling it, and a Japanese antitank gun, believed to be a 77mm weapon hidden on the bowl’s eastern slopes, disabled the other. The rear M8 in the cut backed out unscathed.≥≠ Stymied in the two approaches, at 1400 Company B assembled southeast of the bowl and attacked westward. They met no enemy resistance, but the terrain slowed the advance to a crawl. Company B could not help.≥∞ With little progress on all three fronts, Lieutenant Ross Hadfield, 3rd Platoon, 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, led a special detachment around the north shore of the island to Romauldo Hill. Their mission: locate the antitank gun zeroed in on the railroad cut. He remembered, ‘‘I had one section—six of us. General Bell had us come in on the other side of the bowl to try and find the Jap guns [that were] knocking out the tanks trying to enter. We went in on rubber rafts. We spent four days and three nights up there. During the day, the Japanese, or our own infantry, would shoot at us with machine guns. We were in contact with the 155s, the artillery. We’d spot Japanese, radio to artillery, and report results. They hit the devil out of the side of the hill where the Japanese were located.’’≥≤ Later in the day, tanks attached to the 321st Infantry were reassigned from the southern part of the island to aid Company G. The tanks, however, could do nothing until the damaged M8s were removed from the cut. Though some troops from Company G managed to force their way inside the bowl to the edge of Lake Salome, no large scale or deep penetration could be made. After suffering heavy casualties, at 1500 the 2nd Battalion withdrew all the companies to the previous night’s perimeter around the phosphate plant, except for Palomas Hill, which remained occupied. Although several hours of daylight remained, the Wildcats withdrew from their exposed positions, untenable during the night anyway, to

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allow artillery registration during the daylight hours on the Japanese positions. A heavy concentration of artillery fire was planned for Angaur Bowl and Romauldo Hill during the night.≥≥ On Fox + 3, the 321st Infantry had two pockets of resistance to overcome. For the 2nd Battalion, reinforced with two rifle companies from the 1st Battalion, the mission was to drive to the southern tip of Angaur and wipe out the enemy’s main force, thought to be three hundred to four hundred strong. The 1st and 3rd Battalions were to finish reducing the fortifications around Green Beaches Two and Three. At 0800, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Clainos ordered the entire 2nd Battalion south. Shortly thereafter, these Wildcats easily reached the southern shore without finding the main Japanese force. With the southern pocket eliminated, Company C remained in the area to hunt down snipers and bypassed Japanese soldiers, while demolition teams from Company A, 306th Engineers, destroyed the remaining abandoned defensive positions. The rest of the battalion moved north to help the 1st and 3rd Battalions finish off the Japanese defending Green Beaches Two and Three. The 1st and 3rd Battalions, with help from demolition engineers and an armored bulldozer, had already significantly compressed the Japanese pocket by the time the 2nd Battalion arrived. The 1st Battalion, less Companies A and C, but supported by tanks, came abreast and to the right of the 3rd Battalion at 0930. The 3rd Battalion continued pushing south along the coast. During the advance, the Wildcats discovered that most of the Japanese defenders had escaped during the night. Nevertheless, it was still slow going because each fortification encountered had to be carefully approached, searched, and destroyed. By early afternoon, organized resistance in the Green Beaches fortifications had collapsed and mopping up began.≥∂ With all of Angaur in American hands except for Romauldo Hill and Angaur Bowl, at 1055 General Mueller sent a radio message to III Phib Corps headquarters reporting, ‘‘All organized resistance ceased on Angaur at 1034. Island Secure.’’≥∑ For the Wildcats of the 2nd Battalion, 322nd Infantry, who were still battling just to enter Angaur Bowl, such a declaration must have seemed premature. Nonetheless, by late morning on Fox + 3, it was clear the 81st Wildcat Division controlled the island. The island was

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indeed secure, but the increased enemy resistance in Angaur Bowl foretold brutal fighting to come. Angaur was invaded to build a heavy bomber airstrip. To start the building process, the 1884th and the 1887th Engineer Battalions (Aviation) sent reconnaissance parties ashore on Fox + 2 to determine the site of the landing strip. On Fox + 3, survey parties started centerline construction with borrowed bulldozers while waiting for their own men and equipment to be unloaded from the ships. These engineers would spend the next several weeks creating the air base for the anticipated B-24 Liberators.≥∏ On this day the first burial in the 81st Infantry Division cemetery on Angaur took place. The cemetery site near Red Beach had been selected on Fox+2, and the engineers immediately started surveying it. The American dead had to be identified and buried quickly because the tropical heat and humidity of Angaur caused the bodies to bloat and decompose rapidly. Bodies were not embalmed, just put in the ground wrapped in blankets, ponchos, or shelter halves while still in battle fatigues. Several chaplains on the island took turns holding burial services up to twice daily. The mortally wounded that died aboard hospital ships were buried at sea.≥π The 81st Infantry Division had now subdued all but northwest Angaur. General Mueller believed that approximately 350 Japanese remained concentrated in this small area, and that the 322nd RCT would make short work of eliminating them. Actually, Major Goto still had nearly 750 men concealed in the natural and prepared defensive positions in the rugged terrain, and he planned on resisting and fighting to the death.≥∫ Accordingly, the 322nd RCT planned a three-prong attack on Angaur Bowl, starting at 0800 on Fox + 4 (21 September). Two battalions would take part in the attack. From the 2nd Battalion, Company G would once more attack Angaur Bowl through the railroad cut, and Companies E and F would advance north along Black Beach, looking for a way into the bowl from the west. The 1st Battalion would attack the bowl from the east. Colonel Venable’s plan would throw about two thousand riflemen and officers, supported by mortars, artillery and tanks, at the enemy. He believed this numerical advantage, along

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with the heavy weapons support, ought to be enough to overrun the enemy and mop up the area. The 3rd Battalion, less Company I, replaced the 1st Battalion guarding Red Beach. Company I stayed at Saipan Town to prevent looting and to protect a recently discovered water supply. When Saipan Town fell, the Wildcats found two cisterns full of fresh water. The 306th Combat Engineers installed a portable chlorinating unit at the cisterns and began issuing water from this source. These cisterns supplied badly needed water to the Wildcats on Angaur for the next two weeks. During the night preceding the attack, the 317th and Battery C, 318th Field Artillery Battalion, along with LCIs and LCI(M)s, (Landing Craft, Infantry [Mortar]) placed interdictory fire on Black Beach, Angaur Bowl, and Romauldo Hill, trying to disrupt Japanese movement in these areas. Then, beginning at 0600, the artillery battalions started a one-hour preparatory barrage on Angaur Bowl. At 0700, navy planes swarmed in dropping napalm, 500-pound bombs, firing rockets, and strafing with .50-caliber machine guns, until 0730. As the last plane flew away, the artillery opened fire again, pumping shells into and around the bowl. At 0800, the artillery fell silent and the Wildcats advanced, many wondering if any Japanese had survived the blitz. Company G, supported by five tanks from Company C, found out soon enough. Overnight, Major Goto had decided to defend the railroad cut. He had positioned men on the steep banks, and by 0900 their heavy fire from the high ground stopped Company G’s advance short of the gap. Company G then called for a fifteen-minute artillery and mortar barrage on the banks. This barrage drove the Japanese from the banks, which the Wildcats occupied on both sides of the cut by 0945. They immediately set up weapons to fire into the bowl as they waited for the tanks to pass through the cut and for the 1st Battalion to show up to the north. The tanks entered the gap, but discovered that the Japanese had blocked the northern exit with the disabled M8s, and had set them on fire. Removing the M8s became a major problem. The Japanese had them sighted-in with small arms and heavy weapons. Initially, the tanks tried to blast the M8s out of the way by shooting them at point blank range. This failed, so demolition engineers threw satchel charges in them, but this only blew out the fires. Finally, a few men

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braved the enemy fire and attached cables to the destroyed M8s, and a tank pulled them out of the way. Because of the intense Japanese fire and the resulting casualties around the railroad cut, the Wildcats named it ‘‘Bloody Gulch,’’ and the surrounding banks ‘‘Suicide Hill.’’≥Ω By noon, the tanks had passed through the cut and began firing on caves along the bowl’s walls. Because of the craggy terrain, the tanks had to stay on the raised roadbeds of the spur lines. Trying to maneuver to better firing positions, two of the tanks moved a short distance off a railroad bed and both overturned, causing one to burst into flames when gasoline leaked onto the hot engine. The other tank was disarmed and abandoned. The remaining three tanks supported the infantrymen from the cut’s northern exit. Japanese patrols set the second overturned tank on fire that night.∂≠ Brooks Nicklas, Company G, remembered, ‘‘Our Captain Lightsey was leading our company and was right beside the tanks; a Jap jumped out of a hole and struck him in the face with his bayonet. Captain Lightsey raised his carbine, and it just snapped because he had forgotten to put a round in the chamber. The Jap jumped back in the hole. Our Lieutenant Belt had taken cover on the opposite side of the railroad, and when the Jap looked out, he shot him and he fell out on the tracks.’’ A photographer happened to be nearby and snapped a picture of this dead Japanese soldier lying on the tracks. Brooks Nicklas continued, After that, we couldn’t go through the gulch because of all the firing, so we went over the right- and left-hand sides of the gulch. We drew a lot of sniper fire, but nobody was hit. The tanks came through the gulch. Four of us followed two tanks, two behind each tank. I was behind the head tank. We followed the tanks to keep the Japanese from climbing on the blind side and dropping grenades in them. The tank slipped off the narrow roadbed, turned over, and caught fire. Three tankers got out of the tank through the trap door underneath, and with the two of us, five started back to the second tank, and that’s when the machine-gun fire opened up on us, all the way back to the Bloody Gulch. Two of us didn’t get hit; the other three did with the machine-gun fire. The gulch was mined, and shells were exploding in it, but we went through there anyway.∂∞

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Men of Company G, 322nd RCT, prepare to move through Bloody Gulch after killing a Japanese sniper, 21 September 1944. Courtesy National Archives.

Once inside Angaur Bowl, the infantrymen of Company G worked at silencing Japanese positions with a combination of small-arms fire, grenades, flamethrowers, and demolitions, using the tanks as supporting artillery. The nearness of the Wildcats to potential targets prevented the use of air strikes and regular artillery support. The battle was a game of cat and mouse. Remaining concealed in trees, caves, bunkers, and crevices, the Japanese fired down on the Americans. They held their fire, waiting for the best targets. Firing into the ridges from the floor below, the Wildcats had to first locate the Japanese, then flush them out or seal them up. The struggle continued for several hours in temperatures reaching 115 degrees, but by early afternoon the Japanese had pinned down Company G and the attacked had slowed to a crawl. Casualties mounted.∂≤ Lieutenant Clay Sheffield, commander of the Headquarters Company Antitank Platoon (2nd Battalion), remembered: There was a company up there that was trapped. The Japs were firing at them from the front and both sides. They were calling for help, and so six of my men went up there with

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stretchers to help bring out the wounded. Three of them were wounded, and one of them was killed. I came up, and standing right there at the entrance of the gulch, there was a magazine photographer and a War Department photographer. I ran up there with my sergeant and one of the men that had pulled the wounded men back behind that knocked-out tank. I said, ‘‘I need some more help here, we don’t have enough people to man these stretchers.’’ The man from the magazine turned and gave his—I never will forget this—he gave his camera and his film to the man from the War Department, and said, ‘‘If I don’t get back, be sure these get to my magazine,’’ and he turned to me and said, ‘‘I’m ready to go.’’ He took one end of a stretcher and I took the other one, and we made two trips out there under machine-gun fire to bring them out. Fortunately, nobody got hit by the fire as we brought them out.∂≥ Richard Neal Smith, a medic with Company B, 306th Medical Battalion, remembered, ‘‘I lost one of my men there. He died in my arms. His name was Wilber Johnson [Private Wilber L. Johnson]. We were bringing in the casualties. He was shot across his chest and stomach by a machine-gun burst.’’∂∂ To reinforce the drive, at 1400, Companies I of the 3rd Battalion and C from the 1st Battalion were ordered into the bowl. However, both arrived too late to make a difference in the fighting.∂∑ While Company G struggled to cross Angaur Bowl, Companies E and F of the 2nd Battalion advanced north up the west coast of the island. By 1400, patrols had reached the northwest tip of Angaur against light resistance, destroying many caves encountered on the way. However, when the units turned inland to flank the pocket, they found no useable routes east through the jagged coral ridges with steep cliffs one hundred feet high. At 0800, Company B led 1st Battalion’s attempt to flank the pocket from the east side. It hacked its way through dense jungle foliage, stumbling over the rough coral ground, followed by the rest of the 1st Battalion. By late afternoon, Company B had progressed about two hundred yards and reached the east ridge of the bowl. With little daylight left, these Wildcats did not have time to attack, so they withdrew to a defensible night perimeter. This column did not meet any

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substantial enemy resistance, but a few huge 150mm mortar shells landed near Company B. As the sunlight began to wane, Company G and the remaining three tanks pulled back from Angaur Bowl to a night perimeter outside the railroad cut. During the day, the tanks had received fire from 37mm guns without damage, and they in turn knocked out one of the guns. Companies E and F on the coast gave up some of the ground gained to establish secure positions before dark. Once again, the Wildcats had little to show for the heavy casualties suffered during the day.∂∏ Over the past few days, Colonel Venable found it difficult to employ more than one company at a time against the Japanese. Although today he planned a three-prong attack involving two battalions, only Company G got into action. The heat, humidity, and terrain resisted the Wildcats as much as the Japanese did. Major Goto had picked his defensive ground well. With the battle for Angaur still raging—even though the island had been declared ‘‘secure’’—the 323rd RCT, following Admiral Halsey’s orders, sailed for Ulithi Atoll with the Ulithi Attack Group under Admiral William H. P. Blandy, thus leaving the III Phib Corps without reserves.∂π Around the same time (1625), a radio transmission arrived at division headquarters that began a completely new and bloody venture for the 321st RCT. The message from Major General Roy S. Geiger read, ‘‘Can you spare me one RCT complete for movement to Peleliu immediately.’’∂∫ At 1705, Major General Paul J. Mueller replied that the 321st RCT could be available immediately after re-supply. He notified Colonel Robert Dark to prepare his regimental combat team for the new mission. After seven days of vicious fighting on Peleliu, the 1st Marine Division desperately needed help, and the last reserve unit had just sailed away to seize Ulithi Atoll.∂Ω

3 Ulithi and Ngulu Atolls

A

dmiral Halsey believed Ulithi Atoll to be the only worthwhile target in the Stalemate II operation, and because the invasion date for Leyte had been advanced to 20 October, he wanted it captured quickly. He needed a forward naval base close to the Philippines and other anticipated war zones. Ulithi’s deepwater lagoon satisfied this need perfectly. Accordingly, on 16 September, he ordered Rear Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson, commander of the Joint Expeditionary Force, to take Ulithi as early as possible with whatever forces he had available.∞ Unfortunately, Wilkinson did not have any available forces for this mission. The only troops that he could send to Ulithi belonged to the 81st Infantry Division, currently the III Phib Corps reserve. To send them would obviously jeopardize the operation. While the 1st Marine Division was struggling on Peleliu, Major General Julian C. Smith, who reported directly to Admiral Wilkinson, argued against releasing any of the reserve force until the situation on Peleliu became more stable. He lost this argument, and Major General Mueller received word later on 16 September that one of his Wildcat combat teams would be required for this duty.≤ Coincidently, Major General William H. Rupertus, commander of the 1st Marine Division, had not requested help from the army reserves by sundown on 16 September. Believing the marines had the situation well in hand on Peleliu, Rear Admiral George H. Fort, com74

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mander of the Peleliu Attack Force, and Major General Roy S. Geiger, commander of the III Phib Corps, agreed to release the 81st Division’s 321st and 322nd RCTs from reserve status to invade Angaur the next day. With these two regimental combat teams invading Angaur, this left the 323rd RCT as the designated unit for invading Ulithi Atoll. On 17 September, Admiral Halsey arrived off Peleliu and Angaur on his flagship, the battleship New Jersey, to assess personally the situations on these islands. After doing so, he did not rescind his order to occupy Ulithi. On the evening of 17 September, after observing two of his RCTs invade Angaur, General Mueller attended a meeting on the Fremont, Admiral William H. P. Blandy’s flagship and his command ship, where he received the formal order to have the 323rd RCT ready to leave for Ulithi as quickly as possible. Several units attached to the 323rd RCT had landed on Angaur, so it could not leave for Ulithi until these units were relieved from their combat duties. In the meantime, Admiral Blandy was placed in command of the Ulithi operation, and informed that his Angaur Attack Group would become the Ulithi Attack Group. Colonel Arthur P. Watson, commanding officer of the 323rd RCT, would report directly to Blandy. Of the 323rd RCT units that had landed on Angaur, Company C, 306th Engineer Battalion, and a detachment from the 81st Quartermaster Company, could not be spared for the mission to Ulithi Atoll. These units remained on Angaur while the 906th Field Artillery Battalion; Company A, 726th Amphibian Tractor Battalion; and the 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion embarked on ships that would take them to Ulithi. This loading process was completed on 20 September 1944.≥ The target of this operation, Ulithi Atoll, consists of over thirty small islands surrounded by coral reefs ringing a lagoon. The lagoon is somewhat oval-shaped, about twenty-two miles long in a north-south direction, and fourteen miles across at its widest point. Its depth is eighty to one hundred feet. Several channels allow entrance into the lagoon, but the best ones are Mugai and Dowarugui Channels on the northeastern side. Ulithi lies about 380 miles northeast of Peleliu, 380 miles southwest of Guam, and 100 miles northeast of Yap. It is in the western Caroline Islands, but is not part of the Palau Islands. No one had paid much attention to Ulithi Atoll until Admiral Nimitz

Invasion of Ulithi Atoll, 23 September 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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‘‘discovered’’ it while studying charts. He decided it would make a good forward naval base, and set his mind on getting it. He made it a part of the Stalemate II operation.∂ By 1944, sailing vessels had been using the Ulithi lagoon for several hundred years. However, after the Japanese took control of the western Carolines, they had little use for Ulithi’s lagoon. They built weather and radio stations on Asor, one of the little islets, and had a seaplane base in the lagoon. It was not an unknown entity—American fast carrier groups had attacked it three times from late March to early September 1944. As the Japanese did not use it, and it had a total land area of only about one and one-half square miles, the planners deemed one regimental combat team adequate to take and hold it.∑ To discover what if anything the Japanese had on Ulithi, Admiral Blandy wanted the 323rd Infantry’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance (IR) Platoon to sail there in advance of the main force and reconnoiter several of the larger islets. It helped that the treasure trove of documents captured on Saipan showed that the lagoon and its entrance channels had been heavily mined in places.∏ On 19 September, the IR Platoon, along with a detachment from Company K, 323rd Infantry, departed for Ulithi. Underwater Demolition Team 10, one of two teams originally assigned to Angaur, accompanied them. Three minesweepers made the trip, attached to the Ulithi Fire Support Group commanded by Rear Admiral R. W. Hayler on the cruiser Denver. The Denver departed Angaur waters for Ulithi the next day, 20 September.π The Denver arrived south of Ulithi Atoll early the following day, 21 September. After rendezvousing with the advance force, the Denver moved to about two thousand yards off Falalop Island, and, at 0830, started bombarding the islands in support of the minesweepers and UDT 10’s frogmen as they reconnoitered five different beaches on the five largest islands: Asor, Sorlen, Falalop, Mogmog, and Potangeras Islands. These five islets formed the northern arc of the lagoon. By 1600, the frogmen had inspected all the beaches.∫ Ulithi’s invasion plan called for the lagoon’s northern end to be the unloading zone for the landing crafts. From here, the landing crafts had a direct route to beaches on four of the five target islands. Only Falalop Island lay completely outside the lagoon. Accordingly, minesweepers had to clear mines from this portion of the lagoon and the Mugai Channel leading into it. The minesweepers rushed into

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action because Admiral Hayler planned to sail his cruiser into the lagoon early the next day and have the frogmen mark the approaches to the beaches. The frogmen had one day to do this work as the invasion was scheduled for the following day. In addition, Hayler wanted Mangejang Islet, the one nearest Mugai Channel, captured quickly to protect the channel.Ω Around noon on 21 September, Hayler discussed with the IR Platoon leaders about landing on Mangejang Islet early the next morning. Knowing nothing about this island, Hayler approved a small reconnaissance party leaving at once in a small boat for circling the island just offshore, looking for signs of life and the best beach for landing the platoon. After seeing no one, and selecting a landing beach, Hayler authorized an immediate landing. The platoon landed at 1515, and a one-hour search showed that no one had been on the island for some time. After leaving thirteen men behind as a security force, the rest of the platoon returned to the ship and all the ships then retired south of Ulithi Atoll for the night.∞≠ Earlier, an observer on one of the Denver ’s scout planes had sketched the southern islands of Fassarai, Lossau, Demtabul (Feitabul), Pig, as well as Mangejang, and had spotted some natives on Fassarai. These sketches were passed to the IR Platoon Leader, and Hayler ordered him to land on Fassarai early the next morning and capture a few natives for questioning.∞∞ Meanwhile, Admiral Blandy and Colonel Watson sailed from Angaur for Ulithi on 21 September, on the Fremont, with units of the 323rd Infantry on four transports. Blandy’s convoy also included three jeep carriers; six destroyers; three PC boats (patrol craft, submarine chasers serving as escorts and invasion control boats); twelve LCI gunboats; five LSTs; and two LSDs (Landing Ship, Docks).∞≤ At 0530 on 22 September, the Denver catapulted its two scout planes and prepared to enter Ulithi’s lagoon. The ship entered the lagoon at about 0700, and thirty minutes later, the Denver began firing its six-inch guns at Sorlen Island. At 0900, the Denver had moved off Mogmog Island and started bombarding this island with its fiveinch and 40mm guns. This bombardment supported the frogmen as they placed marker buoys in the approaches to the invasion beaches.∞≥ While the frogmen worked in the lagoon, Lieutenant Richard P. Taffe led a detachment of the IR Platoon in two rubber boats to Fassarai Island. Two friendly natives met the detachment on the beach

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and told them that all the Japanese had left Ulithi, except for a crippled one on Asor Island. By 0930, the natives were on the Denver, and Admiral Hayler, after interrogating the natives, decided to cease firing on the islands and to land the IR Platoon on Sorlen Island. The natives said they would find only dead Japanese on Sorlen. Not surprisingly, a search of Sorlen turned up graves of six Japanese naval personnel, but nothing else. From Sorlen, the IR Platoon moved to Mogmog Island and advanced inland to a village. They found the village heavily damaged from the recent barrage, but no natives. One of the natives from Fassarai, serving as a guide, ran ahead of the troops, found the Mogmog natives, and convinced them the Wildcats were friendly. As the day came to an end, the IR Platoon left a small force on Mogmog and Sorlen Islands, replenished the supplies for the small force previously left on Mangejang Island, and returned the Fassarai natives to their homes.∞∂ At 1730, the ships left the lagoon and retired south of Ulithi Atoll for the night. Observations by the frogmen, IR Platoon personnel, and the observers in the scout planes, confirmed the natives’ information that the Japanese had abandoned Ulithi Atoll. Admiral Hayler had this information sent to Admiral Blandy late that night. After receiving this information from Hayler, Blandy gave Colonel Watson new orders at 0130 in the morning of 23 September 1944, invasion day for Ulithi Atoll, codenamed Jig Day. These orders set new landing times for invading the five major islands. All would be invaded in one day, with the earliest landing time only seven hours away. Since natives lived on some of the islands, these orders included having the battalion commanders set guards keeping the troops and the natives apart. After hearing that the invasion would probably be unopposed, Colonel Watson recommended to Admiral Blandy that only one battalion landing team be used at Ulithi, and return the other two to General Mueller’s control. Blandy rejected this recommendation because he had orders to sail to Manus Island as soon as possible and prepare for the Leyte invasion. As a result, he had to forgo this opportunity to return some of the reserve force to the III Phib Corps. By dawn, Admiral Blandy had the ships in his command properly arrayed in and just outside Ulithi’s lagoon. The frogmen of UDT 10

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stood ready to help the beach master and the boat control officer with the landings. The 906th Field Artillery, on one of the LSTs, drew the first landing assignment. At 0830, Blandy ordered it to land on Sorlen Island. Originally, Company K had been assigned to secure this island before landing the artillery, but since no Japanese troops were present, this mission was cancelled. Ten minutes after receiving Blandy’s order, reconnaissance teams from the 906th Field Artillery had landed on Sorlen, followed immediately by the remainder of the battalion. All naval and air support had been cancelled, but gunboats stood by in case of emergency. By noon, the battalion had positioned all their artillery pieces and started registration firing on the coral reef between Mogmog and Potangeras Islands. With Sorlen Island successfully occupied, the action shifted to Falalop Island where the 2nd Battalion Landing Team was scheduled to land at 0930. The cruiser Denver left the lagoon at 0845 and assumed a firing station fifteen hundred yards south of Falalop Island. The troops transferred from the ships to the landing crafts at 0800, and the first wave of Wildcats landed at 1018. Falalop Island is the largest island in the Ulithi Atoll, and had not been previously reconnoitered. The invasion force consisted of seven waves. The first two waves carried troops in armored LVTs, backed by a platoon of amphibian tanks. LCVPs, the Higgins boats, made up the remaining five waves. Again, naval and air support was cancelled. LCIs stood by, but could fire only if the first two waves met resistance going into the beach.∞∑ Robert Voss, a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, landed on Falalop Island. ‘‘All we came across,’’ he said, ‘‘were some natives. We were surprised to see them. They just came up to our lines.’’∞∏ Private First Class John Hirsch, also in Company F, remembered, ‘‘We expected Ulithi to be another battle. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the Japanese had pulled out. We took this vital group of islands without firing a shot.’’∞π After searching the entire island, the Wildcats declared it secure at 1315 that afternoon.∞∫ While the 2nd Battalion searched Falalop Island, the Denver left its station south of the island at 1140 and moved into position for supporting the scheduled 1230 landings on Asor Island. Once again, the ship took a position 1,500 yards south of the target island.∞Ω

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The 1st Battalion Landing Team landed on Asor at 1300, thirty minutes ahead of schedule. The Wildcats immediately came across two Japanese bodies in the water along the beach that appeared to have been dead for only about two or three days. Inland, they discovered several Japanese radio and weather installations that had been damaged in the carrier strike of 30 March 1944. The IR Platoon had not reconnoitered Asor Island, so the fire support ships stood by in case of unexpected Japanese resistance. Company B landed on the left in front of the radio and weather stations. They moved across the island to the other side in just eighteen minutes. Company C landed on the right, but their landing crafts had trouble passing over the coral reef, and many of the Wildcats waded to the beach. Moving inland, they passed through a village and turned southeast. Company A avoided the coral reef that hindered Company C by landing farther north. They then formed up on the left of Company C, and the two companies occupied the southeastern zone of the island.≤≠ Steve Dombrowski, a BAR man with Company C, described Asor as, ‘‘a small, flat island covered with holes, probably foxholes.’’≤∞ Before the invasion, the planners had selected Asor Island for the regimental command headquarters and bivouac area for the regimental troops. These regimental troops had landed at 1430. The 1st Battalion declared the island secure at 1620, and Colonel Watson moved ashore and began operating the regimental command post at 1700. Next, the 3rd Battalion Landing Team landed on Mogmog Island. These troops disembarked from the transport ships at 1245 and landed at 1420. Since the IR Platoon had already reconnoitered this island, the 3rd Battalion quickly declared the island secure at 1450. Company K landed on the island in armored LVTs originally intended for invading Sorlen, but the rest of the battalion landed in LCVPs.≤≤ ‘‘We landed on Mogmog Island in Ulithi,’’ said Eugene Schoendienst, Company K. ‘‘One of the landing crafts hit a mine and it tore everything up. There were oranges, potatoes, meat, everything washed up on the bank where we were.’’≤≥ The last island invaded was Potangeras, the one farthest northwest. Company I, 3rd Battalion Landing Team, along with a heavy machine-gun platoon, a 37mm antitank gun squad, and some amphibian tanks, struggled ashore over the coral reef. Some of the Wildcats ended up swimming and wading to the beach. They hit the beach

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around 1500, and declared the island secure at 1750. A search turned up eighteen natives whom the Wildcats held under guard. During the day, the IR Platoon reconnoitered the smaller islands around the southern end of the lagoon, and found nothing. In a movement not detected by American intelligence, the Japanese abandoned Ulithi in late summer 1944. General Inoue, the Japanese commander for the Palaus, inherited command of Yap and Ulithi after the fall of Saipan. Unlike Admiral Nimitz, he believed that Ulithi Atoll had no value to either the Japanese or the Americans, so he withdrew his forces to Yap. He thereby left open the door that the Wildcats rushed through, allowing the speedy upgrading of Ulithi into a floating naval base that would be used extensively during the invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa.≤∂ Since the Japanese were unaware of these landings, Admiral Nimitz withheld a press release announcing its occupation until 17 October 1944. Because of this delay, Ulithi later became known as a ‘‘secret’’ base.≤∑ On the morning of 24 September, with Major General Julian Smith and his staff aboard, who had witnessed the invasion of Ulithi, the Denver and two destroyers departed the lagoon for Kossol Passage in the Palaus. They arrived in the early morning hours of 25 September. General Smith and his staff transferred to a destroyer that returned them to the III Amphibious Corps’ command ship, Mount McKinley. Most of the remaining ships at Ulithi, including the cargo ships, transport ships, and the ship with UDT 10 aboard, left on 25 September for Manus to prepare for the invasion of the Philippines.≤∏ While the men of the 323rd RCT set about building more permanent shelters and beach defense installations, they enjoyed the wonderful, peaceful, paradise of Ulithi. They swam, drank coconut milk, and snapped pictures of the Ulithi women wearing only their customary grass skirts.≤π Robert Voss, describing Ulithi and Falalop Island, said, ‘‘It’s a big, beautiful lagoon, well protected, practically the whole fleet could anchor there. It wasn’t too hilly or anything, kind of rolling and marshy, mostly covered with coconut palms. The Seabees did build an airstrip as soon as we got it secured. They used it mostly for fighter planes and reconnaissance, small aircraft.’’≤∫

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The navy started moving in people and ships immediately after the 323rd RCT occupied the islands. Thousands of sailors would be in the islands, and the 325 natives needed protection. On 28 September, the newly installed atoll commander, Commodore O. O. Kessing, ordered the natives moved to Fassarai Island. After some persuading, the natives agreed to move, and thereafter the 323rd RCT cared for them. In addition, before the Seabees arrived, the 155th Engineer Battalion started constructing an airstrip on Falalop Island.≤Ω A typhoon approached Ulithi on 30 September, and the winds peaked on 3 October. About one-half of Admiral Halsey’s fast carrier force was anchored in Ulithi’s lagoon at this time. These ships had to go to sea on 3 October to ride out the typhoon, but they returned the next day.≥≠ Second Lieutenant Lee Kunce, on Asor, recalled, After we had been in there just a couple of days, a very strong typhoon hit the area. It was rather horrendous. My platoon sergeant and my runner and I took our shelter halves and wove them between the roots of banyan trees just for protection. We couldn’t keep the rain off of us, but we were trying to keep the wind from us. As I recall, that lasted some three or four days. The only people that got hurt were people that were located in groups, by platoons or sections. The wind was so strong that it uprooted a lot of palm trees, and occasionally these trees would come down on individuals, and there were a few men killed as a result of that.≥∞ Ever since 8 October, General Mueller knew that the 81st Infantry Division would replace the 1st Marine Division on Peleliu. Accordingly, he wanted the 323rd RCT moved to Peleliu as soon as possible to get them involved in the battle. A portion of the 323rd RCT, the 1st Battalion and its attached units, left Ulithi for Peleliu on 11 October 1944, while the rest of the 323rd RCT awaited the arrival of garrison troops. Since the army engineers were still helping the Seabees build the airstrip on Falalop, this priority work kept them at Ulithi for the time being. Also, on 10 October, Commodore Kessing ordered Colonel Watson to send a detachment of Wildcats as a landing force to occupy Ngulu Atoll. This detachment could not leave for Peleliu until after the completion of their mission.≥≤

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Ngulu Atoll had a lagoon believed to be capable of holding about three hundred ships. It was about 190 miles southwest of Ulithi Atoll, and about one hundred miles southwest of Yap. Since the entire Ulithi lagoon had not been surveyed by 10 October, Commodore Kessing wanted to know if the Ngulu lagoon could be used for any overflow traffic from Ulithi, if necessary. He wanted this done before losing all of the 323rd RCT. Because Japanese documents taken on Saipan showed the Japanese had mined the Ngulu lagoon, a navy force preceded the Wildcats to clear the mines. Minesweeping began on 15 October, and on that same day, a Wildcat detachment of 5 officers and 115 enlisted men boarded two LCIs and departed for Ngulu Atoll.≥≥ Captain Oscar D. Luttrell led this group of Wildcats, nicknamed the ‘‘Raiders,’’ which included elements of Companies E, F, G, and H from the 2nd Battalion, and Company B of the 155th Engineers. The engineers came along to do any needed underwater demolition work. The regimental intelligence officer and two Ulithi natives accompanied the Raiders to gain the cooperation of the Ngulu natives, and the executive officer of the 2nd Battalion served as the liaison officer with the navy task group commander. Some interpreters also joined the group. To prepare for this duty, the Raiders had been practicing amphibious landings with rubber boats for the past several days.≥∂ This landing force, supported by the destroyer Ellet, arrived at Ngulu early in the morning of 16 October, and immediately transferred into LCVPs for the invasion of Ngulu Island. The Wildcats landed without opposition, and did not find any Japanese on the island. However, it appeared that the radio and weather stations, along with nearby living quarters, had been recently occupied. The detachment declared Ngulu Island secured at 0830.≥∑ Three hours later, the Wildcats loaded into the LCVPs and formed two reconnaissance groups. One group assaulted Rottogorn and Letjegol Islands at 1300, again without opposition, and left the islands at 1700. The other group invaded Uatschaluk Island and found a native village. In one of the houses, the Wildcats found a Japanese trying to commit hara-kiri. When they tried to capture him, he raised his knife in defense, and they shot him. They found five more Japanese soldiers hiding in a grove of trees, and killed them when they charged the Wildcats with knives, spears, and clubs. Finding no more Japanese on

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that island or on neighboring Yannechiki Island, the Wildcats loaded back on the ship for the night.≥∏ During the previous night, sailors on the minesweeper Gull captured a Japanese soldier escaping from Ngulu Island in a small boat. Under interrogation, he said he and six others were trying to escape to Yap, and that the other six had probably drowned. Presumably, these six were the ones killed by the Wildcats.≥π The next day, the Wildcats explored the northern islands of Meseran and North. They did not encounter any Japanese, but found thirty-five natives. The natives did not supply any additional information on Japanese activities in the area, and the task force commander declared Ngulu Atoll secure at 0800 on 18 October. For the next four days, the Wildcats relaxed aboard ship while the navy surveyed the lagoon and cleared it of mines.≥∫ As it turned out, the navy never used the lagoon at Ngulu Atoll. On 18 November 1944, Admiral Halsey decided to abandon Ngulu Atoll after Ulithi’s lagoon proved sufficient to handle all the navy’s needs.≥Ω When the Raiders returned to Ulithi, they discovered that while they were gone the rest of their fellow Wildcats had departed for Peleliu. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions, with their attached units, left Ulithi on 18 October, after being relieved by several hundred garrison troops recently arrived from Hawaii, temporarily leaving behind the 155th Engineer Battalion to finish the work on the Falalop airstrip. The 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, now permanently assigned to the Ulithi Garrison Force, also remained behind. The Raiders and the 155th Engineers left for Peleliu a few days later, around 25 October.∂≠ The Wildcats invaded and occupied Ulithi and Ngulu Atolls without losing a man in combat. For three weeks after the invasion, the 323rd Wildcats sat back and enjoyed the pleasures of Ulithi Atoll, and watched it become a practical and valuable asset for carrying the war to the enemy. The same could not be said for the Wildcats on Angaur and Peleliu.

4 Angaur Bowl

A

dmiral William Halsey wrote in 1947, ‘‘Angaur was much softer [than Peleliu]; Maj. Gen. Paul J. Mueller’s 81st Infantry Division landed there on the seventeenth, crushed its flimsy defenses in three days, and by the twenty-second was able to send detachments to reinforce the Marines on Peleliu.’’ Naval scholar Nathan Miller, in 1995, wrote, ‘‘Angaur, six miles to the southwest [of Peleliu], was assaulted on September 17 by two regiments of the Army’s 81st Division, and taken without great difficulty.’’∞ While these statements are technically correct about securing Angaur, they are, to say the least, misleading about taking Angaur. If Angaur’s defenses were flimsy, and securing Angaur was done without difficulty, it was solely because Major Goto abandoned most of Angaur south of the invasion beaches after being surprised by the Wildcats’ northern landings. Realizing that he could not defeat the large American force that had landed, Major Goto decided early on to only slow the American advance in southern Angaur, and to conserve his small force by moving it to Angaur Bowl and Romauldo Hill in northwest Angaur, where he intended to make his final stand. In September 1944, northwest Angaur was a bizarre mix of jungle growth and coral ridges much like those on Peleliu. As on Peleliu, the Japanese had surreptitiously prepared this confused terrain into a maze of fortified natural and fabricated caves with interconnect86

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ing tunnels, bunkers, and machine-gun nests. Perhaps these defensive positions were not as numerous as those on Peleliu and later on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, but they were often mutually supporting and just as deadly to overcome. In taking northwest Angaur, referred to as a mopping-up operation since Angaur had been declared secure, the 322nd RCT fought the real battle for Angaur. Here they would suffer their greatest number of casualties and endure their greatest hardships. Yet the American public read little about this phase of the battle. After Americans were told about the 81st Infantry Division’s ‘‘complete conquest’’ of Angaur on the front page of most newspapers across America on 21 September 1944, the first island in the Carolines to be ‘‘overrun,’’ the Wildcats virtually disappeared from the news.≤ The Wildcats of the 321st and 322nd RCTs, however, were by then no longer the wide-eyed, trigger-happy, inexperienced soldiers who had landed on Angaur five days previous. They had been bloodied just enough to become more seasoned and better prepared for the fighting ahead of them. Just a few days before that fighting commenced, General Mueller had three regimental combat teams under his command; now he had only one. He lost the 323rd RCT to Rear Admiral Blandy, now sailing towards Ulithi, and the 321st RCT to Major General Rupertus, now boarding LSTs going to Peleliu. Only the 322nd RCT remained under his command, and it now prepared for yet another attack on the thusfar impregnable Angaur Bowl, the gateway to Romauldo Hill. For the third time in as many days, on 22 September, Fox + 5, the main thrust would be up the Western Railroad through Bloody Gulch, apparently the only entrance into Angaur Bowl. Colonel Benjamin Venable, commander of the 322nd, ordered Companies E, G, and C, supported by Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, and the mortars of Company D, 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion, to make this frontal attack.≥ Companies F and I, called Task Force Schechet after its commander, Major Manuel M. Schechet, would move up Black Beach with engineer demolition teams and continue the work started the day before by Companies E and F. The tortuous terrain east of Angaur Bowl precluded any further attempts by the 1st Battalion to enter the bowl from that direction; so, Colonel Venable stationed Companies A and B east of the bowl, generally along the Milwaukee Railroad, to protect Red Beach. This

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freed the 3rd Battalion, currently defending Red Beach, to assume defense duties in southern Angaur from the departing 321st RCT. The attack on Angaur Bowl began at 0730. Advancing along the Western Railroad, the Wildcats discovered that the Japanese had occupied Suicide Hill at Bloody Gulch during the night. After driving them off, requiring most of the morning, the Wildcats occupied about two hundred yards of the rim on both sides of Bloody Gulch, and began sniping at the Japanese. In the early afternoon, three tanks passed through the gulch and established firing positions in the bowl. Then, Company E led the frontal attack through Bloody Gulch, followed by Companies G and C. With the tanks firing two hundred yards in front of them, the Wildcats advanced north, hugging the eastern rim of the bowl. They immediately encountered horrendous machine-gun, rifle, and mortar fire from concealed Japanese positions surrounding the bowl. Aided by weapons that used smokeless powder, the well-disciplined and combat-seasoned Japanese seldom gave away their positions. ‘‘[We] came to this guy, he would come out on one of those little handcars with his machine-gun, fire, and go back. We never knew where he was coming from,’’ said Herman Soblick, Company C.∂ After two days of negligible success in the bowl, Colonel Venable decided to see for himself the conditions his men faced. He, his radio operator, Sergeant William E. Sherman, and Captain Richard H. Dosier, commanding officer of Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, watched the action from under the cover of a nearby tank. During the early action, Sergeant Sherman was killed when he left his covered position to transmit the colonel’s orders. At 1330, the Japanese opened fire on the tanks with a 37mm antitank gun. Ricocheting shell fragments wounded both Colonel Venable and Captain Dosier, and both were evacuated. Dosier recovered, but a shell fragment sliced Colonel Venable’s arm so badly that the medical staff considered amputation. They saved his arm, but his war was over. General Mueller assigned Lieutenant Colonel Ernest H. Wilson, the regimental executive officer, to command the 322nd Regiment.∑ Because the bowl’s terrain limited the tanks’ effectiveness, the Wildcats attacked each Japanese defensive position separately and carefully with rifle fire, grenades, bazookas, flamethrowers, and dem-

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Wildcat riflemen and flamethrower operators go to battle the Japanese in Angaur Bowl. Courtesy National Archives.

olition charges. This was deliberate, hot, exhausting, and deadly work. After closing one cave, a Wildcat demolition team would creep slowly to another. This type of fighting continued all day in the bowl, and the Wildcats were able to advance about 250 yards northeast of Lake Salome. In three days of fighting, this is the farthest the men had reached, but, again, their positions were untenable for the night. This time, though, the troops only moved back as far as the south entrance to Bloody Gulch. During the day, the Wildcats lost two killed and thirty-five wounded, but killed seventy-five Japanese. After the infantry had pulled back from Angaur Bowl, the tanks started withdrawing through the railroad cut. The first tank exited without incident, but the second tank ran over and detonated a mine near the mouth of the cut. The blast damaged the tank’s suspension badly enough that it could not be moved during the remaining daylight hours. The third tank, trapped in the bowl for the night, was abandoned, stripped of its radios and other useful equipment, and destroyed to prevent its capture and use by the Japanese.∏ Task Force Schechet also moved out at 0730 hours, flanking Angaur Bowl on the west and then advancing north up the coast. By early afternoon, they had reached the northern boundary of Black Beach. A

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reconnaissance patrol from Company F got as far as Cape Pkulangelul without finding any Japanese. The task force tried but failed to find any routes into the bowl area from the west. They destroyed all the abandoned enemy emplacements encountered, and moved back to their original starting positions for the night. From early in the morning until 1600, the 321st RCT, less certain units temporarily remaining on Angaur, boarded LSTs located at Red Beach for the movement to Peleliu. During the morning, the III Phib Corps’ intelligence officer briefed Captain Lauren L. Shaw, Jr., 321st RCT’s intelligence officer, on the Peleliu situation. Later, after being briefed on the situation, Colonel Robert Dark, commander of the 321st, left Angaur with his staff and his three battalion commanders for a meeting with General Rupertus and his staff on Peleliu.π By nightfall, most of the 81st Division’s supplies intended for Angaur had been unloaded from the ships, including those for the 321st RCT now going to Peleliu. While the unloading proceeded quickly, the final conquest of Angaur had not. No one had anticipated the new defensive tactics employed so doggedly by the Japanese, and the assault languished. The Wildcats still hoped for a banzai charge that would end the campaign, and when they heard from a recently captured prisoner that the Japanese lacked drinking water, it raised their hopes that Major Goto might order one. However, during the night, it rained—a heavy tropical rain. Not only did it drench the men, but also it replenished the Japanese water supply. The prospect of a banzai charge, and an early end to the battle, appeared less promising. Information provided by another prisoner raised another concern: the Wildcats discovered that the Japanese held about thirty natives in deep caves in the Romauldo Hill area.∫ On this day, communications between Major Goto on Angaur and Colonel Nakagawa on Peleliu ended. Colonel Nakagawa nonetheless continued to send optimistic reports to General Inoue about how the Japanese were defeating the Americans on Angaur.Ω The following day, the 322nd again attacked Angaur Bowl. The morning’s attack proceeded like those of the previous four mornings, but with different units leading the way. Company B led the attack through Bloody Gulch after the maintenance section of the 710th Tank Battalion had removed the disabled tank. Three tanks from the 1st Platoon, Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, again took positions

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at the mouth of the gulch and supported the infantry as called upon. Overnight, one change in tactics had been made. The 322nd leadership decided to abandon any further attempts to enter the bowl except through Bloody Gulch. While Company F remained outside Angaur Bowl and attacked caves along its southwestern rim, Company B passed through Bloody Gulch and led the way north along the east side of bowl. Companies C and E followed in column behind Company B. However, this time, Company I, after passing through the gulch, took the lead moving north along the west side of the bowl. Company G followed Company I. The Japanese resisted these parallel movements bitterly, but the attack moved forward slowly until Companies B and I were north of Lake Salome. Increasing Japanese fire from the ridges surrounding the bowl finally pinned down Company B. Company C then passed around the right flank of Company B, trying to move farther north. In so doing, the Japanese also pinned down Company C. The terrain combined with the horrendous Japanese fire forced Company I to take cover at the northern end of Lake Salome.∞≠ Although Companies B and I had advanced farther north than the previous day’s attack, they, too, had to give up the ground they had gained because their advance positions were untenable at night. During the slow withdrawal, the Japanese inflicted many more casualties on the Wildcats. Small groups of Wildcats, trying to find cover, had separated from their units and had to find their way back to Bloody Gulch as best they could. In desperation, one group from Company I managed to get over the steep coral ridges of the bowl’s western rim and ended up on Black Beach. The Wildcats lost another eighteen men killed and over seventy-five wounded on this day, and ended up right where they began.∞∞ The 322nd RCT had now made five frontal attacks on Angaur Bowl, progressing in size from one company to two battalions, and the Japanese still controlled it. The several hundred remaining Japanese defenders were so well entrenched that frontal attacks proved useless, and the terrain prevented flank attacks. The proximity of friendly troops to enemy defenders prevented close artillery support, and tank support from the mouth of Bloody Gulch proved inadequate. The shrewd Major Goto had devised a defensive scheme that had to this point stopped a superior force using standard army tactics. The Wildcats desperately needed a new strategy.

Breakthrough into Angaur Bowl over the eastern rim, 26 September 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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As a result, the 322nd commanders decided to stop the futile frontal attacks through Bloody Gulch and enter Angaur Bowl at its northern end. For this to happen, Company B, 306th Engineers, commanded by Captain Irving Heller, had to bulldoze a road westward from the northern end of the Milwaukee Railroad into the northern bowl area. The attack would begin in two days, allowing time for repositioning the troops, equipment, and artillery.∞≤ The next morning, men and equipment started redeploying for the northern attack on Angaur Bowl. Simultaneously, the Nisei translator-interpreter team broadcasted a surrender message to the Japanese. After the first reading of this message, one Japanese soldier surrendered. He came forward, nude, with his hands over his head. After repeating the message, another Japanese soldier surrendered. Upon interrogation, these prisoners pointed out enemy caves and defensive installations, discussed the types of weapons they had, and said that three hundred Japanese defenders remained. Actually, this estimate of three hundred was about right, but the intelligence section of the 322nd Regiment believed, based on the estimated 950 Japanese already killed, that only about half that number were left.∞≥ The main effort now shifted to the artillery. At 1100, the artillery battalions started firing as quickly as possible on Angaur Bowl. This initial shelling lasted for three minutes, and then resumed intermittently for a few minutes at a time throughout the afternoon. Later in the evening, the Nisei broadcasted another appeal from an LCI near the northern coast. Not one Japanese soldier responded.∞∂ By nightfall, the redeployment of the men and equipment had been completed. The 3rd Battalion, less Company I but with Company A attached, had moved to the northern coast near the end of the Seaboard Railroad along with Company B, 306th Engineers. Companies I and H, with a platoon of tanks, replaced the 2nd Battalion on the Western Railroad around Bloody Gulch. The 2nd Battalion moved Company E south and west of Lake Aztec, and Company F north and east of that lake. Company G remained in reserve near the phosphate plant. The 1st Battalion, less Company A, had Companies B and D dug-in at the southern end of Black Beach near the downed lighthouse on Palomas Hill. Company C moved east of Lake Aztec on the Seaboard Railroad. These moves isolated northwest Angaur from the rest of the island, protected Red Beach, and placed the 3rd Battalion in a position to attack Angaur Bowl from the northeast.∞∑

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On 25 September, Fox + 8, the 3rd Battalion started advancing westward along the northern coast of Angaur at 0730. Their mission: find a route southward into Angaur Bowl, killing any Japanese and destroying their fortifications found along the way. Companies K and L led the way. Company K pressed forward next to the water, blasting and sealing all the caves encountered along the shoreline. Company L marched to the left and abreast of Company K, both companies occupying a narrow front because of the terrain. Company A followed Company L. Although the Japanese offered no resistance, the going was hard and slow due to the rough terrain and the ever-present heat and humidity. After about three hours, the Wildcats had advanced about one-half mile, nearly halfway to Cape Pkulangelul. Now the terrain became even more difficult, and going forward another five hundred yards took six hours. During this movement, the battalion sent patrols south to reconnoiter the northern ridges of Romauldo Hill. When the 2nd Battalion had moved along this same course a week previously, the terrain had stopped the Wildcats cold, preventing them from finding a way to the south; now the 3rd Battalion was also halted. However, aerial reconnaissance did find a suitable route and, following this track, the engineers started bulldozing a trail from the northern end of the Milwaukee Railroad southwestward toward the bowl.∞∏ The big push into Angaur Bowl started on Fox + 9. At 0730, the 3rd Battalion started moving southwestward toward the northeastern rim of Angaur Bowl. Companies A and K advanced abreast with Company L following. The Wildcats moved slowly and carefully through the rough terrain and thick underbrush. The engineers, using the advancing infantrymen as a shield, chopped down trees and cut away underbrush, blasted away coral rocks, and bulldozed a rough supply and evacuation road immediately behind the soldiers. Surprisingly they encountered no enemy resistance, and reached the rim of the fortified bowl at noon. The mission of the 1st Battalion, positioned south of Angaur Bowl around Bloody Gulch, was to prevent the Japanese from escaping to the south. During the morning, Company B moved from Palomas Hill northward along the western rim of Angaur Bowl, and formed an east-west line with Company I near Lake Salome in the bowl. Company C left its position on the Seaboard Railroad and

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View of Angaur Bowl from the eastern rim. Smoke from an artillery barrage is rising over the western rim in the distance. Courtesy National Archives.

occupied the area recently vacated by Company B, ready to reinforce Companies B and I as necessary. The 2nd Battalion moved Company F southwest to a position on the Milwaukee Railroad north of Company E, and both companies had advanced to the southeastern rim of the bowl by noon. At noon, the attack started. The Wildcats climbed over ridges, went around pinnacles, crossed crevices, plowed through thick jungle growth, and dodged Japanese snipers. Several tanks moved through Bloody Gulch and supported the infantry.∞π The leading platoons of Company A arrived atop the eastern rim first and got the initial look at their target, the northern ridges of the bowl. As Company A started down the rim toward the wye in the Western Railroad’s tracks, the Japanese on the northern ridges hit them with rifle, machine-gun, and mortar fire, but did not shift any troops to meet this threat. The Wildcats slowly descended into the bowl, advancing from one temporary cover to another. On the bowl’s floor, to the front and slightly south of them, lay phosphate diggings and a coral knoll twenty feet high and seventyfive yards in diameter. The Wildcats named this knoll ‘‘The Island.’’

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Between the east rim and The Island lay a barren draw. At this point, the troops of Company A were about 250 yards farther north than any previous encroachments, and about the same distance south of the northern rim. They began moving slowly north along the eastern rim, prying into enemy fortifications, finding them partially destroyed and abandoned. Company K now came over the ridge south of Company A, and entered the draw going toward The Island and were hit by Japanese machine-gun fire. These concealed Japanese had held their fire until the Wildcats were most vulnerable, and then ambushed them. Companies A and K were immediately pinned down by the crossfire from the ridges and The Island, and remained so the rest of the afternoon. Toward the end of the day, a combination of nightfall and smoke shells fired on the Japanese-occupied ridges allowed these Wildcats to move slightly south to more defensible ground along the inside base of the east rim. Also at 1200, Companies E and F, 2nd Battalion, attacked the rim from the southeast. They soon reached the top of the rim about 350 yards south of the 3rd Battalion. Despite heavy resistance from Japanese in many large caves, they broke into Angaur Bowl and attacked these caves one-by-one, frequently using several satchel charges causing explosions that scattered Japanese body parts over the area. Nevertheless, upon approaching the cave’s entrance to seal it, remaining Japanese would often rush out at the Wildcats, usually straight into a waiting flamethrower’s spurt and rifle fire.∞∫ Notably, after breaking into the bowl, all the companies remained in their forward positions for the night. For the first time in the battle for Angaur Bowl, the Wildcats defended all the ground gained in an attack. While Companies A and K established a defensive perimeter in the bowl, Company L and the rest of the 3rd Battalion remained on the rim. Meanwhile, Companies E and F formed a defensive position extending to Bloody Gulch, while Companies B and I remained in a defensive line extending from Black Beach over the western rim to the shores of Lake Salome.∞Ω Breaking into the bowl split Major Goto’s forces, hindering movement from one defensive position to another. Moreover, because now he had to fight Wildcats all around the bowl area, he could no longer concentrate his forces against one point of attack. He considered his situation so grave that he ordered a counterattack against Company

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A, the company farthest north, his first major offensive action in eight days. This attack on Company A came at 1830 hours, shortly after dusk. The fight was bitter, inflicting twenty American casualties before the Wildcats drove them back. Not giving up, the Japanese aggressively infiltrated 3rd Battalion’s defensive perimeter the remainder of the night. To make a bad situation worse, it rained throughout the night and for the next several days.≤≠ The Wildcats had accomplished much on this day, but their success did not come cheaply. Companies A and K had about sixty casualties, Companies E and F thirty-seven.≤∞ Now established in the bowl, two tasks remained for the Wildcats: join the separate battalions together and rid the bowl of Japanese defenders. Unfortunately, they had to do this in a heavy rain over torturous terrain against a foe fighting to the death. At this time, tanks still could not maneuver within the bowl to support the 3rd Battalion; however, tanks at Bloody Gulch supported the 2nd Battalion in the southern portion of the bowl. Supporting artillery fire was limited because of the nearness of friendly troops to targets, but the men made good use of their mortars, bazookas, flamethrowers, and explosives in attacking the caves. On Fox + 10, the 1st and 3rd Battalions moved north and northwest, respectively. At the same time, the 2nd Battalion cleaned out the Japanese and sealed caves along the east rim of the bowl, moving west and north to reoccupy the positions left by the 3rd Battalion. During the day, the Wildcats gained more valuable territory. That night, Companies A, K, and L, 3rd Battalion, formed an eastwest defensive perimeter facing north. Company G moved north from its reserve position near the phosphate plant, and dug in on a line running northward from the right of the 3rd Battalion to the coast. This move prevented the Japanese from escaping along the northern coast to Red Beach. The 2nd Battalion formed a north-south defensive perimeter facing west.≤≤ The 1st Battalion, Companies B and I, were positioned generally along an east-west line stretching from the west coast to inside Angaur Bowl, and tried to move east to join up with the 2nd Battalion, but could not do so before nightfall. These Wildcats on the west side of the bowl had to evacuate their dead and wounded over the rough terrain to Black Beach. Later in the

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evening, Company C, the 1st Battalion’s reserve company, moved through Company B’s lines and spent the night along Black Beach on its way to Cape Pkulangelul.≤≥ Herman Soblick, Company C, remembered a particularly vicious firefight along Black Beach: ‘‘When we moved along Black Beach, we hit a Japanese stronghold. Mortars were being shot practically straight up, that’s how close we were to them. We were able to get our wounded out with the mortars and smoke grenades. The BAR man, his assistant, our squad leader, and the assistant squad leader, were killed.’’≤∂ ‘‘The 28th [Fox + 11] was another bad day. We were in the same location and stayed there 9 days in almost constant rain. The terrain was rough coral rock that had many crags and crevices. Lt. Nicholson, Rich, Radtke, Spafford, Crowder, and Pryor were wounded. We also had another life taken when a mortar shell got Burny. Sgt Radtke died from his wounds a few days later.’’≤∑ So reads the entry for 28 September in the history of L Company, just another typical day during the battle for Angaur Bowl. However, on this day, Fox + 11, tanks were able to negotiate the newly completed trail, subsequently called Bulldozer Road, moving to the northeast Angaur Bowl entrance. The tanks entered the bowl by proceeding across the ridge on a precarious, narrow path recently bulldozed. This is the first time that tanks had been this far north in the bowl. However, the narrowness of the path through the unforgiving terrain forced the tanks to travel in column formation just as they had through Bloody Gulch.≤∏ Four to five tanks now supported the Wildcats attacking the northern ridges. The Japanese did not like to expose their positions when tanks were present, so during the day at least one tank remained on duty at all times. Since the supply stations for the tanks were about two hundred yards behind the front lines, they could be restocked and back on duty quickly.≤π For two days, all three battalions fought the Japanese in various parts of Angaur Bowl, often at close quarters, and by the end of 29 September, Fox + 12, they had finally captured it. The bloodiest fighting on Angaur took place during these two days, with the Wildcats suffering about one hundred casualties on Fox + 11. Companies E and F mopped up bypassed Japanese defenders in Angaur Bowl during this time. James Fitzgerald, Company E, re-

Japanese stronghold and the positions of the 322nd Regimental units, on 30 September 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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called, ‘‘When cleaning out the pocket, one Jap was cringing in a hole. I was about to shoot him, but the lieutenant stopped me. That night he broke out and killed three of our men before committing suicide.’’≤∫ After cleaning out Angaur Bowl, Company E went into regimental reserve near the Bulldozer Road while Company F moved into the north-south defensive line between the 3rd Battalion’s right flank and Company G’s left flank. This maneuver did not go smoothly.≤Ω Sergeant Brooks Nicklas, Company G, recalled: ‘‘We were trying to connect to F Company. They [Japanese snipers] had a spot picked out that they had covered, and anybody that tried to go to the other side was shot.’’ One squad of our platoon was sent out to the command post for rations and water, but [it] did not get very far. As the squad leader started over a rock, the Japs, who were waiting for them, shot him. He fell on the opposite side of the rock from the rest of the squad, and they could not see him or get to him to see if he was dead or still alive needing medical attention. Another soldier was shot and killed trying to get into position to see the leader. I helped carry him out. In the meantime, our communications person was trying to call the CP on the phone, but the Japanese had cut the phone lines . . . and got in position to shoot anyone tracing the problem. The company commander, Captain Lightsey, had started from the CP checking the wire to our platoon to see how we had made it through the night. As he neared the other patrol, he, too, was shot and killed. Staff Sergeant Graves and Sergeant Brunneman were killed trying to get him out. All of our men were in a small area in the rocks, but no one could get to them or the Japs. The boy that was shot first had a BAR rifle and they took it from him. They also took his billfold and other things he had in his pockets and kicked him around, as he played dead. We finally got him out in the afternoon, but four other men had been killed. As we pushed forward, Staff Sergeant Lee took a bullet in the arm. When our medic, Bratton, went to take care of him, he was shot through the head and killed. Sergeant Lee tried to crawl back to us when he was shot again, this time fatally. Two good men and good friends I saw die in a few minutes.

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Lieutenant Holsinger told me take two men and try to flank the Japs on the left. This first lieutenant was kind of new to us. I had just witnessed two men being shot in that line of fire and it seemed too much like suicide to try that . . . so he took two people and started around there, and all three of them were killed. Two Mexican boys that were in my squad got into a hand grenade fight in that same line, and they were the ones that finally broke up that firing. They destroyed that sniper’s nest. On that day, we lost nine people, all from sniper fire. The rain kept pouring that night and grenades were bursting all around. At daybreak, we learned that grenades had killed one of our men and blew the feet off two others. They had lain out in the cold rain all night with their feet blown off. We also learned that our company had another man killed and one wounded by a grenade that was thrown into their foxhole. I fully believe that combat with the Japanese at close range in bad weather is the closest thing to hell on earth that there is.≥≠ Major Goto’s defensive plan depended on the Wildcats using Bloody Gulch as the sole entrance into the bowl. He probably did not consider the possibility that heavy armored bulldozers, equipment the Japanese did not have, could create another entrance into the area. This move by the Wildcats surprised him, allowing them to capture Angaur Bowl three days after entering its northern portion. Now the three battalions faced Romauldo Hill as a united regiment. By taking Angaur Bowl, the Wildcats confined the remaining Japanese defenders in an area resembling an oval approximately 500 yards long, east to west, and 150 yards wide, north to south, in the ridges of Romauldo Hill. A relatively small area, but it contained the harshest terrain and the most determined defenders yet encountered on Angaur.≥∞

5 Romauldo Hill

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n Saturday, 30 September 1944, Fox + 13, the final conquest of Angaur began. It started as another rainy, miserable day. By now one day had become like another—days ran together, and the Wildcats lost all track of time. Every morning they picked up their rifles, checked their ammunition, filled their canteens, went to the rear to get flamethrowers and explosives, and moved onto the ridges. Patrols ranging in size from a few men to a platoon worked together to search out and destroy the enemy. The Wildcats moved out at 0800 with the usual tank support. The 1st and 3rd Battalions moved north against the Japanese along the bowl’s northern rim. They faced little Japanese resistance, and fortyfive minutes later the two battalions crowded into each other. The restricted space along the front line now squeezed out Company I, and it went into 1st Battalion reserve. For the next forty-five minutes the terrain offered the chief resistance to the advancing Wildcats; then the Japanese opened fire. They hit the Wildcats with machine-gun and sniper fire, hand grenades, and knee mortars, but the Wildcats kept moving forward and captured the target ridge. Company L was especially involved in this fighting. It had seven men killed, and six of them received the Silver Star.∞ The two attacking battalions now halted and reorganized, with Companies A and I rejoining their parent battalions. The 1st Bat102

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talion became the regimental reserve in its present position with instructions to prevent the escape of enemy soldiers westward. The 2nd Battalion took over the attack in the early afternoon, driving west along the north coast while the 3rd Battalion supported the attack from the newly captured ridge. The 2nd Battalion’s attack progressed very slowly over the rough terrain, through murky weather, into the teeth of heavy sniper and machine-gun fire from the entrenched, concealed enemy. Without knowing it, these battalions were attacking Major Goto’s main Japanese stronghold on the eastern side of the oval. By day’s end, all the battalions prepared defensive perimeters where they had stopped, thereby holding the ground gained.≤ By now, the Wildcats had so reduced Major Goto’s force that he could not mount a major attack, but his snipers and infiltrators still performed deadly work throughout Angaur. His men were following their orders to the letter—kill as many Americans as possible before dying for the emperor.≥ To get at the Japanese, the Wildcats needed roads for the prompt movement of men, tanks, supplies, and the evacuation of casualties. Accordingly, the engineers began bulldozing roads in Angaur Bowl starting at Bloody Gulch and going north to its northern rim, and two roads around Romauldo Hill to Cape Pkulangelul, one next to the northern coast and the other one along the western coast near Black Beach. These roads tied in to others being built outside the combat area, thus providing ready access to the beaches and supply dumps.∂ On 1 October, Fox + 14, all three battalions of the 322nd Regiment moved forward at 0830. The 1st and 3rd Battalions attacked north into the ridges, and the 2nd Battalion moved westward between the ridges and the coast. All the battalions stopped at 1100, and the Nisei interpreters broadcasted another appeal for the Japanese to surrender. None of them did, and the attack continued at 1345. Around 1500, some natives came out of the caves in the 2nd Battalion’s sector. Elzie Brown, Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, recalled that ‘‘a man, two women, and two little kids came out. The man came out and somebody shot him, shot him in the arm. Of course, they didn’t know who he was. Well, they went back, and they had nerve enough, or had necessity enough, to try to come out again. All they had to eat was uncooked rice and a little bit of water.’’ These natives were treated as prisoners of war, but because they were ema-

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ciated from living in the caves without adequate food and water, they were hospitalized.∑ Meanwhile, Companies B and K, in an attempt to flank the enemy, found a path through Romauldo Hill to the ocean. This was quite a feat because Romauldo Hill consisted of a series of ridges running roughly east and west. Between the ridges were narrow gorges with uneven floors and high, sheer cliffs on both sides. The ridges were not continuous, but often had gaps in them, some of the gaps connecting adjacent gorges. There were natural and fabricated caves in the sheer walls, some having interconnecting tunnels and shafts throughout the ridges. Some of the gorges and gaps were so narrow that the men had to walk single file through them. It was a maddening maze of coral and jungle growth.∏ Major Goto had his command post somewhere in this maze of ridges and defiles, and he had posted Japanese snipers everywhere. They had taken concealed positions inside hollow pinnacles, crevices, between the exposed roots of trees, and among jungle vines. Japanese soldiers in caves high up the sheer walls dropped hand grenades on the Wildcats as they passed under them. Many of the caves contained machine-gun nests, and the Japanese opened fire, usually at close range, on the unsuspecting Wildcats who were scrambling through the gaps and gorges. Individual Wildcat patrols were isolated in these ridges and had to take the initiative when encountering the enemy. As Kenneth Andersen put it, ‘‘You had no idea what the next squad was doing, or the next platoon, or the company commander, or what, you had no idea.’’ At dusk, the Wildcats had gained very little ground, but at a cost of another thirty casualties.π On this same day, in contrast, General Mueller entertained Admiral Halsey and sixteen of his officers. After touring the island, they joined an honor guard at the division’s command post in southern Angaur. Following a flag raising ceremony and the reading of an order proclaiming a military government over Angaur Island, Halsey said, ‘‘I want to congratulate the 81st Division on their showing on this island and also for the good work on Ulithi and over on Peleliu. Keep it up and go get more of them!’’∫ The morning of 2 October found Company C at Cape Pkulangelul. Companies B and K occupied a small strip of the northwest coastline

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of Angaur. Company E remained on reserve duty near the Bulldozer Road, and the rest of the 2nd Battalion stretched across the north coast from the Cape Pkulangelul area to the east end of Romauldo Hill, anchored there by Company H. The 1st Battalion, less Companies B and C, remained on an east-west line just south of Angaur Bowl’s northern rim. The 3rd Battalion, less Company K, on the 1st Battalion’s right flank, extended the east-west line to the eastern side of the bowl.Ω With the Japanese now surrounded in a small, restricted area of extremely fractured, highly fortified terrain, and bearing in mind the poor results from the previous day’s assault, the command staff decided further general attacks would be futile and too costly. Instead, they chose to use additional siege tactics. The new plan called for more use of heavy weapons, small sniper and demolition patrols, and additional measures to keep the Japanese from infiltrating through the defensive perimeters and causing trouble in the rear areas.∞≠ Because of the small target area involved, this plan needed only two battalions on the front line simultaneously. This made necessary changes in unit locations. Company E left its reserve position and replaced Company C at Cape Pkulangelul, which then moved into the bowl and joined Company A. The 2nd Battalion, less Company E, became the regimental reserve and moved south of Black Beach. As Company F moved toward Black Beach, it sent a patrol to find the cave containing the remaining natives. This patrol, guided by a native woman who had surrendered the previous day, never reached the cave, and lost two men to Japanese snipers in the attempt. Meanwhile, the 1st and 3rd Battalions, remaining on the front line south of the rim, sent patrols into the ridges. Sometimes they just established positions and sniped at the enemy, but their main purpose remained finding and destroying Japanese emplacements.∞∞ Kenneth Andersen, Company L, described a typical patrol: The flamethrower was operated by a rifleman and the satchel charges were placed by a rifleman. One would be carrying the flamethrower, one the satchel charges, and three guys would put down the screen of fire. We rotated it [the flamethrower] around. Everybody was trained to use the flamethrower and to place satchel charges. We trained each other. . . . [The number of men in a patrol] would vary from day to day, because

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there wasn’t many left. Towards the end, we had no sergeants. We were just without them; so it was a private who was in charge of the patrol.∞≤ This type of fighting, small patrols on search-and-destroy missions, resulted in numerous casualties. The wounded often fell in exposed positions, and the Japanese held their fire until a medic, litterbearers, or others came to help, and then killed them all. The snipers often shot purposely to wound infantrymen so they could kill those that came to their aid. The red cross insignia on the helmet and uniform of the medics served as a target, and the medics quickly changed to a smaller insignia, or removed it altogether.∞≥ Richard Smith, a medic with Company B, 306th Medical Battalion, said, ‘‘The medics tended to the wounded on the spot unless we had to get away from the Japs. We went out under fire while the fighting was going on. We lost a lot of men doing that.’’∞∂ Staff Sergeant Ray Melheim, 316th Field Artillery, added, ‘‘A report came that so many of our medics had been hit or killed when crawling up in the hills to drag back fellows who had been wounded or killed that they needed men from our outfit who would replace the medics.’’∞∑ After dark, the first night patrols went into the ridges, retrieving the dead who were unreachable during the daytime because of enemy fire. During this first night, these patrols recovered six bodies by 2300. Kenneth Anderson said, ‘‘You would go get them because we didn’t want to leave them out there. We just carried them back and left them.’’ Men on graves registration duty collected the dead brought out of the ridges and from the medical facilities. They identified the bodies, removed and itemized personal effects, completed paper work concerning their deaths, and then moved the bodies to the cemetery.∞∏ At 0630 on Fox + 16, 3 October, the 2nd Battalion, less Company E that remained at Cape Pkulangelul, replaced the 1st Battalion on the front lines. After being relieved, the 1st Battalion went into regimental reserve near Green Beach for rest and reorganization. Throughout the remainder of this day and the next, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions sent sniper and demolition patrols into the ridges. By now, the trails the engineers had bulldozed in the bowl allowed the tanks to move forward and more closely support the infantry. This became standard

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Just one hundred yards behind the front lines, a wounded Wildcat receives blood plasma. Courtesy National Archives (111-SC-211810).

operating procedure—one battalion rested for a few days while the other two battalions continued pressuring the Japanese with tank support.∞π Even so, these last two days of combat showed that rooting out the Japanese defenders with flamethrowers and satchel charges using small patrols would take a long time, resulting in unacceptable Wildcat casualties. The Sherman tanks helped, but the terrain limited their effectiveness. The Wildcat commanders decided to try a different tactic, one recently used by the marines on Peleliu in similar circumstances with good results, firing a 155mm cannon point-blank into the caves.∞∫ During the morning of Fox + 18, the Wildcats vacated the area north of Lake Shalom and west of the Western Railroad to allow for this direct cannon fire. At the same time, the 1st Battalion moved from their bivouac near Green Beach and replaced the 3rd Battalion. The 3rd Battalion now became the regimental reserve and moved to Tan Beach in far southwest Angaur. The Wildcats completed these movements by 0900.

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To start, one 155mm howitzer from the 318th Field Artillery Battalion and the 4.2-inch chemical mortars opened fire on the Japanese. This howitzer, located immediately south of Lake Salome in Angaur Bowl, fired on caves in the center of the Japanese occupied area. With the range being about seven hundred yards, the artillerymen used this piece like a powerful rifle, firing directly into the caves. An officer from the 3rd Battalion, in a Sherman tank located about two hundred yards from the target area, pointed out enemy strongpoints. An artillery observer, also in the tank, directed the fire. Later, the rest of the battery joined the lone howitzer. The results of the bombardment pleased the commanding officer, and at 1400, he ordered the 1st and 2nd Battalions forward to assault the cliffs. The 2nd Battalion made significant gains on the western side of the northern rim, but the 1st Battalion met stiff resistance on the eastern side, where Major Goto had his headquarters. Here, the machine-gun and rifle fire were indeed murderous, killing Captain Don W. Baker, Jr., commander of Company B. Because the 1st Battalion failed to take its objective, the 2nd Battalion, exposed to enemy fire, withdrew a short distance southward. After both battalions had established defensive perimeters, they sent out patrols during the night.∞Ω During the morning of 6 October, Fox + 19, another battery from the 318th Field Artillery Battalion moved its howitzers into position near the first battery. Targets for this day were caves located all along the northern rim. The infantry again left the area; however, ships sailing in the waters off the northern coast delayed the bombardment by forty minutes. When the two 155mm howitzer batteries began firing at 0840, the 105mm howitzers of the 317th Field Artillery Battalion located at Cape Ngariois, the 4.2-inch chemical mortars, and the 81mm mortars of the heavy weapons companies joined them. Air observers directed the fire of the 317th Field Artillery Battalion and the mortars along the periphery of the rim to kill any Japanese trying to escape from the area. Infantry officers familiar with the target area directed the fire of the 155mm howitzers by observing targets through telescopes. One of the officers located a Japanese observation post atop the highest ridge in the main enemy position. One battery fired a salvo at this position and knocked it out.

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At 1030, to trick the Japanese into coming out of their caves, the howitzers and mortars fired smoke shells to disguise troop movements, just as if preparing for a general assault. To complete the ruse, one company from both battalions moved to the flanks of the enemy’s position under the protection of machine-gun fire. An observer then saw two Japanese positioning a light machine gun near the destroyed observation post. The Japanese did indeed think an attack was coming. Another few minutes passed to give the Japanese time to get out of their shelters and prepare for the anticipated attack, then all the artillery and mortars saturated the northern rim with high explosive shells. The observers noticed that the shelling uncovered and destroyed a steel and concrete structure, which turned out to be the Japanese command post. At 1400, the barrage ended and the two battalions moved back into their morning positions. They did not meet any opposition, but they did not assault the ridges. Instead, the two battalions patrolled the rest of the day and night, setting trip flares and other ambushes to catch Japanese infiltrators, and killed or wounded about twenty Japanese. The battle for Angaur had truly turned into a siege operation, and for the past several days the regiment had rotated the three battalions to rest areas at either Green Beach or Tan Beach. The men bivouacked in the rest areas for about thirty-six hours before going back to the front lines and relieving another battalion. While in the rest areas, the Wildcats relaxed, ate hot meals, took a bath, washed clothes, wrote letters, swam, attended religious services, and watched movies. The 306th Engineers had recently erected a screen and made a makeshift theater for the troops. New films arrived periodically on supply ships, but each film was shown many times before being replaced. The Wildcats especially enjoyed Mae West films.≤≠ From 7 October, Fox + 20, the plan of action was to close all avenues of escape and supply to the enemy. The Japanese had to be contained in the northern ridges where eventually they would exhaust their remaining supplies. The Wildcats patrolled the northern coast and guarded Lake Salome to prevent the Japanese from either escaping or getting water; they sent out combat patrols day and night to constantly harass the enemy; they set up sniper and observation teams

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at strategic locations; they established ambushes and booby traps in trees and on known enemy trails; and they strung barbed wire along the defensive perimeters to stop banzai attacks. Siege operations were under way—kill as many of the enemy as possible while minimizing casualties.≤∞ On Sunday, 8 October, Fox + 21—three weeks since Fox Day— eight Japanese soldiers were killed and four wounded.≤≤ Some of the natives now started coming out of the caves. For two hours beginning at noon, eighty-seven natives emerged from the caves and surrendered to a crew from Company B, 306th Engineers, working on the north coast road. These natives reported that only half of their total number came out, and three of the men volunteered to return for the others if the Americans promised not to tell the Japanese that they had surrendered. Being assured that the Americans and Japanese were not currently speaking to each other, the three returned to the caves to get the others.≤≥ On Fox + 22 the Wildcats enjoyed another quiet day. They stayed busy putting up additional barbed wire barriers to stop Japanese infiltrators, and patrolling the ridges without seeing any Japanese. The 81st commanders thought this silence forewarned a pending banzai attack, probably around dusk or dawn. In anticipation of a Japanese counterattack, the 2nd Battalion moved from its bivouac near Tan Beach to defensive positions around Bloody Gulch. The night passed and morning came without the anticipated counterattack. The only activity during the night occurred when the Wildcats killed a lone Japanese infiltrator northwest of Lake Aztec. Having the advantage of strong defensive positions, the Wildcats would have slaughtered the remaining Japanese defenders in a banzai attack. Now they knew they had to go back into the ridges where the Japanese had the strong defensive positions. In the meantime, during the morning, the three native men who went back into the caves led out the rest of their people and surrendered to the 1st Battalion. Of the eighty-nine who surrendered, thirtythree were hospitalized immediately, and one subsequently died. Trucks carried the healthy natives to a compound east of Lake Aztec.≤∂ Ray Melheim recalled, ‘‘The only reason they came out was that they were starving to death. Truckloads of men, including the women and children, were brought into our camp where we had huge tables laden with food. They gobbled up the food like starved animals.’’≤∑

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Reports vary, but about 185 natives came out of the caves and surrendered to the Wildcats. These natives, who had sought shelter in the caves when the shelling began, were all that remained of the island’s prewar population after the Japanese removed many of the men to be forced laborers on other islands and others relocated to nearby uninhabited islands to escape the carrier attacks.≤∏ Elzie Brown, Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, said, ‘‘Every woman that was old enough was pregnant. They had a big tent, and the navy took care of them, and took care of their babies as they came. Babies were born one right after the other. Those Japanese got every one of them pregnant, all those that were old enough.’’≤π Some Wildcats searched the caves after the natives had left and found six abandoned babies. They took them to the 41st Portable Surgical Hospital where servicemen fed the infants until they could be safely placed with the natives.≤∫ Because the banzai attack did not take place as expected on Fox + 22, the 2nd Battalion relieved the 1st Battalion on the front lines. Afterward, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions patrolled the ridges, but encountered no enemy activity. In the afternoon, the patrols killed four Japanese snipers. Since the Wildcats had started setting up their own sniper teams and ambushes, the Japanese did not move around as much as before. It now became a waiting game, both sides waiting to see who was going to move first.≤Ω Brooks Nicklas, Company G, said, ‘‘We spent day after day up there sniping. We would go up on the rocks early in the morning and stay there all day, searching with telescopes and field glasses all through the rocks for any Jap that might move. It was much like being in a deer stand all day, only searching for a different target. We got quite a few of them this way.’’≥≠ The division commanders now decided to resume offensive action in two days. Since the recent Japanese inactivity did not tip off a banzai attack as they believed, it was thought that the Japanese might be too weak to offer a strong resistance. The 1st Battalion, currently in the rest area, would move eastward from Cape Pkulangelul along the ridges. The 2nd Battalion would move westward, primarily along the northern coast, while pressuring the Japanese at the southeastern end of the northern rim. The 3rd Battalion would contain the enemy on the southwestern end of the northern rim, gain the ridges to its north if possible, and protect the recently completed Black Beach

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road and the 1st Battalion’s right flank. Clearly, the 1st Battalion had the toughest task, but the attack would proceed slowly, using patrols to capture and defend ground. During the morning of Fox + 24, the 1st Battalion remained in the rest area while the 2nd and 3rd Battalions continued patrolling the enemy stronghold during the day. These patrols made progress. The 3rd Battalion, now on the western side of the bowl, just south of northern rim, captured a ridge overlooking a large Japanese position. They managed to kill five of the enemy. Other patrols encountered dead Japanese most likely killed five days ago in the massive artillery barrage. As night approached, the small patrols established defensive positions. During the night, men bringing additional weapons and supplies reinforced these patrols. Later, other patrols using demolitions and bazookas blasted shut any bypassed enemy caves and killed any Japanese still lingering in the rear. Having the patrols maintain the ground gained during the day, reinforcing them during the night, and eliminating bypassed Japanese in their rear, was the tactical plan for the impending offensive. As the Japanese stronghold became smaller and smaller, all supporting mortar fire had to be carefully controlled. The regiment ceased using its 81mm mortars and consolidated all of its 60mm mortars, excluding those used solely for firing illumination shells, into one battery controlled by a newly established regimental fire direction center. During the early morning hours, the 1st Battalion left their bivouac in the rest area and moved up the western coast over Black Beach to Cape Pkulangelul. The 2nd Battalion attempted to divert Japanese attention away from the 1st Battalion with a significant demonstration of force westward along the northern coast from the eastern flank. The Japanese met this incursion with machine-gun and knee mortar fire. At the same time, the 3rd Battalion sent patrols to capture specific, limited objectives, and then reinforced them upon achieving the objectives. These patrols again advanced to new objectives, captured them, and after reinforcement, advanced still again. This activity continued throughout the day until the battalion had captured and held the high ground on the Japanese southwestern flank. Little by little, the Japanese gave up ground. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion continued advancing slowly up the western coast. By late afternoon, all of the 1st Battalion had reached

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its assigned positions. Company B had reached the northern coast and moved eastward, while Company D, the heavy weapons company, occupied Cape Pkulangelul. The 1st Battalion remained in its positions for the night and prepared to attack the following morning. On 13 October, Fox + 26, the 322nd Regiment started the assault that finally eliminated the Japanese resistance. The fighting started at 0800 when the 2nd Battalion kicked off its attack. While Company F, supported by light tanks, demolition teams, and bulldozers attacked westward along the recently completed north coast road, Companies E and G maintained pressure on the southern and eastern flanks of the Japanese. Company H, the heavy weapons company of the 2nd Battalion, guarded Red Beach from any Japanese trying to escape in that direction. The 1st Battalion made the major thrust against the enemy stronghold. They started at 0900, with Companies A and C attacking east, and Company B trying to attack south from the north coast over the ridges. The Japanese stopped Company B in its tracks. As they tried to climb up and over the steep ridges, the Japanese dropped hand grenades on them. After several attempts and many casualties, Company B gave up the effort. Companies A and C had somewhat better success attacking east. On this day Companies A and C advanced about one hundred yards. Progress had to be slow and deliberate to wipe out Japanese caves and defenders along the way. Nevertheless, many of the Japanese escaped through interconnecting tunnels to other caves. During the night, the Wildcats again defended the ground gained. At 0630 the next day, Fox + 27, the attack started with the 1st Battalion again making the main thrust. This time all three companies moved east while the 2nd and 3rd Battalions again applied pressure on the southern and eastern flanks. To hold down casualties, small groups of Wildcats conducted extremely disciplined search and destroy patrols. This was the most nerve-wracking type of fighting possible. They dodged around or climbed boulders and small ridges, jumped over gaps and crevices, and used makeshift ladders and ropes to ascend and descend steep cliffs. The Wildcats demolished caves and killed the Japanese defenders with all the weapons available to them, including gasoline, poured into crevices, which then seeped into caves, and ignited. The Wildcats sealed

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each cave encountered so that the Japanese could not get in their rear through connecting tunnels. Patience was a virtue in this operation. At nightfall, the men were reinforced in their forward positions.≥∞ On 15 October, Fox + 28, at 0630, the 1st and 2nd Battalions resumed the attack. The 1st Battalion had now moved far enough eastward to squeeze out the 3rd Battalion. However, Company I and one platoon from Company L remained on the ridges sniping at the enemy, but the rest of the 3rd Battalion moved a short distance to the rear into Angaur Bowl. Once again, the men moved forward slowly, with deliberation and patience. In some instances, they waited two or three hours to kill one Japanese defender before moving forward another few yards. The opposing forces were never more than twenty-five yards apart, which meant that one false move could prove fatal for someone. After killing six infiltrators during the night, the 1st and 2nd Battalions set out to kill more Japanese during the morning of Fox + 29. This day turned out to be a carbon copy of the previous day, with the Wildcats killing sixteen Japanese with small-arms fire and an indefinite number by sealing them in caves. However, the Wildcats gained little ground, and at the end of the day, the battalions were nearly in the same positions as at the beginning of the day. The Japanese were brave, tough fighters, and their backs were literally against the wall. They had nowhere to go, so they resisted tenaciously.≥≤ Brooks Nicklas, Company G, recalled: I was leading a group trying to get down inside the bowl. I got over the cliff, one guy behind me, and one guy behind him, when we were shot at. We heard the pop, but didn’t know where the noise came from. There was a rock about half the size of a small chair; I jumped down behind that. ‘‘Cougar Boy,’’ James Cooley, was right behind me, and he came down behind me and had his helmet lying against me. There was another shot, it went by my head and hit him in the forehead just under the helmet. It blew his brains out into the back of his helmet. He only groaned and leaned over on me. I got out from under him and tried to find my way back. The third guy that had got over said, ‘‘Come this way.’’ He had found a hole through the rock cliff, and I jumped in it and went back through it to the other side of the cliff.

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As for Private James I. Cooley, Nicklas said, ‘‘We didn’t get him out for three days.’’≥≥ At daybreak on Fox + 30, the 1st and 2nd Battalions once again started applying pressure on the Japanese defenses. They continued using the same tactics, moving forward slowly, forcing the Japanese into a smaller area. The Wildcats surrounded the enemy, cutting off all the escape routes, relentlessly moving forward. They counted twenty-six more Japanese defenders killed by small arms this day. The Japanese started leaving their dead behind as they retreated, making the body count easier to determine. Previously, they had carried their dead off with them whenever possible. This indicated to the Wildcats that the morale of the enemy was fading fast as more of them realized their end was near. The recently completed Black Beach and north coast roads, actually nothing but rough, bulldozed strips, were a blessing to the troops fighting in the ridges. These roads permitted the reliable delivery of supplies and ammunition to the troops in the ridges, and the timely removal of the dead and wounded. Before the roads, supplying the men fighting in the ridges became a major logistical problem. So much so, noncombat personnel, previously banned from the combat zone, volunteered to hand-carry supplies and ammunition to the Wildcats on Romauldo Hill, and to carry out the casualties over the rough, sniper-infested terrain. To this day, these brave volunteers remain unknown heroes. The action started at 0530 in the morning on 18 October, Fox + 31. The 1st Battalion moved Company D from Cape Pkulangelul to the north side of the Japanese position, now the size of a football field. In the middle of this stronghold, Major Goto had his headquarters in a cave. The Wildcats moved forward all around this area, further reducing its size. The area became so small that fewer Wildcats fought in the front lines; those squeezed out followed behind, mopping up any Japanese stragglers and sealing every bypassed cave.≥∂ The Japanese now grew desperate enough to take some drastic actions. During the night, a few Japanese tried to infiltrate through the lines of five of the seven companies surrounding them, with Company E on the south being the hardest hit. Eleven Japanese were killed. On Fox + 32, Wildcat patrols and snipers maintained the pressure on the remaining defenders. Now the Japanese occupied an area

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smaller than a football field. When the firing died down at nightfall, the Wildcats had killed thirty-seven more Japanese and captured one. The 322nd Regiment lost four killed and ten wounded.≥∑ During the night of 19–20 October, Japanese in small groups again tried to infiltrate the lines. One group walked in front of a light machine gun operated by Joe Abreu, a machine gunner in Company C’s weapons platoon. Abreu said, We were on high ground with the landscape going down towards a ravine, with high cliffs on both sides. The pass was less than six feet wide. I picked a spot where I could see up ahead quite a bit. The riflemen rigged up a phosphorus luminous hand grenade on a wire from one side of the pass to the other. When somebody trips this wire, the grenade pops and goes up in the air about ten to fifteen feet, lighting up the area. Everything was quiet during the day and early evening; then, about eleven o’clock or so, somebody tripped the wire. The grenade pops and goes up and it explodes and it lights up the area, but I don’t see anything or anybody. It’s because when the grenade pops, you have a few seconds to duck. The cliffs had a lot of crevices; the Japs knew the area very well. As soon as the grenade popped, they ducked into the crevices. I knew it was Japs. They were fast to duck into the crevices before the grenade exploded. All right, I knew they were Japs, but they also knew that we were there because of the booby trap. But they didn’t know how close they were to me. Nothing happened for a while. My second gunner wanted to toss a grenade, but I told him to keep quiet and wait. They were sweating us out. Nobody fired a shot. It was dark, but all of a sudden, it got darker than dark. I opened up my machine gun. Somebody fell at our feet. We both started kicking that somebody away from us. I’m still firing. I didn’t stop until the whole belt was gone. Everything became silent after that. It was very hot and very sticky. We didn’t know if there were any more Japs out there or not. We waited. We sweated. Morning never seemed to come. Next morning the Jap was lying in front of us. He was all shot up, only one thumb left on both his hands. The other

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one, his sergeant major, was still alive, badly wounded, hiding in a cliff’s crevice. My battalion commander came down to where we were. He took a good look at the collar rank and told me, ‘‘I think you got a big one, I’m putting you in for medal. I’m taking his rank up to G-2 and I’ll be back.’’ Back he came, he said, ‘‘Joe, you got the big one, commander of the Japanese forces on Angaur Island.’’ He offered me a thousand dollars right then and there for the sword. I told him, ‘‘Sir, this sword is not for sale and it will never be.’’≥∏ Apparently, no Japanese officer assumed command upon Major Goto’s death, leaving the remaining defenders leaderless and completely disorganized. While individual and small groups of Japanese continued to fight from caves and crevices, many others tried to escape from the island. The battle was over three days later, on 23 October.≥π On 20 October, General Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines. His forces landed on Leyte early in the morning, and four hours later he came ashore to deliver his famous ‘‘I have returned’’ speech. With the invasion of the Philippines underway, the need for the bomber airstrip on Angaur was greatly reduced. Coincidently, on 20 October, the bomber airstrip officially opened to daytime traffic. The aviation engineers had worked twenty-fours a day getting the strip completed. By 14 October, the strip was useable, and on 16 October, a C-47 transport plane landed on Angaur. Five days later, the engineers had extended the runway and prepared taxiways and hardstands for the bomber squadron. While the Wildcats finished mopping up Romauldo Hill, the first B-24 Liberators from the 494th Bombardment Group (Heavy) landed on the airstrip.≥∫ The 81st Infantry Division killed 1,338 Japanese and captured 59 on Angaur. In so doing, the Wildcats, including the attached units, lost 264 men killed and 1,354 wounded and injured. Of this number, the 321st RCT lost 26 men killed and 135 wounded in securing southern Angaur. The 322nd RCT had 211 men killed and 772 wounded, incurring most of its casualties in taking Angaur Bowl. The remaining dead and wounded came from the attached units. In addition, medical personnel treated another 940 men for non-battle ailments, including disease, injuries, and battle fatigue. Therefore, total casu-

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alties in taking Angaur amounted to 2,558 men, with 816 being evacuated from the island.≥Ω These casualty figures illustrate the ferocity of the battle. Of all the amphibious operations in the Pacific War, only Angaur and Iwo Jima had American casualties in dead and wounded exceeding those of the Japanese. On Angaur, the Japanese proved that their new defensive strategy along with fortifications ideally suited to the terrain could indeed prolong the war with increased American casualties.∂≠

6 The Wildcats Land on Peleliu

I

n Operation Stalemate II, the 1st Marine Division drew the tough assignment of invading Peleliu on 15 September 1944, the primary target of the operation. The commander of the 1st Marine Division, Major General William H. Rupertus, predicted a short but tough fight lasting two or three days at most. After a ferocious defense at the waterline, he expected the Japanese to launch counterattacks that could be easily defeated, as was the case on Tarawa, Guadalcanal, and elsewhere in the Pacific. He did not know that the Japanese had changed their defensive strategy according to the ‘‘Palau Sector Training for Victory’’ directive, which forbade banzai attacks and injudicious counterattacks. As on Angaur, the Japanese planned a defense in depth at the landing beaches, as well as a final stand in extensive cave and underground fortifications on high ground of their choosing.∞ The Japanese ferociously defended the southwest invasion beaches and southern Peleliu, the marines’ first objective. This, in combination with inaccurate maps and an inadequate pre-invasion bombardment, resulted in the marines suffering more casualties than anticipated. Nevertheless, the marines captured the prized airfield and most of southern Peleliu by D + 1. On D + 2, the marines turned north and started attacking the ridges of the Umurbrogol Mountains, where Colonel Nakagawa had established his fukkaku defensive positions. Initially, the marines made progress, capturing several ridges in bloody fighting before coming to a line of hills later called the Five 119

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Sisters and Hill 300, better known as Bloody Nose Ridge, on D + 3. However, by now the three assaulting regiments, especially the 1st Marines, had lost so many men that they were using rear area personnel as reinforcements. The Japanese also suffered greatly in this fighting, but did not attempt any banzai charges. Instead they stayed in their fortifications in and on the ridges and allowed the marines to attack them, which they did for the next four days, suffering many more casualties without gaining any more ground. Amazingly, even after recognizing the changed Japanese defensive strategy, General Rupertus refused to alter the marine tactics of frontal charges that finally crippled his division. On 19 September, D + 4, Colonel Harold D. Harris, commander of the 5th Marines, conducted an aerial observation of the Umurbrogol ridges in one of the small observation planes recently arrived at the airfield. He was aghast at what he saw. The ridges, crevices, vertical cliffs, caves that he knew were full of Japanese soldiers, convinced him that there would be no breakthrough from the south. Upon his return, he recommended to General Rupertus and Colonel Lewis B. Puller, commander of the 1st Marines, to bypass, encircle, and attack the southern ridges from the north, using siege tactics. While his recommendation did not conform to current Marine training and fighting philosophy, this approach offered a greater chance of success with fewer casualties than the current tactic of attacking Bloody Nose Ridge from the south. Both Colonel Puller and General Rupertus ignored his recommendation, preferring to stay the present course using inaccurate maps. They would not even take to the air to view the terrain.≤ Soon, riflemen in the 1st Marines became depressed, bitter, and resigned to death. Time after time, they made frontal attacks against an unseen enemy on heavily fortified ridges. Regardless of the casualties, Colonel Puller kept pushing his men forward. At least one marine considered it slaughter.≥ Since the invasion began, Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters issued daily press releases reporting the progress of the marines on Peleliu. Newspapers used these releases to print front-page articles on the invasion. Generally optimistic at first, the releases grew more vague when the marines encountered the ridges.

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Some newspapers expanded their articles with information from correspondents on the scene. One such correspondent reported through the Associated Press with the dateline, ‘‘Aboard U. S. Flagship, Palau Islands, Sept. 19 (East longitude time via Navy radio).’’ This correspondent reported the marines had made slow, steady progress over difficult terrain north of Bloody Nose mountain, and that the Japanese defenders resisted the marines from organized defenses in depth on the ridges, not trying any banzai counterattacks. The correspondent also quoted Major General Julian S. Smith as saying: ‘‘We have secured our primary objective on Peleliu—the airfield.’’ The correspondent also reported that Smith ‘‘observed there was no point now in trying a whirlwind campaign to clear out tough island defenses with heavy cost in men.’’∂ This information shows that as early as 19 September, navy and marine officers taking part in Stalemate II recognized that the Japanese had changed their defensive tactics. General Smith’s statement implies that he preferred a more deliberate siege-type operation instead of frontal attacks, as also recommended by Colonel Harold Harris. Unfortunately, General Rupertus stubbornly ignored General Smith, Colonel Harris, and this battlefield intelligence, and continued frontal attacks on the ridges, expecting a breakthrough at any instant. Why General Geiger, a proven and competent officer who was impatient with General Rupertus’s tactics, did not put an immediate stop to this futility is open to conjecture. He did not, and more marines died attempting the impossible.∑ General Rupertus faced a dire situation. For the past several days, he had wanted to take advantage of the reportedly weak Japanese defense along the West Road and move troops north, capture northern Peleliu, and invade Ngesebus with its airstrip, another objective of this operation. On 21 September, he ordered the 5th Marines do this. The next day, he changed the order. He feared overextending his already thin lines, and he still thought a breakthrough from the south was imminent. Actually, General Rupertus was in a terrible predicament. He had insufficient force to move around Bloody Nose Ridge, and he could not seize it from the south. The Japanese had stopped the 1st Marine Division. By 21 September, the 1st Marine Division had suffered 3,946 casualties—about 40 percent of their original strength. Puller’s 1st Ma-

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rines had suffered 1,672 casualties, losing 52 percent of their original strength, more than any marine regiment in the Pacific War; and the division’s other two regiments, the 5th and 7th Marines, had been severely depleted. In exchange, the marines had captured southern Peleliu and the air base. General Julian Smith was correct that they had captured everything of value—but they had not destroyed the enemy force. The 1st Marine Division estimated that it had by then killed 6,880 Japanese. In the marine corps’ official monograph on Peleliu the author, Major Frank O. Hough, writes that the elimination of what amounted to two-thirds of effective enemy strength had destroyed ‘‘the Japanese potential for effective counteraction on a major scale.’’∏ Technically this was true, but if Hough meant to imply that the Japanese defense was broken, as seems to be the case, he was wrong. Colonel Nakagawa had no interest in launching a major counteraction and was, in fact, forbidden from doing so unless circumstances warranted such action. He still commanded over thirty-six hundred defenders in fukkaku positions in the ridges and would waste none of them in futile counterattacks. Colonel Nakagawa’s objective was not to win the battle, but rather to prolong the fighting and kill Americans. He knew he would lose all his men and territory over time, and this was acceptable as long as many Americans died along the way. So far his plan was working. The morale of the remaining Japanese defenders remained high and, according to a contemporary marine report, they held their positions with determination. Colonel Nakagawa planned to sit tight and kill Americans as they attacked his men—and he knew they would attack. The Japanese controlled the West and East Roads, allowing relatively free movement of men and supplies. While the marines controlled the airfield, the Japanese controlled positions overlooking it, and observed and harassed its activities. Almost every night the Japanese infiltrated into and through the marines’ defensive perimeter, killing and causing mayhem. The threat of Japanese reinforcements coming down the island chain from Koror and Babelthuap to northern Peleliu remained, even though Colonel Nakagawa advised General Inoue against it. So, even considering all the marine and Japanese casualties, the Japanese defense was not broken, but going according to plan.π

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At this point, General Rupertus had no options; he needed help extracting what remained of his division from its stalemated position south of Bloody Nose Ridge. If not to Rupertus, the situation was clear to General Geiger. After visiting the command post of Colonel Puller, Geiger concluded Puller was not in touch with reality because of his denial that the 1st Marines had been stopped. When Geiger reached division headquarters, Rupertus argued against using army troops, unrealistically clinging to the belief that the 1st Marine Division could finish the job. Complicating this discussion, other officers on Peleliu believed that Geiger and Rupertus disliked and mistrusted each other. Whatever the case may be, Geiger was becoming increasingly aggravated by Rupertus’s irrational position and arguments. Breaking the tension, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Fields, 1st Marine Division’s assistant chief of staff for training and operations, essentially defied his commander and told Geiger that they needed the army troops. Geiger agreed, and told General Rupertus to replace the 1st Marines with army troops immediately. He also ordered Rupertus to send the 1st Marines back to Pavuvu as soon as possible. The army was coming to Peleliu.∫ As mentioned in Chapter 2, Geiger requested from General Mueller a regimental combat team from the 81st Infantry Division for employment on Peleliu. Mueller offered him the 321st RCT, then in southern Angaur, and the only unit then available for reinforcing the marines. With Angaur secured, the 323rd RCT had departed earlier in the day for Ulithi as part of Rear Admiral Blandy’s Ulithi Attack Group, following Admiral Halsey’s orders. The 322nd RCT still battled the Japanese in northwest Angaur. Admiral Nimitz had transferred the XXIV Corps, originally assigned to Operation Stalemate II to capture Yap and Ulithi, to General MacArthur’s command. Not anticipating that the marines would need help on Peleliu, the navy commanders had put Geiger in a tight spot, and he had nowhere else to turn. Shortly after the reply by Mueller, navy and marine commanders arrived on Angaur for a meeting at 81st Infantry Division Headquarters. The commander of the Western Attack Force, Admiral George H. Fort, led the group, which included Generals Smith and Geiger. At the meeting, the commanders reviewed the seriousness of the situation on Peleliu, and established a plan for moving the

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321st RCT to Peleliu to replace the 1st Marines, and thus be under the command of General Rupertus.Ω During the evening of 22 September, Colonel Robert Dark, commander of the 321st RCT, reported to General Geiger aboard the Mount McKinley for instructions, and then reported to General Rupertus on Peleliu. All through the day, his men boarded the four LSTs that would take them to join the marines on nearby Peleliu. The ships passed the night in a heavy rain just offshore Angaur’s Red Beach. However, the Japanese stayed busy this night. Taking advantage of the rain and the darkness, General Inoue, the Japanese commander on Babelthuap, sent a battalion of men to reinforce Peleliu. These reinforcements left Koror in several barges, but the destroyer Heywood L. Edwards spotted them nearing Peleliu the following night, September 23–24. Over the next several days, the destroyer, with the help of amphibian tanks from the marines’ 3rd Armored Amphibian Tractor Battalion, sank most of the barges. Nevertheless, several hundred fresh Japanese troops landed in northern Peleliu and soon faced the marines and Wildcats.∞≠ Starting at noon on 23 September 1944, more than three thousand Wildcats offloaded the LSTs and crossed the reef to Orange Beach via a pontoon pier built by the Seabees. Second Lieutenant George Rasula, Company G, recalled: ‘‘The sight of the shore and the coral ridges beyond told us we were relieving a marine outfit because of a nasty battle in very undesirable terrain. The temperature was in the nineties and the humidity was right up there just short of rain.’’∞∞ William Somma, Company B, recalled leaving the LST: ‘‘I remember the sailors encouraging us. They gave us a lot of complementary remarks. For instance, they would say, ‘Go ahead, go show them how it’s done,’ or something like that, because the marines got badly beaten.’’∞≤ Immediately after coming ashore, the 2nd Battalion moved in column formation up the West Road and relieved the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. George Rasula remembered, ‘‘I do recall marines going by as we went forward to our first positions, appearing quite happy to be going in the other direction.’’∞≥ Lieutenant Ed Brackett, a platoon leader in Company H, 2nd Battalion, said, ‘‘My platoon was assigned to the extreme left flank of the 1st Marine Division. My platoon was a heavy machine-gun platoon and we moved into place and dug in at

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Infantrymen from the 321st RCT arrive on Peleliu via a pontoon pier, 23 September 1944. Courtesy National Archives (127-N-96738).

once. I told the marines to move out; they had been relieved.’’∞∂ The 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, followed behind the 2nd Battalion, and stayed in an area just to the south. The 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, was the designated regimental reserve and moved to an assembly area near the airfield. Private First Class Albert Chieffo, Company B, recalled passing marines along the West Road. ‘‘They were in sad shape. As we passed them sitting on the side of the road, the shouting was about what state we were from, and ‘good luck!’ ’’∞∑ Private First Class Ray Deihl, Company B, recalled one of the marines saying, ‘‘I’m the last of my troop.’’∞∏ James Lamson, Antitank Company, remembered, ‘‘They called us ‘pussycats,’ but [were] sure glad to see us come to their rescue.’’∞π The landscape that the 2nd and 3rd Battalions had moved into was a coastal plain that ran about six thousand yards from the base of the Umurbrogol to the north tip of the island. The West Road proceeded along the total length of this coastal plain. The width of the flat ground varied from 50 to 750 yards. Where the 3rd and 2nd Bat-

Peleliu Island. Map by John Gilkes.

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talions took up positions, the plain had a width of about five hundred yards. About a quarter of the way up the coast to the north, a curve in the shoreline narrowed the level terrain to about two hundred yards, where a bend in the West Road soon earned the name Dead Man’s Curve. Beyond the curve, about halfway to the north tip of the island, the line of hills and shore diverged to create the widest part of the coastal flat. The village of Garekoru was located along the West Road near the center of this widest portion of the plain. There, vegetation changed from dense jungle to coconut trees. Just south of the village was a narrow trail running east into the hills that would play a major role in defeating the Japanese forces. The Wildcats eventually called it the 321st Infantry Trail. Other trails started into the ridges from the West Road but all of these ended in box canyons or at the base of vertical cliffs. After Garekoru, the plain steadily narrowed until reaching the minimum width of fifty yards at the north end of Peleliu.∞∫ For General Rupertus, capturing northern Peleliu and Ngesebus became more important with the recent reinforcement of the enemy through that area. He needed to block this enemy supply route. In addition, he finally realized that he could not take Bloody Nose Ridge from the south, and that he needed to isolate the Umurbrogol Pocket and attack it from the north. To do so, he had to find a way to get troops north of Bloody Nose Ridge, on a line extending from the West Road to the East Road. He could not do all this with his weakened 1st Marine Division, but with the 81st Infantry Division’s 321st RCT attached to his command, he could use it to find such a route, and he could use the 5th Marines to capture northern Peleliu and Ngesebus. At the same time, the 7th Marines would remain in the southern perimeter lines blocking infiltrators from reaching the airport.∞Ω Other marine units had previously relieved the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 1st Marines, and as soon as completing the relief of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, the 2nd Battalion, 321st Infantry, sent patrols north. The patrols advanced nearly a mile, reaching Garekoru village. They encountered only lightly held defensive positions near Garekoru, though the West Road and the area around the village had been heavily booby-trapped and mined with aerial bombs. The patrols also reported taking sniper fire from the ridges to the east when the Wildcats advanced up the unprotected east side of West Road. When these positive reconnaissance reports reached Rupertus, he thought the Japanese had abandoned the area, and he ordered the

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2nd Battalion to immediately attack north and gain as much ground as possible before dark. Second Battalion moved out at 1730 with two companies in column formation advancing abreast on both sides of the West Road. As the Wildcats advanced, the Japanese, concealed in the ridges to the east, opened up with everything they had. The intense rifle and machine-gun fire quickly pinned down the Wildcats marching on the east side of the road. However, a low-lying ridge shielded the column marching west of the road, and it advanced virtually unhindered. With darkness approaching, the advancing units halted after gaining one hundred yards. The column then withdrew a short distance to straighten out its lines and establish a defensive perimeter. The Japanese fired into the lines of the 2nd Battalion throughout the night, but caused few casualties.≤≠ At daybreak, 24 September, D + 9 on Peleliu, the sun rose in a cloudless sky, promising another scorcher. Not only would this be a hot day, but a trying day for marine and army relations. Beginning at 0700, navy planes bombed and strafed the coastal flat north of the line held by the 2nd Battalion, 321st Infantry. Navy ships and marine artillery added their guns to the bombardment. The softening-up lasted an hour and fifteen minutes. When the big guns fell silent, the 2nd Battalion advanced in column on the left side of the West Road. Moving behind the same lowlying ridge as the evening before, these troops received only scattered small-arms fire. With little resistance, the column advanced rapidly. Just before noon, after pushing nearly a mile north, the leading platoons overran weakly held enemy positions astride the West Road a few hundred yards south of Garekoru village, capturing three machine guns, an antitank gun, and a partially emplaced naval gun. These Japanese positions along the West Road defended a junction with a small, undeveloped trail that ran east into the ridges, the one later called the 321st Infantry Trail. The importance of this minor action became apparent later in the day. Leaving exploration of the trail to rear units, the lead elements drove on to Garekoru and reached the village by 1500. While demolition teams from Company A, 306th Engineer Battalion, started blowing up pillboxes, aerial bomb-mines, and other defensive works in and around the village, the Wildcats continued the drive north. They

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reached the 0-4 line by 1535, a position five hundred yards north of Garekoru that marine planners had expected to gain by D + 3. The Japanese resisted this movement with only intermittent mortar, rifle, and machine-gun fire from the extreme northern ridges of the Umurbrogol.≤∞ Though forward elements of the 2nd Battalion made swift progress, the situation for the rear units of the long column was quite different. The mission of the 3rd Battalion on 24 September was to trail 2nd Battalion using the same column formation, and probe for routes to the East Road. The mission of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, to the right rear of the 2nd Battalion, 321st, was to cover the right flank. After passing the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, currently moving through the ridges and falling behind the Wildcats because of the rough terrain and Japanese resistance, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, slanted east, crossed the West Road, and filled in the gap between the 2nd Battalion, 321st, and the marines. After this movement across West road, the 3rd Battalion, 321st, tried to maintain physical contact with the 2nd Battalion, 321st, on the north, and the 7th Marines on the south. Company K, the rear company in the Wildcat column, tied in with the 7th Marines and both units continued northward through the ridges. As the Wildcats crossed the road and entered the ridges, they began taking casualties from heavy Japanese fire. Being in rough terrain and taking fire from the Japanese, the Wildcats and the marines in the ridges could not advance as quickly as could the 2nd Battalion, 321st Infantry, moving on the road. To keep up with the 2nd Battalion, as well as to seek protection from the deadly Japanese fire, in the early afternoon the Wildcats of the 3rd Battalion, 321st Infantry, shunted left to follow the 2nd Battalion on the protected side of the West Road. Seeing the army troops veer away from the ridge line, for which they were responsible, to the sheltered side of the West Road, Major E. Hunter Hurst, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, sent the following message to the headquarters of the 7th Marines and to the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT:≤≤ ‘‘3 Bn. 321 has withdrawn from the hills leaving a gap on the left flank of 3/7 undefended. The Japs reoccupied the hills and 3/7 is fighting to retake them.’’≤≥ Later, when General Rupertus received this information, he reportedly said, ‘‘That’s the Wildcat Division of pussycats all the way.

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Now I can tell Geiger, ‘I told you so. That’s why I didn’t want the army involved in this in the first place.’ ’’≤∂ With the enemy flowing into the gap left by the 3rd Battalion, 321st, this move not only exposed the left flank of the 7th Marines and the right flank of the 321st RCT, it also threatened the whole mission of finding a route through the ridges. According to Hurst, ‘‘It was certainly not our mission to maintain the contact on the flat coastal road and turn the ridge over to the Japs. . . . The latter officer [CO 3/321] . . . promised that he would do everything within his power to get them back on the high ground. I watched several abortive efforts to do so before finally becoming convinced that if friendly troops were going to control the ridge that night it would have to be our Company I.’’≤∑ Private John Engstrom, a rifleman in the 2nd Platoon, Company K, 321st RCT, usually carried an SCR 300 radio for the company commander, Captain T. D. Jones. But on this particular day, for reasons he doesn’t remember, he instead carried a little SCR 536 AM radio, popularly known as a ‘‘walkie-talkie.’’ We were to go off the road toward Bloody Nose Ridge. Captain Jones had been told to do that, and he felt that we couldn’t do it. So I would personally go back down the road to battalion, and say, ‘‘Captain Jones said there’s no way we can go up on that hill.’’ The light colonel [lieutenant colonel], I don’t remember his name [at that time Major, later Lieutenant Colonel, Dallas A. Pilliod] would say, ‘‘You go back and tell the captain, you’ve got to go up there!’’ I must have done this two, three, four times during the course of the day. It gets later in the day and the colonel comes back with me. He relieves Captain Jones.≤∏ After correcting this problem, the successes mounted. While the infantrymen of Company G, 2nd Battalion, began to set up a night perimeter around the 0-4 line, a strong patrol backed by army and marine tanks and navy LVT flamethrowers≤π continued to drive up the West Road. By the end of the day this probing force had advanced more than two miles and reached the remains of the main Japanese radio station more than a mile beyond the new American front lines. The Japanese had abandoned this multi-story building, now severely

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damaged, as they had most of the pillboxes and entrenchments found along the way. Farther south, 2nd Battalion troops scored an even bigger success. As Company G approached Garekoru village, trailing companies turned east to attack the ridge line. Company E, led by Captain Lloyd E. Deerinwater, immediately began to exploit the narrow trail discovered earlier below Garekoru. Simultaneously, Company F, north of Company E, and Companies I, L, and K, in that order, south of Company E, attacked the ridge line to the east, defended by Japanese troops hidden in caves and trenches. The most intense enemy fire came from Hill 100, a steep hill that loomed one hundred feet over the 321st Infantry Trail.≤∫ With Company H pounding the hill with 81mm mortars and .30-caliber machineguns,≤Ω Company E immediately assaulted the Japanese positions, supported by Companies F and I on their left and right flanks, respectively. Using ladders fashioned from tree limbs or climbing hand over hand, the Company E Wildcats fought their way up the precipitous hillside, seizing the summit around dusk amidst a furious exchange of hand grenades with the defenders. At the same time Company I, using mountain climbing techniques, battled its way to the top of a ridge near Hill 100. Companies L and K were not as successful, with Company K, now led by a lieutenant, falling back to the West Road. The 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, remained in the ridges, leaving a gap between this unit and Company K. The importance of Hill 100 was not lost on either side. This deep salient into the Japanese lines, if extended to the east coast of Peleliu, would divide the Japanese force and isolate those defenders in the Umurbrogol. In addition, Hill 100 dominated the East Road; whoever controlled the hill also controlled the roadway, which the Japanese used as their main conduit for supply and communications. In the fading light of early evening, the Japanese mounted a counterattack directed primarily against the lines of Companies G and F. Fighting at close quarters, the Wildcats gave up about two hundred yards in one area, but subsequently regained most of the lost ground. A bold medic, Technician Third Grade Arthur E. Jones, administered aid to the severely wounded, directed the litter squads, and then rounded up ten men to help hold off the attacking Japanese until eleven more wounded Wildcats in the immediate area were treated and evacuated. When the shooting stopped and the smoke

Capturing Hill 100 in Central Peleliu, 24 September 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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Wildcats struggling up a steep slope while attacking the Japanese. Courtesy U.S. Army Military History Institute.

cleared, Company E still held the summit of Hill 100. Undaunted, the Japanese started forming ranks for a second counterattack, but a concentrated artillery barrage scattered them.≥≠ Next day, D + 10, the goals for the marine infantrymen holding the line around the southern end of the Umurbrogol were, first, to stay alive another day; and, second, to inch forward and knock out one Japanese position after another. The Wildcats of the 321st Infantry had a somewhat different mission: they were to expand the significant gains of the day before and finish taking the central hill mass. Even as the riflemen of Company E, 321st, pushed up the 321st Infantry Trail toward Hill 100, engineers followed behind, widening

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the pathway. By morning of 25 September, using armored bulldozers, Company A, 306th Engineer Battalion, supported by Sherman tanks from Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, had cleared a path wide enough for light vehicles such as jeeps. This meant the men of Companies E and I on and around Hill 100 would receive the supplies needed to continue assaulting the enemy, and could evacuate their wounded to higher levels of medical care in the rear. Company F to the left and Companies L and K to the right of the trail were not so fortunate. Holding the tops of ridges, supplies and the wounded had to be manhandled up and down grades so steep that makeshift ladders had to be used. The terrain handicapped the advance of the 3rd Battalion nearly as much as the Japanese resistance. To complete the encirclement of the Japanese in the central highlands, it was necessary to capture a steep hill on the other side of the East Road directly opposite Hill 100. With the same near-vertical sides, Hill B was higher than Hill 100, covered with dense tropical growth, and teaming with Japanese. To make this attack on Hill B, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, concentrated its companies along a narrower front. To compensate for this movement, the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, brought Company I out of reserve and placed it on its left flank, extending the 7th Marines’ perimeter northward another 250 yards. The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, moved up the West Road behind the 3rd Battalion Wildcats. The marines would support the Wildcats attacking eastward, and then strike south toward the southern ridges. The attack on Hill B began at 0700. The riflemen of Company E, supported by heavy machine guns and mortars, advanced down the northeast face of Hill 100. By 1030, they had reached the East Road, but the attacked stalled in the face of machine-gun, mortar, and smallarms fire from the Japanese on Hill B. The Wildcats had to move across an open road toward an enemy who could fire down at them from above. They halted and waited for the 3rd Battalion to come forward and support them. Plans called for Companies I and L to attack across the ridges south of Company E to support its assault on Hill B. However, the rifle platoons of I and L Companies ran up against terrain and defenses typical of the Umurbrogol: promontories with sheer cliffs and box canyons where enemy troops, ensconced in caves and hardened concrete pillboxes, could rain fire down on the Americans from three

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sides. A Wildcat reconnaissance patrol sent into these ridges never returned; two weeks later, a group of 5th Marines found the decaying bodies of twelve Wildcats belonging to the vanished patrol in a ravine near what became known as ‘‘Wattie Ridge.’’ Several attempts to flank the Japanese in this area had caused gaps to open in the battle line. Later in the day, Company K, since 0730 under the command of Captain William Murphy, previously with the 321st RCT Headquarters Company, moved north and plugged a gap between Companies I and L, with the 7th Marines stretching their lines to cover K Company’s previous positions.≥∞ While the Japanese stymied the Wildcats in front of Hill B, the attack up the West Road continued at a rapid pace. At 0710, Major Frank C. Seitz, 2nd Battalion’s executive officer, led a patrol-inforce north from Garekoru to evaluate more thoroughly the Japanese strength in northern Peleliu and destroy enemy positions spotted the day before. The patrol moved north in two columns, one on the beach and the other on West Road; each column comprised forty infantrymen, one LVT flamethrower, two amphibian tanks, three medium Sherman tanks, an engineering demolition squad, and medics. Ranging twelve hundred yards beyond the 0-4 line, as far as the abandoned radio station, the Americans destroyed two large supply dumps and four pillboxes, killed thirty Japanese, and captured a Korean worker without suffering a single casualty. This lack of a determined resistance supported the opinion that northern Peleliu was lightly defended.≥≤ With this firsthand information gained from the combat patrols of D + 9 and D + 10, marine headquarters adjusted troop dispositions. The 7th Marines would hold its position looping around the southern ridges of Umurbrogol Mountain. The 5th Marines would pass through the lines of the 2nd Battalion, 321st Infantry, along the West Road, and capture northern Peleliu. The 321st had as its zone of action the ridges between the West and East Roads north of the 321st Infantry Trail, Kamilianlul Mountain being the largest height. After capturing the East Road, the 321st would turn north, attack the Japanese in its assigned area, and occupy northern Peleliu.≥≥ A few hours later, the 5th Marines started up the West Road, passing through the lines of Company G, 321st Infantry. Following tanks and LVT flamethrowers, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, led the column. Before dark, they had occupied the abandoned radio station.

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The 3rd Battalion followed the 1st, and the 2nd Battalion came last. At dusk, Colonel Harris, commander of the 5th Marines, decided to cut contact with the 321st Regiment, and anchored both his northern and southern flanks on the beach. His northern flank dug in near the radio station, his southern flank rested about six hundred yards north of the 2nd Battalion, 321st Infantry. The center of Harris’s line, the 3rd Battalion, pushed east and established its defensive perimeter across the East Road. As a result, the 5th Marines dominated the West Road-East Road junction, designated RJ 15. By moving troops to northern Peleliu, traffic along the West Road increased dramatically as supplies followed the men and a flow of wounded traveled back to rear areas. Japanese snipers who favored slow-moving vehicles, especially around Dead Man’s Curve, complicated the supply problem over the narrow road. To keep traffic flowing smoothly, traffic control posts existed along the road to patrol and control movement. In addition, the 306th Engineers worked diligently to widen and improve the road using armored bulldozers.≥∂ When Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters issued a press release on the day’s action, it mentioned for the first time that ‘‘elements’’ of the 81st Infantry Division had reinforced the 1st Marine Division. All previous gains made by the Wildcats, such as the occupation of Garekoru village, had been attributed to the marines by calling the Wildcats ‘‘elements’’ of the 1st Marine Division.≥∑ Hill B remained the target for the 321st RCT on 26 September, D + 11. The 3rd Battalion drew the assignment of taking the hill. The 2nd Battalion would support the attack from its positions on and around Hill 100. After tanks laid down a barrage on the ridges between them and Hill B, the 3rd Battalion began its attack at 0700, but made very little forward progress through the ridges. Enemy machine-gun and mortar fire from Hill B and nearby ridges completely frustrated the attack. Any attempt to advance that exposed the troops resulted in many casualties. ‘‘I was blown off a forty-foot ridge by an artillery blast,’’ said Second Lieutenant Harry G. Singer, Company K, ‘‘but I reported for duty the next day.’’ After about ninety minutes, the 3rd Battalion tried a new tactic. Concentrating forces even more for breaking through the Japanese defensive line, Company L moved northward around the rear of Company K and joined Company I closer to Hill

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100. Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, filled in the area left by Company L, 321st. Companies L and I tried, but failed, to burst through to Hill B. Intense Japanese fire immediately pinned down both companies.≥∏ Bert Neill, a rifleman with the 3rd Platoon, Company I, said, ‘‘We were moving so much at that time, changing positions. The Japanese would run us off, and then we would go back up there. Our company commander, Captain [Allen I.] Safstrom, got hit. He got wounded in the head. Mortars were going every which way, and the ships were shooting over our heads.’’≥π Corwin Berry, a radio operator in Company I, added, ‘‘Our company came back down from the ridge after Marine artillery zoned in within one hundred feet of us, and it was phosphorus-type shells that were being fired. But we went back up after our CO was wounded. Lieutenant [Clarence E.] Wagner was second in command, and he was supposed to take us back up. In the process of standing there, he got wounded in the shoulder. Lieutenant John Thomas took over command and we returned to our original position.’’≥∫ By 1000, another attack plan had evolved, this time using the 2nd Battalion. This attack would have three prongs. The first prong, the main assault force, Companies E and F, would attack Hill B from the south and west, respectively. The second prong, Companies I and L in the ridges. would add their guns in support. The third prong, named Task Force Neal after its commander, Captain George C. Neal, 2nd Battalion’s operations officer, was an armored column with a mission to attack Hill B from the north. It consisted of seven medium Sherman tanks from the 710th Tank Battalion; six amphibian tanks; one LVT flamethrower; a demolition squad of engineers; medics; and forty-five infantrymen and officers from Companies F and G. Because the engineers were still repairing and widening the 321st Infantry Trail, Task Force Neal had to take a roundabout route through northern Peleliu to get in place to attack Hill B from the north. Starting from Garekoru, it used the West Road north to RJ 15, then the East Road east and south to a position north of Hill B. Task Force Neal had a secondary mission of opening the East Road as a supply route. The armored column rolled out of Garekoru at about 1000. Three Sherman tanks spearheaded the column, with one Sherman tank bringing up the rear. The LVT flamethrower followed the third Sherman tank in line, in turn followed by the remaining Sherman and

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amphibian tanks. Going from Garekoru to RJ 15, the infantrymen rode on the tanks. Upon reaching the 5th Marines’ perimeter on the East Road, near Hill 80, the column halted to let the men off the tanks. The 5th Marines situated here told Captain Neal about some troublesome snipers in a cave on Hill 80. Two Sherman tanks fired several 75mm shells into the cave, putting an end to the trouble. Moving into hostile territory, the column leaders picked twelve infantrymen to lead the column. These men looked for antitank and anti-personnel mines, pointed out targets for the tanks, and killed any Japanese hiding alongside the road. The rest of the infantry protected the vehicles. The column moved slowly and stopped often to let the walking infantrymen rest. The day was extremely hot and humid, and the men, especially the leading twelve, toiled under a tremendous amount of stress. During these rest stops, the Wildcat infantrymen fanned out and protected the column. Every twenty minutes, Lieutenant Colonel Peter D. Clainos, commander of the 2nd Battalion, received a radio report from the tanks on their location and condition of the task force. The task force slowly moved south, down the East Road, until about 1500 when it encountered the first Japanese resistance. About 150 yards before reaching its designated attack station, Task Force Neal fought off a Japanese assault, killing fifteen of the enemy.≥Ω As Task Force Neal approached Hill B, Companies E and F filed out of their positions on Hill 100 and the 0-4 line, and assembled at their assault positions south and west of Hill B. Company K, 3rd Battalion, moved into and occupied the defensive positions left by Company E on Hill 100, while Company C, from the 1st Battalion, took over those of Company F. Responding to General Rupertus’s order to attack Kamilianlul Mountain, the remaining 1st Battalion companies, less a small detachment to guard the 321st RCT command post, moved north on the West Road to about the 0-4 line. Here, they protected this supply route for the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, as well as for the 5th Marines, and guarded against any potential Japanese counterattack that might come from north-central Peleliu. The coordinated assault on Hill B jumped off at 1600 after mortars fired white phosphorous shells on the hill, enveloping it in smoke. Task Force Neal attacked south. Company F charged Hill B from directly across East Road while Company E formed the southern pincer advancing on the hill from that direction.∂≠

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After Task Force Neal had moved forward about seventy-five yards, it ran into a roadblock made from a felled tree and boulders rolled into the road. The leading squad of infantrymen climbed over the roadblock, and while investigating some dead Japanese bodies, machine-gun fire from a cave in Hill B pinned them down. The tanks fired on the east slope of the hill, and with the help of smoke from the white phosphorus shells, the Wildcats scrambled to cover. The tanks fired into the cave while the LVT flamethrower came forward to burn it out.∂∞ Second Lieutenant George Rasula, commanding 3rd Platoon, Company G, also commanded the rear guard for Task Force Neal. Rasula said, I have a very strong visual memory of this action. I remember moving forward along the column of tracks, moving urgently so it was probably when the officer in front was wounded. I suddenly came to this narrow area with ridges on both sides, seeing the flamethrower sending a stream of fire into a cave on the right, at the same time seeing about three Japanese soldiers trying to run through the flaming napalm, a horrible sight. What got the attention of the leading squad was a machine gun firing from this cave on the right at a time when the entrance was quite well camouflaged. By the time our flamethrowing track got through with it, there was no camouflage and the entrance was much larger than we had thought. After we got the machine gun silenced, we sent our engineer crew up on top of the cave’s entrance where they placed three twenty-pound shaped charges. When they blew, it cleaved away a large chunk, but never did seal the entrance. After that, we found the air vents of the cave system and had the engineers pour hundreds of gallons of gasoline into the vent system. After that [gasoline] burned, we could only assume the enemy inside had perished, but that was no guarantee as we learned later.∂≤ The infantry cleared the roadblock, and the tanks moved forward. After another seventy-five yards, tanks encountered a bomb crater in the road, and this held the column up for the night. However, in fortyseven minutes, the converging attack overran Hill B. Dead Japanese

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littered the hillside and surrounding area. The army’s first mission on Peleliu was a success. Although the 81st Division received very little recognition for this action, the importance of this day’s triumph by the Wildcats should never be undervalued. Occupying the 321st Infantry Trail from the West Road to the East Road divided the Japanese forces on Peleliu, denied them the use of the East Road, and trapped the bulk of the enemy defenders in the Umurbrogol to the south.∂≥ During the day, while Task Force Neal and the 2nd Battalion prepared for the assault on Hill B, the Japanese rained heavy fire down on the 3rd Battalion in the ridges southwest of Hill B. Companies I and L eventually withdrew to the base of the western ridges. By 1830, after dark, Company I regained its original position and made contact with Company K on Hill 100, but Company L remained at the base of the ridges near the West Road, as it could not move forward against the enemy’s resistance. Due to the intense enemy fire during the day, some wounded men had to be left behind in the ridges during the withdrawal. After dark, the wounded were gathered and brought to the base of the ridge near Dead Man’s Curve. Here, they were loaded on tanks and removed for treatment.∂∂ On 27 September, D + 12, both the 1st and the 2nd Battalions would see action. The previous evening, General Rupertus issued new orders to Colonel Dark to have one battalion attack north up the East Road along the regimental boundary to eliminate the Japanese bypassed by the 5th Marines in the Kamilianlul Mountain ridges, and to have one battalion attack south down the East Road and occupy positions at the 0-X line. The 0-X line marked the believed northern extent of the main Japanese defenses in the Umurbrogol. Colonel Dark decided to have the 1st Battalion attack north, and the 2nd Battalion to attack south. The 3rd Battalion would once again remain in the western ridges to support the 2nd Battalion’s southern advance. The 321st Infantry jumped off at 0700 on D + 12. The action started for the 2nd Battalion with Company G replacing Company K on Hill 100. Company K, temporarily attached to the 2nd Battalion, would attack down the East Road alongside Company F. In the early morning, a bulldozer repaired the bomb crater in the East Road that had stopped Task Force Neal the night before. The armor in the task force also received gas, oil, and ammunition brought to them by two tanks traveling down the East Road.

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Major Dallas Pilliod, Private Andrew J. Forte, and Staff Sergeant Louis Solnosky, 321st RCT, seek cover behind a smoking knocked-out tank on Dead Man’s Curve. Courtesy National Archives (111-SC-282140).

When the drive south began, two Sherman and two amphibian tanks remained at Hill B with Company E of the infantry, while the remaining task force accompanied Companies F and K southward. Some of the infantry advanced in front of the tanks to remove roadblocks. Company F, on the left, moved forward along the road. Company K, on the right, advancing along a ridgeline fissured with deep valleys and defiles, struggled to keep up with the task force on the road. The ridgeline, infested with Japanese snipers, mortar and machine-gun positions, was perfect for defense. From the start, Company K came under constant and intense enemy fire.∂∑ John Engstrom, being the radioman in Company K, stayed close to Captain William Murphy. He remembered: We were going right down Bloody Nose Ridge. We started on the far end and worked our way down. We’d blow caves, of course, as we were going. Occasionally, half-a-dozen Japs would come out and want to give up. By this time we pretty well knew that we were in trouble, so you couldn’t take captives, you had to kill them. Maybe not right, but we never took a prisoner on Peleliu.

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I don’t know why we didn’t have the large company radio. I carried a little 536 walkie-talkie. They were no good, but I did get in contact with the company to our left [Company F] and the guy said they were pulling back. I told Captain Murphy, ‘‘Our left flank is bare, they have pulled back.’’ I asked, ‘‘What are we going to do?’’ At that time, somebody just carried a message that the company on the right [possibly Company I] was pulling back. I said, ‘‘Well, now we’re kind of in trouble, captain. We’re in the middle and nobody on either end.’’ He said, ‘‘Hey! They sent us up here to sweep this ridge, we’re going.’’ You go forward, and next thing you know you get machinegun fire and small-arms fire, and, of course, you hit the deck. He’s standing up there, and he said, ‘‘You goddamn guys, get your asses up, we’re going forward! What’s the matter with you?’’ You couldn’t see anything, you never saw those bastards. They were there, but you never saw them. We got up above there, and finally the captain decided we were in trouble. Then the captain said, ‘I need a couple of volunteers. We have to find out how we can get out of here.’ Sergeant [Chester W.] Shipley and Private [Glenn R.] Reynolds decided to go with the captain. Captain Murphy and the two volunteers went over to our right and found where M Company was, and on the way back Reynolds and the captain were killed. Shipley made it through. He kind of led us. It wasn’t too good. On the way back we came to a hole, and part of us got in this pit that was maybe the size of a large room. It was down quite a ways, and we felt relatively safe in it. It must have been half-dozen guys got out of the hole, and as soon as they did, they went down. They were dead. We sat there, it started getting dark, they were getting closer and throwing grenades, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m going for it.’ I left my rifle, my canteens, I took two grenades and I went for it. Another guy went out ahead of me, a BAR guy. He got part way and he got hung up on some downed trees. I hit him and drove him through. I got over to M Company. That’s probably the closest I came to breaking mentally.∂∏

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The remaining Wildcats of Company K climbed and scrambled their way west and north over the ridges to inside Company I’s perimeter southwest of Hill 100, bringing back all the wounded they could. Company F with the armor retired to defensive positions near Hill B.∂π At Hill B, the tanks and infantry left behind that day had attacked a cave and killed forty Japanese soldiers. The tanks and infantry attacked one entrance of the cave with 75mm guns and individual flamethrowers, while Wildcats at another entrance used grenades and small arms to kill the Japanese as they ran out.∂∫ The northern attack force, the 1st Battalion, 321st Infantry, was able to gain considerable ground on D + 12. Beginning at 0700, Company C on the left swept around both sides of the isolated peak of Kamilianlul Mountain. Company A followed the East Road in the northward advance, with Company B following. Rugged ground on the left and a swamp on the right slowed the attack in these areas. Even so, by 1230, 1st Battalion had gained a thousand yards. During the advance, they passed numerous abandoned Japanese positions, suggesting the remaining Japanese defenders had withdrawn to the north. At 1235, the battalion received orders to deploy along the northern portion of the East Road, replacing the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, which had been recently withdrawn to attack Ngesebus. Passing around the left flank of Company C, Company B reached RJ 15 shortly after 1700, where it tied in with the marines near the coast and began digging in for the night. Companies C and A were slowed by fire from pillboxes as they struggled north. Both companies waited for armor to attack the pillboxes, and so did not completely occupy the area, particularly Hill 80, formerly held by the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. The 1st Battalion perimeter stretched in an arc from RJ 15 to Kamilianlul Mountain, with Company B on the left, Company C in the center, and Company A on the right, with gaps between Company C and the flank companies.∂Ω At 1900, Colonel Dark reported to General Rupertus at his headquarters and received instructions to mop up, organize, and defend northern Peleliu and Ngesebus. The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, would launch an amphibious assault on Ngesebus Island on 28 September.∑≠

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On September 28, D + 13, the marines and Wildcats had to contend with relentless rain from a passing typhoon as well as the enemy. The rain came in a downpour, reducing visibility to a few feet and turning the roads into quagmires. The wind would increase considerably over the next several days before the typhoon moved on. The rain and wind disrupted the supply line, and made life much more difficult for the Americans fighting on Angaur and Peleliu. For the Japanese, protected in caves, the typhoon provided respite, helping not only to slow the American advances on Angaur and Peleliu, but also to replenish seriously depleted water supplies. Except for brief interludes, these battles had raged under a scorching tropical sun since the landings. Holed up in caves and bunkers, thirst had begun to gnaw at many of the Japanese troops. Now rainwater filled canteens and buckets. Even with the poor weather, the attacks north and south by the 321st RCT continued forward shortly after daybreak on D + 13. The objective of the 1st Battalion in the north was to complete the seizure of the East Road, cross the road, and then attack the ridges beyond. Company A held the right side of the line, and by 1000, destroyed the pillbox that had stopped its advance the previous afternoon. Tank, infantry, demolition, and flamethrower teams destroyed other pillboxes along the road and in the Kamilianlul ridges. The Wildcats captured the entire East Road except for a small loop at its southward bend. Japanese pillboxes on the eastern slopes of the ridgeline under attack by Company C hampered further advances on the right. This ridge was the same Hill 80 that the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, captured two days previously. After sweeping across East Road, Japanese counterattacks met Company C beginning at 1030. Firefights raged up and down Company C’s advancing line for the rest of the morning and through the afternoon. As daylight waned on D + 13, Company C had gained the rest of the ridge on the left of the advance where the infantrymen established a night perimeter at 1600.∑∞ These firefights fought during the day by Company C were in the sector previously occupied by Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. This change in sector responsibilities resulted in another contentious issue between the army and the marines. After the marines had left this sector, the Japanese infiltrated into it along the East Road be-

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fore the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, arrived. The Wildcats expected a mopping-up operation and instead, to their dismay, encountered organized resistance. Thus was demonstrated the effectiveness of Colonel Nakagawa’s defensive plan, which called for his troops to infiltrate and reoccupy defensive positions previously lost or abandoned— which resulted in the Americans having to retake the same ground two or three times, thus extending the battle and causing more American casualties. Further south, before resuming the drive southward from the 321st Infantry Trail to the 0-X line, the attacking force required reorganization. Due to Company K’s heavy casualties the day before, it replaced Company E on Hill B. Major Dallas A. Pilliod now formed a composite battalion consisting of Companies E, F, and I. Task Force Neal, which ceased to exist as such, now reported to Major Pilliod and supported these infantrymen. Their objectives were the same as the day before—open the East Road and eliminate Japanese resistance in the ridges from the 321st Infantry Trail south to the 0-X line.∑≤ Company I advanced south along the ridges and Company E moved down the East Road with tanks in support. Tank-infantry teams methodically cleaned out Japanese caves and pillboxes. Following alongside and behind the tanks, the infantrymen communicated with the tank crews via a ‘‘sound power telephone.’’ According to First Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, ‘‘The assistant driver listened to it. We had a long wire on it that could be patched to the tank commander, too. It was on a little box on the back of the tank. The infantry could come up, talk to you, and put you on a target you couldn’t see. That was the purpose of it.’’∑≥ Also on D + 13, the Japanese could not stop the drive south along the East Road to the 0-X line. The Wildcats quickly occupied the ground taken the day before, and by 1200 they had advanced to within two hundred yards of the objective. Several hours later, Company L, in the western ridges, joined the drive south by linking up with Company I’s right flank. Now, troops attacking along the ridges moved more slowly as they systematically destroyed enemy-occupied caves with demolitions, gasoline, white phosphorus grenades, flamethrowers, and small-arms fire. They reached the 0-X line late in the afternoon and established a night perimeter.

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At 1625, General Rupertus orally ordered Colonel Dark to have one 321st battalion ready to replace the marines on Ngesebus Island, which had been successfully invaded earlier in the day.∑∂ The rain that began the day before (28 September) continued through September 29, D + 14. Again, it was a steady rain punctuated by periods of intense downpours. The warning orders received by the 321st RCT late the previous afternoon now became official orders. General Rupertus wanted the 321st RCT to mop up northern Peleliu while the 5th and 7th Marines battled the Japanese in the central combat zone. It might have made more sense to put the 321st RCT into the central combat zone. The 321st was in much better shape than either of the two remaining Marine regiments, and it had successfully accomplished every mission assigned it. General Rupertus either still did not believe in the Wildcats’ combat capabilities or, more realistically, he remained determined that only the marines would capture Peleliu. He did not want the army to get any credit whatsoever for the victory.∑∑ In anticipation of relieving the 5th Marines on Ngesebus Island, the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, assembled in the area of Garekoru village during the morning and early afternoon on D + 14. The battalion commander, Colonel Peter Clainos, was already on Ngesebus, reconnoitering the island. The order to move the battalion to the island came at 1500, and by 1700 the 2nd Battalion had arrived on Ngesebus via LVTs. The 2nd Platoon, Company A, 306th Engineer Combat Battalion, accompanied the 2nd Battalion to help with the mopping-up operations. As an army LVT loaded with barbed wire and other supplies passed some 5th Marines on their way back to Peleliu, one marine wished aloud that they could dig in behind barbed wire at night, too. The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, occupied the defensive positions vacated by the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, on the 0-X line.∑∏ Lieutenant George Rasula recalled the move to Ngesebus: Once we got about half way across the island, my platoon was about half way down the airfield, Japanese snipers opened up. We soon discovered there were more enemy still holed up in the caves to the west. We took cover in the many shell holes on the airfield. It was no place to be standing when snipers were in control.

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When night finally came we remained in our shell holes with half of our bodies submerged in water from the recent heavy rains. It wasn’t until the next day when we got tanks and flame-throwing tracks over to the island before we began our methodical sweep to clean out or blow up every cave we could find. We suffered a few casualties.∑π The battalion sent Company F to occupy and mop up Kongauru Island, immediately to the north. Its main purpose was to warn of the approach of Japanese reinforcements from the main island of Babelthuap, and to attack and destroy such forces if possible. As soon as the infantrymen of Company F landed on the island, the Wildcats went to work sealing caves and establishing defensive positions. Planning to be on Kongauru for a while, they had to find a way of getting supplies and ammunition to the island. Lieutenant Ed Brackett, Company H, said, ‘‘One of my jobs on Ngesebus was to connect Kongauru to Ngesebus by road, which I did with men from F Company helping.’’∑∫ Ngesebus Island furnished a new fertile field for souvenir hunting by the combat troops. In addition to ‘‘souveniring’’ the usual items—flags, rifles, swords—the Wildcats stripped Japanese corpses of watches, money, pictures, letters, and gold teeth.∑Ω ‘‘I personally saw and watched two marines walking around, armed with bayonet and pliers, pulling gold-filled teeth from dead Japanese soldiers,’’ George Rasula recalled, allowing that it was ‘‘one of the most sickening sights I remember from the Peleliu experience.’’∏≠ Nolton Brown, Antitank Company, 321st RCT, added, ‘‘Some of our boys were pretty raunchy, too. They would bust their [Japanese] teeth out with a rifle butt and take the gold fillings. Seems that most of them had gold fillings.’’∏∞ ‘‘Well, you got to understand,’’ explained John Wick, 306th Engineers, ‘‘that if you were to show a picture of how things were, you would find it unbelievable.’’∏≤ The 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, replaced the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, on the 0-X line and adjoining ridges, south of the 321st Infantry Trail, at 0700. The 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, then started a slow, methodical sweep of the area around Kamilianlul Mountain, up the East Road cleared a few days earlier by the 1st Battalion. The objective was to seal caves and bunkers missed in the original advance through the area, and kill any Japanese found. It was time-consuming work. By the end of the day, 3rd Battalion had only gone a few hundred

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yards beyond the 321st Infantry Trail when a night perimeter had to be established. However, during the day, it flushed out and killed dozens of Japanese. While this operation was going on, Company L sent a small detachment in LVTs to investigate Ngabad Island in preparation for occupying it the next day. The 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, had received a warning order for relieving the 5th Marines in northern Peleliu. In preparation for the realignment, the 1st Battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lester Evans, and his company commanders made a reconnaissance of the area currently occupied by the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 5th Marines. The 1st Battalion sent strong patrols to Hill Row in combination with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. In the meantime, the bulk of the 1st Battalion troops improved defensive positions on the north side of East Road throughout the day on D +14.∏≥ Company A, 306th Engineers, had improved the 321st Infantry Trail, and now started improving the West Road, the main supply line, up to Akarakoro Point. The constant rain and heavy traffic had caused the road to deteriorate rapidly. Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, also stayed busy during this time. Beginning on September 27, the Assault Gun Platoon had stationed its three M10 tank destroyers at Dead Man’s Curve firing at snipers. The 710th Mortar Platoon was also near Dead Man’s Curve, firing into the ridges. The 2nd Platoon had moved to Ngesebus, another platoon supported the 3rd Infantry Battalion on the East Road, and one platoon patrolled the West Road to the abandoned radio station.∏∂ With the entire regiment moving north, headquarters for the 321st Infantry relocated to the former enemy radio station north of RJ 15.∏∑ Private First Class Merle Niethe, Regimental Headquarters Defense Platoon, remembered, It seems like it was two-storied. Colonel Dark stayed in the upper part. We were next to a marine regiment. I don’t know which marine regiment. Anyway, the marines—we learned somehow that they were bringing in some Japanese prisoners. They all had the same uniform on. The marines had all these men hold their hands over and they were looking at their hands. They were looking to see if their hands were callused. If so, they knew they were laborers; they knew they

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were Koreans. They took them one way, and the others they knew were Japanese soldiers. They went someplace else. I don’t know what happened to them after that.∏∏ The incessant rain that began on D + 13 continued for two days, through 30 September (D + 15). The 321st Infantry Trail now became the boundary line separating areas of responsibility between the marine and army units. The marine units took control over the central combat zone south of the trail, now referred to as the ‘‘Pocket.’’ The army units assumed mopping-up and defense duties north of the trail, the Northern Peleliu Defense Area. The occupation plan for the 321st Infantry called for two battalion sectors in the northern half of Peleliu. The 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, assumed control for the area north of the East Road where it turns sharply west and joins the West Road at RJ 15, relieving the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 5th Marines. The 3rd Battalion controlled the area between the 1st Battalion and the 321st Infantry Trail, including Ngabad Island and Carlson Island. The 2nd Battalion continued its operations on Ngesebus and Kongauru.∏π Early in the morning, before being relieved, the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 5th Marines, tried to tidy up the area. The Japanese did not interfere with their efforts, leading the marines to declare this part of Peleliu to be secure and that organized resistance had ended. The 5th Marines and attached units reported killing and capturing 1,172 Japanese soldiers from 28–30 September. This number also included the Japanese killed on Ngesebus.∏∫ Despite the continued rain, at 0700, Company B, 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, sent patrols to Hill Row. Notwithstanding the marine reports that only isolated snipers remained, the patrols found the area infested with enemy troops. After completing the reconnaissance at 1200, the exchange of army for marine troops began. Marines of the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 5th Regiment, were withdrawn and assembled at the radio station along West Road. From there trucks, LVTs, and DUKW amphibious trucks transported the marines to the southern end of the island near Ngardololok. As Company C, 5th Marines, withdrew from Radar Hill, a platoon from Company B, 321st RCT, approached the hill. The marine commander doubted such a small force could hold the hill against the

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Japanese ensconced in caves on Radar Hill, and confided his concern to the army platoon leader. He then volunteered to tell the platoon leader’s battalion operations officer his doubts. Indeed, when the platoon reached the base of the hill, Japanese troops swarmed down the slopes. The counterattack in force began at 1300 and a fierce firefight raged for an hour and a half. With the support of tanks, artillery, and mortars, elements of Company B forced the Japanese back into the caves on Radar Hill. As night approached, Company B dug in at the base of the hill.∏Ω Nolton Brown remembered that night: My squad was ordered to support a platoon of Company B on guard at Radar Hill. When we arrived, it was raining. Rather than dig new holes, I put one man in a hole with two Company B men, making three men to a hole. At dark, we fixed bayonets and settled in for the night. I was on guard about midnight, it was raining and wind blowing. I had put my rifle under my poncho to try to keep it dry. My two buddies were trying to catch a wink or two of sleep. I was gazing through the rain at an entrance to a cave on Radar Hill. I noticed some movement, at first I thought it was weeds being blown by the wind, when it dawned on me that it was people moving. I grabbed my rifle, punch[ed] my bayonet through my poncho, and could not get it free. I kicked the guy sitting facing me, I was pointing with one hand and pulling at my rifle with the other. He made a complete flip firing his rifle. By that time, I had found a grenade and threw it. At daylight, we found three Japs lying there. We had a laugh later on about the way we got into action. Later, when we began to get out of our holes of water, he said, ‘‘You know, I have to be more careful about my shooting. I never did see those Japs. I was shooting where you were pointing. I could have shot some of my own guys.’’ I told him I did not think we had anyone foolish enough to be out of their hole moving around at night, but I sure learned a lesson, never stick your rifle under your poncho with a fixed bayonet.π≠ While Company B was fighting at Radar Hill, Company A completed the occupation of the ridgeline extending north from RJ 15 to

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the southern end of Amiangal Mountain. Company A encountered strong opposition on the ridge before dusk and tied in with Company B. After relieving the marines at Akarakoro Point Company C advanced down the east coast of the island. Notwithstanding marine reports that the area was secure, the Wildcats of Company C took fire from numerous caves and bunkers. The company reportedly killed forty Japanese in the ensuing combat. In the evening a reconnaissance patrol discovered that more of the enemy had reoccupied previously abandoned pillboxes and bunkers. Meanwhile, starting at daybreak on D + 15, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, resumed combing the zone above the 321st Infantry Trail for Japanese infiltrators and stragglers, and found and killed scores of them. To strengthen the battalion’s sector, Company I, atop the Kamilianlul ridge along East Road, was reinforced by a platoon of tanks and a platoon from the 154th Engineer Battalion.π∞ Sergeant Lloyd Kestin of the 154th Combat Engineers recalled one of the techniques used to reduce Japanese bunkers: It was a hole in the ground where the Japanese could run down and stay. They had coconut logs over the part where they’d sleep at night so 16-inch shells, if they hit, wouldn’t hurt them. It might blow the logs all over but that’s all [they] would do. When you went in with that thirty-two-ton D8, that cat [armored bulldozer] would bounce about a foot in the air and bang, bang, bang, all the dirt and logs would fall in there. When three or four sets of logs were going down on their heads, it would scare the hell out of them because they thought we were going to bury them alive, and they’d come out of there and run the gauntlet. Every time one of them came out, everybody would be shooting at him. That’s how we dug ‘em out.π≤ Captain Irby, commander of Company L, led a platoon to Ngabad Island as an advanced force for occupation the following day. In addition, the Wildcats of Company K, reinforced by a platoon from Company M and the Headquarters Company, had dispersed along the West Road from the 321st Infantry Trail to the radio station in defense of that area.

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On Ngesebus Island, the 2nd Battalion spent the day completing the mopping-up operation. Several pockets of Japanese had to be wiped out, with enemy troops entrenched on Courtemanche Ridge at the extreme western edge of the island offering the strongest resistance. The tanks of the 2nd Platoon, 710th Tank Battalion, supported the Wildcats during a pitched battle that raged throughout the day. The day ended with the 2nd Battalion in control of both Ngesebus and Kongauru Islands. The airfield on Ngesebus proved worthless. However, the benefits of taking Ngesebus were in silencing the Japanese guns on the island and taking away the northern islands as a route for reinforcing the enemy on Peleliu.π≥ As the day ended, the exchange of army for marine troops in northern Peleliu and on Ngesebus Island had been completed. Northern Peleliu and Ngesebus had been secured, if not completely subjugated, so all of Peleliu except the Umurbrogol Pocket was in American hands. On 30 September, Admiral Fort declared Angaur, Peleliu, Ngesebus, and Kongauru Islands secured and occupied (even though the Japanese still resisted on these islands, they did not have the strength to retake them). This, at a cost to the 1st Marine Division, as of 30 September, of 843 killed in action, 3,845 wounded, and 356 listed as missing—a total of 5,044 casualties. Many of the missing would turn up later as wounded and evacuated from Peleliu. The 321st RCT, 81st Infantry Division, as of noon on September 30, had lost 46 killed in action, 226 wounded, and seven missing—279 casualties in one week of fighting on Peleliu. The marines estimated that nine thousand Japanese had been killed thus far, and that about seventeen hundred determined defenders remained in the Umurbrogol ridges.π∂ At daybreak on 1 October, D + 16, the Wildcats of the 1st Battalion renewed their attack against the Japanese in the northernmost sector. Company C continued to mop up the area between Akarakoro Point and Hill Row. By 1145, Company C had killed forty Japanese in the palm grove south of Akarakoro Point. Company B attacked Radar Hill, accompanied by demolition squads from 1st Platoon, Company A, 306th Engineer Battalion, and

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the Antitank Company. The Wildcats scaled the steep sides of Radar Hill, seeking out and destroying enemy bunkers and blasting shut all the caves they encountered. However, at 1600, a platoon and an engineer demolition squad attacked the main entrance to an enemy cave on the north side of the hill near its crest.π∑ Like hornets in a disturbed nest, about sixty Japanese swarmed out of the cave, counterattacking the Company B platoon. The Wildcats killed about thirty of the attackers at a cost of fifteen casualties. At this point it became apparent to Colonel Dark that the size and strength of the remaining enemy force had been seriously underestimated. He requested General Rupertus to authorize the transfer of one rifle company from the 2nd Battalion on Ngesebus to the 1st Battalion. The request was approved at 1830 and orders issued for the transfer to take place at 0800 on D + 17.π∏ Company B, reinforced by one platoon each from the Cannon Company and the Antitank Company, established a night perimeter around the base of Radar Hill. During the night, Japanese infiltrators went to work. Staff Sergeant William E. Sherry, Company B, was mortally wounded when he threw his body on a Japanese grenade and absorbed the explosion, saving the lives of two Wildcats in the position with him. For this action, he received the Silver Star.ππ The fact that Sherry received the Silver Star and not the Medal of Honor would seem to confirm many Wildcat veterans in their belief that that their performance in the Peleliu campaign did not gain them the respect and recognition they certainly deserved. The same heroic act performed by a marine would, they assert, have earned him the nation’s highest military award. There is some justification to their claim. The Medal of Honor was awarded to eight marines serving in the Palaus; none were awarded to 81st Infantry Division soldiers. But this discrepancy is most likely due to the army officers being more conservative than their marine counterparts in nominating candidates for the medal. As previously noted, on this day Admiral Halsey arrived in the Palaus. After being present for a flag raising ceremony on Angaur, the admiral toured both Angaur and Peleliu before departing for Ulithi. On Peleliu, he toured the island in a jeep where the fighting was taking place and just missed being hit by mortar fire. A few days later, he wrote a letter to Admiral Nimitz in which he described the new

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defensive tactics of the Japanese. In this letter he stated that the ‘‘use of poison gas is indicated.’’ Nimitz ignored this recommendation, knowing that it would not be approved.πΩ By 0745 on 2 October, D + 17, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, had joined the 1st Battalion on Peleliu, and was in position on Hill 3 to support an attack on Radar Hill. More support came from the M10 tank destroyers located in the palm grove south of Akarakoro Point, ready to fire their 3-inch guns into the main Japanese caves on the northern and eastern slopes of Radar Hill. In addition, marine 155mm guns were committed as fire support. The assault by Company B from the west and south jumped off at 1000. Encountering only light resistance, the Company B Wildcats climbed hand-over-hand and used ropes and ladders to scale the sheer face of the hill. They quickly reached the crest, then surged down the northern and eastern slopes to attack enemy caves with flamethrowers and explosives. During the afternoon, the men sealed many cave entrances, and the hill was declared secure at 1700. Captain Wallace B. Moorman, commander of Company B, personally counted one hundred dead Japanese in the largest cave.∫≠ Sergeant Nolton Brown recalled: There was a real dislike built up between the Wildcats and the Sons of the Rising Sun. For whatever reason, it became the byword of the 321st, show the little bastards no mercy, and take no prisoners. We were taught to never trust one, [because] if you did, it would cost you your life. One came out of a cave at Radar Hill waving a white rag with the other hand raised. Captain Moorman of Company B said let him surrender. He walked up to where he thought he could lunge and stab the Captain with a hara-kiri knife wrapped in the rag, but Moorman was waiting for some trick, jumped aside, and shot him. They did not fear dying if they could take you with them. We took very few prisoners, the ones we did take were mostly Koreans brought there as laborers to fortify the islands.∫∞ Problems supplying frontline troops increased significantly today for two reasons. First, the typhoon caused rough seas that slowed the normal unloading of supplies from ships. At the same time, with

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the M10 tank destroyers relocated to northern Peleliu, Japanese fire intensified at Dead Man’s Curve on the West Road, the only route for transporting supplies from Purple Beach to the north end of Peleliu. Also on 2 October, the 1st Marines, along with two pack howitzer battalions of the 11th Marines, the Marine 1st Tank Battalion, and sundry other supporting units sailed for Pavuvu. While the 1st Marines obviously needed rest and reorganization, the marine command erroneously believed the pack howitzers and tanks had little value when fighting in the constricted ridges.∫≤ Deteriorating weather conditions were the main concern on 3 October, D + 18. As the typhoon drew closer to the Palaus, strong winds and rain squalls further diminished an already inadequate flow of supplies. An attempt to re-supply Ngabad using DUKWS was largely unsuccessful with only one vehicle reaching the island, leaving the Wildcats with two days of rations. On Peleliu, rations for the Wildcats and the marines were reduced to two meals a day. Japanese machine-gun fire, raking the West Road at Dead Man’s Curve, kept the roadway closed throughout the afternoon, exacerbating the supply problems north of the curve.∫≥ At Dead Man’s Curve, Japanese snipers had been unusually active for the past several days. Marine Colonel Joseph F. Hankins, commander of the Headquarters Company and, concurrently, the provost marshal responsible for road security, decided to do some sniping of his own. At 1600, he went to Dead Man’s Curve only to find traffic stopped due to machine-gun and sniper fire. Men had abandoned their trucks and had taken cover. Colonel Hankins walked down the middle of road hollering for the men to get back on their trucks when he was hit by a sniper’s bullet that killed him instantly.∫∂ Sergeant Thomas G. Climie, Service Company, 321st RCT, witnessed Hawkins’s death. He recalled: I had a detail of men and we got into the back of a 2 ∞⁄≤-ton truck. Our job was to deliver rations and ammo to the front lines up the West Road. Well, as we got to a stretch of the road near what came to be known as ‘‘Dead Man’s Curve,’’ all hell broke loose. A Jap machine gunner was strafing our convoy. The sideboards on our truck were being splintered. As our tailgate was in the up position, we decided to leap over the

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sideboards. Being the sergeant in charge, I went over last. We all made it in a hail of bullets, both machine-gun and sniper [rifle] bullets. At first, we hid behind the tires of the truck. All of a sudden, and I couldn’t believe my eyes, down the middle of the road came a soldier yelling, ‘You goddamn, chickenshit, sons-of-bitches, get up and get this convoy moving!’ He was within a yard or two of me. I yelled, ‘‘Get down!’’ He was killed an instant later. I learned later that it was Colonel Hankins, the highest-ranking marine killed on Peleliu. We scrambled to safety behind brush-covered rocks. What the army did was call for support. A big tank came, sat alongside the convoy, and shot in the direction of the Japs. The Japs stopped firing, so we all returned to our trucks and continued up the road towards the front.∫∑ Because the marine 1st Tank Battalion had been relieved on 30 September, tanks from the 710th Tank Battalion were assigned to the 7th Marines to support the latter’s attack south from 0-X line, scheduled to start on 30 September. The terrible weather conditions and Japanese resistance slowed the marines’ advance through 2 October. On that date—the same day the marine 1st Tank Battalion sailed from Peleliu—three tanks from the 1st Platoon, 710th Tank Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff, moved to the East Road near the 0-X line and reported to Major Hunter Hurst, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. Six tanks in the 3rd Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant Keller, moved south to the marine motor park near the airfield, sending tanks to positions as requested by both the 2nd Battalion and Weapons Company, 7th Marines, on the pocket’s south side. On 3 October, the marine command issued orders that officially detached Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, less the 2nd Platoon on Ngesebus, from the 321st RCT, and attached it to the 7th Marines. That these tanks were no longer available to the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, is the reason Company B requested the support of M10 tank destroyers, normally stationed at Dead Man’s Curve, in its fight at Radar Hill on 2 October.∫∏ On 4 October, D + 19, three LSTs were thrown ashore on Orange Beach Three by the typhoon sweeping through the region, bringing a halt to the unloading of supplies and the landing of all small craft.

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While the heavy seas stopped the flow of supplies from the surface ships, planes of the Transport Air Group continued to fly. Sixteen planes from Saipan, the largest mass flight of transports answering an emergency call in the Pacific War, delivered rations to Peleliu. After spending the night at the Peleliu airstrip, they returned to Saipan loaded with wounded men. While the command staff struggled with supply problems, the Wildcats resumed work at daybreak, building up their defensive positions, improving roads and trails, and generally cleaning up the area. Disposing of dead Japanese bodies became increasingly important as the putrefying flesh gave birth to swarms of green flies. Decaying coconut shells, garbage, and other waste matter supported unbelievably huge numbers of flies that carpeted everything in sight, including the men’s rations, spreading disease among them. In an attempt to contain the burgeoning population of flies, a new insecticide was tried, DDT. At some risk, pilots flew low over the combat zone, spraying it with the insecticide.∫π The slow, dangerous job of sealing caves also continued. James Lamson of the Antitank Company, 321st, recalled a cave with unusual Japanese defenders: We attacked a cave and they had these Japanese Imperial Marines. They came out with a few hand grenades and started throwing them, then ducked back again. They were big. They only had something on their waist and leg wrappings. They were bare from the waist up and were bald headed. I remember we were shooting at the cave and I was on the bazooka. This tank was going alongside. Then this guy on a bulldozer waved off the tank while I fired at the cave to loosen it up. Then he closed the cave with his blade. They’re probably still in there, dead.∫∫ Despite the violent storm, Private First Class Samuel Sylvester [Buddy] Blair and Jesse Abney, both BAR gunners in Company B, had climbed the north face of Radar Hill to support demolition teams sealing caves. ‘‘Well, it was supposed to have been over,’’ recalled Abney. ‘‘We were checking around and they [Japanese snipers] got after me. I had to run. I tripped and fell over barbed wire, and everybody thought I was killed. Then we got on down and Buddy picked up a hand grenade and it blew up on him.’’∫Ω

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Roy Bergeron, Company B, recalled the incident: He stumbled on a grenade and it started sizzling, so he picked it up and tried to throw it because you can’t run from them. When he threw it, it was just a little ways from him when it blew up. Nobody thought he was hurt bad. He had these little bitty pin marks of blood on his face. Somebody convinced him to walk back to the medics because he didn’t want to go. You had an aid station near your outfit all the time. He said, ‘‘It’s nothing. I don’t hurt from it.’’ The next day we found out that he’d already passed away. I don’t think he lived over three, four hours.Ω≠ As his action saved the lives of five men nearby, Private First Class Blair, eighteen years old, was awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star, posthumously. On 5 October, D + 20, Colonel Dark was told that the 321st would replace the marines fighting in the Umurbrogol Pocket, the relief tentatively set for 8 October.Ω∞ With a casualty rate of about 46 percent, the 7th Marines’ losses now approached those of the 1st Marines that had already been relieved. For some time, General Geiger had been imploring General Rupertus to relieve the 7th Marines. On this day Rupertus relieved the 7th Marines in the Pocket with the 5th Marines.Ω≤ Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff, the tank platoon leader assigned to Major Hunter Hurst, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, remembered meeting with Hurst. Lindloff said, ‘‘While I was meeting with the battalion commander, he got a call. I heard him say that he could not attack because of heavy enemy machine-gun fire. Someone, either the regimental commander or the general, wanted him to advance one more time. There was no enemy machine-gun fire. He looked at me and said, ‘I came here with one thousand men in my battalion, and now I have less than one hundred left. I’m not going to lose one more man in those ridges.’ ’’Ω≥ With the 1st and 7th Marines now finished as effective combat units, the exhausted 5th Marines was the last Marine unit left to fight, and General Rupertus was determined that the marines would take Peleliu before the army took over the combat operations.

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Early that same morning, Rupertus had ordered Colonel Harold D. Harris, commander of the 5th Marines, to come to his headquarters immediately. According to Colonel Harris, he arrived at headquarters to find Rupertus alone and in tears. Admitting that two of his regiments had been wrecked, the distraught general confessed that he had no ideas left and wanted to turn over command of the entire operation to Harris. Rupertus then enjoined Harris to tell no one of their conversation, indicating that he knew nothing could come of it, as he did not have the authority to yield operational command to his subordinate. Colonel Harris left headquarters, and neither he nor Rupertus ever again mentioned this conversation in each other’s presence. About this time, a similar incident occurred involving Colonel Harold O. Deakin, the 1st Marine Division’s personnel officer. During a meeting with Deakin, an obviously depressed Rupertus confided that he was just about ‘‘finished,’’ prompting Deakin to put his arm around the general’s shoulders and console him. Even a few days after the invasion, when first attacking Bloody Nose Ridge, Rupertus denied to a news correspondent that the marines had taken heavy casualties, instead insisting that casualties had been light. In light of these incidents, and considering his reluctance to use army troops, his defiant manner towards General Geiger, his mulishness, his denial of the obvious, and his overall bizarre behavior, it would perhaps have been appropriate at this juncture for someone to question General Rupertus’s fitness to continue in command of the division. But no one did.Ω∂ At 1310, 7 October, D + 22, Colonel Dark received new oral orders that delayed the movement into the Pocket scheduled for the next day. Now he was to seize Garakayo Island, twenty-two hundred yards north of Kongauru Island. This was a legitimate objective, but the decision to capture it also gave General Rupertus a few more days to take the Pocket with his 5th Marines. The occupation of Garakayo would allow for quicker detection of Japanese movements toward Peleliu from Babelthuap. The mission to capture the island was given to the 2nd Battalion and was to be completed by 1800 on 10 October.

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Some twenty-five thousand Japanese troops occupied Babelthuap, the largest island in the Palau group, and they presented an active and direct threat to the operations on Peleliu and Angaur, chiefly in the form of reinforcements sent to Peleliu in barges. On the evening of 7 October, the 2nd Battalion discovered several barges off the coast of Kongauru. Marine night fighter planes from VMF(N)-541, based at the Peleliu airstrip, destroyed them. The Japanese on Koror and Babelthuap often sent barges south containing only a few troops. These were suicide missions intended to create havoc among the Americans. One mission involved thirty-five Japanese swimming behind flotation bladders, late at night, toward the ships of the navy’s LCI Flotilla 13 in Schonian Harbor north of Garakayo. Upon spotting these strange objects floating toward them, the sailors on watch turned on spotlights and started shooting the bladders. Machine-gun fire burst the bladders and killed many of the Japanese. A captured Japanese soldier from this group reported that they each had five grenades and five demolition charges for use against the ships in the anchorage.Ω∑ The 7th of October was another day for the 321st Wildcats to work on the priority list for improving defensive positions and cleaning up the area. Second Lieutenant George Rasula remembered a quick way of getting rid of the dead Japanese. ‘‘Gasoline was the only remedy for the rotting remains of Japs, many of which were but a few days gone when we discovered them, and in a few more days the maggots would turn them into clean skeletons. If anyone told me that Peleliu was bad, my only reply would be it was worse than [bad].’’Ω∏ The marines’ assault on Peleliu was definitely not going to plan, and certainly not to General Geiger’s approval. General Rupertus had continuously resisted Geiger’s pleas to replace the marines with the army troops. On 5 October, this replacement almost happened but, at the last minute, Rupertus instead replaced the 7th Marines with the already exhausted 5th Marines, and gave the 321st RCT the new assignment of taking Garakayo. Geiger had to assume that the weary 5th Marines would also fail to take the Pocket, and in time be replaced by the 321st RCT. Accordingly, Geiger summoned General Mueller to Peleliu for a senior commanders’ meeting to discuss the plan for transferring the ground command on Peleliu and Angaur to Mueller. Normally, during amphibious invasions of Japanese-occupied islands, the mission of the assault forces was to quickly capture ground

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and eliminate the organized resistance. As soon as the Japanese defenders were reduced sufficiently to be incapable of a counteroffensive to retake the island, the island was declared secure. However, the battle continued until the assault forces captured the entire island and destroyed all organized resistance. Then, the assault forces, both naval and ground, declared the assault phase of the battle over, turned command over to the forward area commanders, and left the area. This was the typical order of events, rather cut and dried, but it would not be so for Peleliu. The island was declared secure on 27 September, but questions remained: could the 1st Marine Division take the Pocket and end organized resistance? If not, when would the assault phase be declared over? The answers to these questions would determine Mueller’s future course of action on Peleliu. Mueller, still headquartered on Angaur, met with the senior commanders on Peleliu on 8 October. The plan under discussion had Mueller receiving the responsibility for the ground defense of the southern Palaus and, in the event the marines did not capture the Pocket, the continuation of combat operations to destroy the remaining Japanese on Peleliu. Mueller already had responsibility for destroying the remaining Japanese on Angaur. Immediately after this meeting, General Mueller and his staff started planning on how to reorganize his force to accomplish these new responsibilities, including taking the Pocket. He wanted the 323rd RCT transferred from Ulithi to Peleliu as quickly as possible. While the 322nd RCT had to remain on Angaur to finish that battle, he wanted the other division troops on Angaur moved to Peleliu. With the 321st RCT already on Peleliu, he and General Marcus Bell told Colonel Robert Dark to be ready to move into the Pocket.Ωπ Later in the afternoon, Colonel Dark received a confirming order to take Garakayo Island. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Clainos, commander of the 2nd Battalion, had already selected Company F, reinforced, to be the attacking force. A plane was provided for Lieutenant Colonel Clainos to reconnoiter and follow the action on the island. Planning for the operation was completed, and the force was scheduled to depart for Garakayo early the next morning. The force was divided into two task forces: one would land on the south beach of Garakayo and advance north along the island’s eastern shore, while the other would land on the west beach and advance around the northern shore. The two task forces would link up on the northeast

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tip of Garakayo after which patrols would be sent into the island’s interior. Artillery support for the landings would be provided from Peleliu.Ω∫ The Wildcats were not the first Americans to conduct combat operations in the area: as early as 24 September, D + 9, Company B of the 3rd Armored Amphibian Tractor Battalion (1st Marine Division), patrolling around Garakayo in its amphibious tanks, discovered and killed several Japanese soldiers on the island. The Americans believed that Japanese troops could still be found on the island, along with a small number of natives.ΩΩ The two landing forces for Garakayo loaded on ten LVT landing crafts at 0700 on 9 October, D + 24, and departed from the southern shore of Kongauru accompanied by ten LVT(A)1 amphibious tanks. Both forces had the same landing plan. Five amphibious tanks made up the first wave, followed by five LVTs amphibious landing craft carrying the Wildcats. The two task forces traveled together until they were five hundred yards south of the southern beach. Task Force 2 then turned toward the west beach while Task Force 1 headed for the south beach. The tanks provided the pre-invasion bombardment. Task Force 1 landed at 0720, and immediately came under machine-gun fire from a ridge in its front and from Cordoray Island, but did not sustain any casualties. After reaching the base of the ridge at 0830, the Wildcats with the tanks in support advanced north along the eastern shore. The Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon climbed to the top of the ridge to set up an observation post and to provide security for the beach area. Task Force 2 landed on the west coast at 0730. One platoon moved east to the top of a ridge to set up an observation post and to support the force as it moved along the northern beach. This force soon encountered an abandoned village, destroyed it, and then killed two Japanese soldiers just beyond the village. Several hours later, along the north coast, this task force killed three Japanese machine gunners. As the two task forces moved along the beaches, they also reconnoitered seventy-five to three hundred yards inland, where they found and destroyed several recently abandoned Japanese defensive positions. Like the Pocket on Peleliu, Garakayo’s terrain was quite rough, with ridges close to the shoreline honeycombed with caves. At 1200, the two task forces met at the island’s northeast tip and, in accordance

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with the invasion plan, sent patrols into the interior. The patrols found nothing, and Garakayo was declared secure at 1500. The Wildcats suffered no casualties on Garakayo, but killed ten Japanese.∞≠≠ Next day, D + 25, Company F was replaced as the occupying force on Garakayo by Company G, 2nd Battalion, reinforced by the 2nd Platoon, Company H; a platoon from the 306th Medical Battalion; and six LVTs. Captain Robert F. Darling, commander, Company F, led his company back to Kongauru late in the day.∞≠∞ George Rasula recalled that ‘‘Garakayo was one of those beautiful South Pacific islands where the low ground on the north side was covered with coconut palms, just beyond a sandy beach which extended gradually to the reef. Our first camp was but lines of two-man pup tents erected from the shelter halves the troops carried, all neatly sited among the rows of palm trees. Our island was the key to an island defense system needed to protect Peleliu from any incursion from the north, from Koror and Babelthuap, which were still garrisoned with thousands of Japanese soldiers.’’∞≠≤ At 1500, 11 October, D + 26, Colonel Dark received orders informing him that, effective 0800 on 12 October, the 321st would be detached from the 1st Marine Division and once again be part of the III Phib Corps. The mission assigned to the 321st RCT was to occupy and defend the eastern half of Peleliu. This included the areas already occupied, and added all the territory north of Ngardololok. The added territory consisted of Purple Beach, the peninsula north of Purple Beach, and the islands of Almeida, Ngabad, Carlson, and Murphy. The battalion commanders immediately scouted the newly assigned territory, and began preparations for moving into it early the next morning. The III Phib Corps assigned the southern half of Peleliu to the Peleliu Garrison Force under Brigadier General Harold D. Campbell. General Campbell had previously commanded the 2nd Marine Air Wing. Now headquartered on Peleliu, the 2nd Marine Air Wing was re-designated the Garrison Air Force, Western Carolines. The 1st Marine Division continued their assignment in the central combat zone. On 11 October, the 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, 81st Infantry Division, with attached units, left Ulithi for Peleliu. These men did not realize that they were trading paradise on a beautiful lagoon for hell on an ugly rock.∞≠≥

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The first order of business for the 321st RCT on 12 October was to occupy the newly assigned defensive areas. Company B took in the eastern islands, Company K got the area around Ngardololok, and Company F moved men to Murphy Island off the coast of Kongauru. The 154th Engineer Battalion now occupied Purple Beach and served as a shore party. The engineers built defensive positions along the beach almost to Tuckers Point.∞≠∂ Even though the 5th Marines had reduced the size of the Pocket by moving forward slowly, using siege tactics, its losses now approached that of the 1st and 7th Marines, with a casualty rate of 43 percent. Not only did Japanese snipers cause problems, the heat was unbearable. Phosphorus grenades left out in the sun detonated from the heat. Periodic rain showers turned the hot, coral rocks into steam baths. The flies continued to irritate. Sickness ran rampant. There seemed to be no end to the killing. By this time, the men of the 5th Marines had become so despairing that a few ignored precautions against snipers. Many lost hope of leaving Peleliu alive. In fact, they had nothing left to give except their lives. Some Marines on the front line considered General Rupertus insane; they knew they could never take the Pocket without the army’s help.∞≠∑ In spite of all this, Rupertus continued to exhort Colonel Harris to move faster; but Harris continued to move slowly. Harris later believed that only General Geiger kept him from being relieved from duty. Nevertheless, Geiger now had little to contribute to the battle except to urge Rupertus to replace the exhausted 5th Marines with the 321st RCT. Rupertus flatly refused to do so, reiterating that the marines would take the Pocket in a few more days. Geiger’s only alternative was to relieve or overrule Rupertus, but he could not bring himself to do so. Instead, Geiger now spent most days on the command ship, Mount McKinley, watching Rupertus ruin the 5th Marines just as he had ruined the 1st and 7th Marines. If Geiger would do nothing about ending the marines’ hopeless situation on Peleliu, Admiral Nimitz would. Reading the battle and casualty reports, Nimitz finally decided that the 1st Marine Division had had enough. He knew it had ceased to be a functioning assault force, and needed rebuilding for future invasions. On 12 October Nimitz instructed Admiral Fort to turn over his command to Admiral Hoover, commander of the Forward Area, as discussed on 8 October. In keeping with procedure, Geiger informed Fort on 12 October that

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he considered the assault phase of Stalemate II at an end. This started the process for the 81st Infantry Division to assume the combat operations on Peleliu. General Mueller would assume command of ground defense and combat operations from Geiger and Rupertus as quickly as he could move his headquarters from Angaur to Peleliu.∞≠∏ On 13 October, the Wildcats prepared for combat operations in the Pocket. At noon, the III Phib Corps released the 321st from reserve duty, and reassigned them to 1st Marine Division for operational control. In a cruel twist of fate, General Rupertus had to remain in command of combat operations with the army troops until General Mueller could establish his headquarters on Peleliu and accept the official transfer of command. At 1500, Colonel Dark received orders to have his combat team relieve the 5th Marines on 15–16 October and attack the remaining Japanese in the Pocket at 0700 on 17 October. Shortly after receiving this written order, he received oral orders to move up the date for relieving the 5th Marines to 14 October. The 2nd Battalion, 321st, would be the first into the Pocket, replacing the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, on Hill 140 and Baldy Ridge. The 3rd Battalion, 321st, would then occupy Walt and Boyd Ridges. Colonel Dark would assume command of the combat zone as soon as two of his battalions were in place. The 1st Battalion would come in last, remain behind the 2nd Battalion, and attack the Pocket alongside the 2nd Battalion. The 5th Marines, upon being relieved, would occupy the defensive sectors now occupied by the 321st units, and go into corps reserve. The marine officers acquainted the Wildcat commanders with the situation and terrain in the Pocket, at the same time learning about the defensive preparations made by the Wildcats. Officers of the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, began reconnoitering the area currently occupied by the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines; and all Wildcat officers planned an aerial reconnaissance of the entire combat zone. Headquarters personnel of the 323rd RCT notified the 321st command post that the 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, had arrived offshore Purple Beach. General Geiger approved General Marcus Bell’s recommendation of attaching this unit to the 321st RCT for combat operations. Also, General Mueller ordered Company C, 306th Engineer Battalion, and the Special Troops to move from Angaur to Peleliu as quickly as feasible.∞≠π

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By noon, 14 October, D + 29, the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, had relieved the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, on Ngesebus, Kongauru, and Garakayo Islands. The 2nd Battalion, 321st, moved to an area just north of the 321st Infantry Trail on Peleliu. Here, it prepared to relieve the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, on Hill 140 and around the northern and western sides of the Pocket.∞≠∫ During the day, rumors spread among the men of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, that they were going to be relieved by the army the next day. Many dared not believe these rumors, fearful that if they were not true, their hopes would be crushed. Their spirits soared when they heard that evening that it was true, they would be relieved in the morning. Many did not sleep that night, staying awake to make sure that Japanese infiltrators did not kill them on their last night in combat.∞≠Ω The 2nd Platoon, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, remained attached to the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, but left its tanks on Ngesebus rather than take a chance of losing them crossing the shallow channel to Peleliu. The personnel of the 2nd Platoon, under Lieutenant Halsey, took over the tanks of the 3rd Platoon on Peleliu at the Keller-Miller Boulevard, a bulldozed trail from the East Road going between Boyd Ridge and Ridge 120 that allowed tanks and LVT flamethrowers into the Pocket. The 3rd Platoon personnel, under Lieutenant Keller, moved to Ngesebus and took control of the tanks left on that island, reporting to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. Lieutenant Lindloff, 1st Platoon, kept his tanks in the marine motor park.∞∞≠ The 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, newly attached to the 321st RCT, landed on Peleliu and moved into an assembly area near Ngardololok. It now prepared to relieve the marines on the perimeter lines south and southwest of the Pocket.∞∞∞ At 1200, Admiral Fort transferred command of the Palaus to Admiral Hoover, officially ending the assault phase of Operation Stalemate II.∞∞≤ The radio-teletype message received by Admiral Fort instructs him ‘‘to declare the ‘Assault Phase’ of the campaign finished, and to forthwith direct the relief of the 1stMarDiv by 81st Army Division units to assume final mop-up and occupation duties on Peleliu and adjacent islands.’’ Because the assault phase was declared over, the 81st Infantry Division in principle became the garrison troops, and its official military duties constituted mopping-up not combat opera-

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tions. Nevertheless, the Wildcats involved in reducing the Pocket on Peleliu and Romauldo Hill on Angaur, putting an end to the Japanese organized resistance on both islands, were conducting combat operations. The wording in this message from Nimitz’s headquarters is technically correct, but it is a disservice to classify the efforts of the Wildcats in reducing the Pocket and Romauldo Hill as mopping-up duties. Perhaps this is one reason the 81st Infantry Division never received the credit it deserves.∞∞≥

7 The Army Takes Control on Peleliu

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t 0800 on 15 October, D + 30, the 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, started moving into positions on Hill 140 and the ridges west of there. By 1100, it had completely replaced the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, in the Pocket. Private Clifton Dantin, Antitank Company, 321st RCT, recalled, ‘‘When we were moving up there, several young marines were coming down the hill as we were moving up. They were really crying, they were so happy to see us.’’ Lieutenant Colonel Clainos, commander of the 2nd Battalion, established his command post on Hill 140, and the Wildcats started reconnoitering their new combat sector at once. Later that afternoon, they killed three Japanese on Hill 140.∞ Lieutenant George Rasula, Company G, remembered: Although the battle was over for the marine riflemen, it was still far from over for the soldiers of the 81st Infantry Division. That day and into the night, we occupied a line facing south into the Umurbrogol. Off to the left on the hill was a sandbagged position with a 75mm pack howitzer, one which had been disassembled and hauled up there in pieces, then put back together again in a position built of sandbags carried from the beaches, the only source of sand on that island. Late that day, I remember seeing Captain Deerinwater, the Commander of E Company, a big Oklahoma Indian, walking his 168

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perimeter position dressed in a white T-shirt. His men said he was tempting the enemy to snipe at him so he could find out where they were. I recall thinking he had a lot of guts, at the same time also thinking he was a crazy Indian. That night we settled in our ‘‘foxholes’’ which were nothing more than a wall made of chunks of coral built in a circle, the ground covered with empty C-ration boxes or anything else we could find to ward off the sharp edges of coral. I developed a favorite sleep position: left side, left arm around neck, knees pulled up near fetal position, right hand on trench knife (later on pistol) which was next to a few hand grenades, everything ready for action. Soon the next rain would rot the cardboard and we’d start all over again. Sleep came in bits and pieces. Below this position we had some barbed wire on which we tied C-ration cans as warning devices; and, when night came those cans would rattle and men would toss grenades, and at daylight they saw pieces of dead crabs which had been searching for food among the many hundreds of cans which littered the ground.≤ Lieutenant Ed Brackett, Company H, said, ‘‘I remember General Geiger sitting on the 75mm howitzer looking at the Pocket. I suggested that he not sit there as we had a couple of casualties there.’’ Brackett went on to say, ‘‘As for Colonel Dark, I never once saw him in the combat area for all the time I was there.’’≥ After the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, had been relieved, they in turn relieved the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, along the 321st Infantry Trail and in the Kamilianlul Mountain region of Peleliu. In the afternoon, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, moved south around the Pocket and went into an assembly area south of Walt Ridge, preparing to relieve the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, now occupying Walt and Boyd ridges on the east side of the Pocket.∂ The 2nd Platoon, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, reported to Lieutenant Colonel Clainos. The tank platoon divided into two sections. One section moved south on the East Road to the gap between Boyd and Walt Ridges, where it joined with a bulldozer making a new trail, called Road X, into the Pocket. The tanks rolled into a small, relatively flat area, and worked over the caves on the slopes of Hill

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140 and Brothers 1 and 2. Leaving the area, two tanks ran over land mines, blowing off their tracks. The tanks were towed from the plateau and repaired. The other section moved down the Keller-Miller Boulevard. The 1st Platoon, Company A, stayed around the marine motor park and performed maintenance on the tanks. However, Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff once again reported to the 321st RCT. The 3rd Platoon, still on Ngesebus reporting to the marines, occupied defensive positions.∑ Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters never announced that the army had replaced the marines in the fighting on Peleliu. In addition, from this point until the end of the campaign, fewer news releases reached the American public concerning the battles on Angaur and Peleliu, and the 81st Infantry Division’s successes. After this day, the Wildcats fought and died in relative anonymity.∏ Major General William Rupertus’s worst fears came true. He failed to capture all of Peleliu. The marines under his command had performed magnificently—they did not fail him, he failed them. Now it was up to the 81st Infantry Division to gain the ultimate victory over the Japanese. Just a month previous, green and inexperienced, the Wildcats thought their last duties would be to mop up and occupy Angaur, Peleliu, and Ulithi. Now, bloodied and more experienced beyond all expectations, the navy depended on them to defeat the Japanese and finally end the battles on both Angaur and Peleliu. On 16 October, D + 31, preparations continued for the ordered attack on the Pocket. The 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, recently arrived from Ulithi and still inexperienced in battle, replaced the marines on the west and south perimeter lines around the Pocket.π Steve Dombrowski, with Company C, 323rd RCT, recalled, ‘‘We went to Peleliu to relieve the marines, and there were very few marines there. They had no foxholes. It was coral rocks piled up. We went in, and the first day we got pinned, they [Japanese] attacked us.’’∫ Private First Class James T. Green, 2nd Platoon, Company C, 323rd RCT, was one of the first wounded. ‘‘We were pinned down. We were starting to withdraw and that’s when I got wounded.’’ When a friend started to help him, Green, shot in both legs, said, ‘‘Don’t come in here!’’ His friend went for a medic. They returned, and because they could not find a litter, they put Green on a piece of tin sheeting and carried him out of harm’s way.Ω

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The 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, relieved the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, on Boyd and Walt Ridges. The marines, after being relieved, moved into the defensive positions of the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, in northern Peleliu. These Wildcats then moved into a position behind Company F, 2nd Battalion, in the western ridges. During the late afternoon, the 4.2-inch mortar platoon of Company D, 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion, arrived from Angaur and moved into position southwest of the Pocket. The 710th Mortar Platoon also moved in southwest of the Pocket, and fired in conjunction with the 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion. An aerial observer helped target-in the mortars. All the units on the front lines now tied in with each other as best they could so that the Wildcats surrounded the Pocket. Colonel Dark moved his headquarters from the wrecked Japanese radio station in northern Peleliu to an area just northeast of the airfield, in the direction of Purple Beach.∞≠ The 321st RCT had now moved into positions for the attack on the Pocket scheduled for 17 October. The Wildcats faced a tough assignment. Even though the marines had reduced the Pocket to an oval estimated to be four hundred yards by five hundred yards, the Japanese within it remained formidable and determined. Colonel Nakagawa, on 14 October, reported to General Inoue that his total strength remained at 1,150 men. He also had at his disposal an arsenal of thirteen machine guns, five hundred rifles with twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, twelve grenade launchers with 150 rounds, one 20mm automatic gun with fifty rounds, one antitank gun with 350 rounds, one 70mm howitzer with 120 rounds, thirteen hundred hand grenades, and forty antitank mines. The marines believed that Colonel Nakagawa also had a flexible reserve that could be rushed to any threatened point around his perimeter.∞∞ Later that day, to support the next day’s attack, Lieutenant Colonel Clainos sent a platoon from Company G to capture Brother 1, establish an observation post, and develop positions for heavy weapons. Company F supported this attack from adjoining ridges to the west. The attacking platoon descended the south slope of Hill 140 and entered a deep ravine separating that hill from Brother 1. Unobserved Japanese, protected from F Company’s fire, opened up on the surprised Wildcats with machine guns, killing four and wounding twelve others, stopping the attack almost before it started. Lieutenant Jack Smith, commander of Company G since the second day on

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The positions of the 321st and 323rd Regimental units around the Pocket on 17 October 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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Angaur, was one of the wounded. The dead and the more seriously wounded could not be removed until after dark. One of those killed was Staff Sergeant Harry D. Courtemanche, slain after returning with help. The ridge on Ngesebus Island was named Courtemanche Ridge in his memory.∞≤ Lieutenant Colonel Clainos, deciding against further attacks without armored support, now abandoned the Keller-Miller Boulevard and ordered all 2nd Platoon tanks moved to Road X. During the previous night, the Japanese had planted mines along Road X, and a bulldozer extending the road into Mortimer Valley hit a few, but completed the job while also ignoring heavy sniper fire from the ridges. Before day’s end, the tanks assaulted several caves around Brother 1, killing about forty Japanese.∞≥ The tanks of the 1st Platoon, 710th Tank Battalion, now attacked caves north of the airport. The platoon leader, Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff, recalled trying a new weapon to drive the Japanese from their caves: ‘‘We had flamethrowers brought in from Hawaii. We replaced the bow gun with a flamethrower. It was operated by the assistant driver that sat well below the turret and the cannon. We could throw the flame into cave openings near the ground. Unfortunately, the fuel tank was small and quickly ran out of fuel.’’∞∂ Now that the 321st RCT surrounded the Pocket with all its units, combat operations officially transferred to Colonel Dark, who still reported to General Rupertus of the 1st Marine Division. That afternoon, Company B, 323rd RCT, replaced the remaining marines on the lines, and the marines moved to a rest area near Purple Beach. All the marine units had now been removed from the front lines. Previously the 5th and 7th Marines, through their efforts, had allowed the western containing lines to move eastward, further constricting the Pocket, but now the army had complete control of the combat zone and was solely responsible for ending Japanese resistance.∞∑ By 17 October, D + 32, the size of the Pocket had been greatly reduced, but it contained Peleliu’s worst terrain, including steep hills, sheer cliffs, jungle-choked ravines, ridges pocked with enemy-infested caves, and deep pits with pinnacles rising from the floor a few feet into the air like stalagmites.∞∏ Steve Dombrowski, in the western ridges with the inexperienced 323rd RCT, explained, ‘‘On the first night in a foxhole, flares were

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being shot, I don’t know where they came from, and the shadows of the few trees looked like the Japanese were coming after us. The fellow in the foxhole with me started shooting, thinking they were Japs. He did this for two nights and I couldn’t sleep. I told [Lieutenant] Ceballos if he does this again, one more time, I was going to shoot him. Lieutenant Ceballos did replace him with another GI. The GI doing all the shooting was sent to company headquarters, he had a nervous breakdown.’’∞π William Somma, with Company B, 321st RCT, near Hill 140, said, ‘‘The ridges were kind of rough going. There were a lot of them. It was very rocky, bare, one ridge after another. If you stayed on the safe side of the slope, you were all right, you could stand up, but if you put your head over the crest of the ridge, you’d get your head blown off.’’∞∫ Nolton Brown, Antitank Company, 321st RCT, said, The temperature ranged from 115 to 125 degrees, we wore as few clothes as possible, which was against army regulations. We sought as much shade as we could, we used tent shelters when we could, and we dipped into the ocean when we could. One thing we did not do was cool off with a nice cold drink. The flies were terrible. Imagine an island the size of Peleliu, about six miles long and two and half miles wide, with twelve to fifteen thousand Japs on it, and after a time most of them dead. Dead and bloated bodies were everywhere you turned. We sat down to eat a can of beans, there were rotten bodies lying a few feet away. Flies as big as a half dollar crawling on them and [on] you. We finally became hardened to where we paid little attention to them, but people were coming down with dysentery. Something had to be done or we all would die. The navy experimented with DDT, an insecticide. It was a new chemical. They sprayed the island by planes and issued aerosol bombs [spray cans] to the GIs.∞Ω James Ijames, Company C, 323rd RCT, remembered the ‘‘two things that they taught you in basic training that you could not do on Peleliu—personal hygiene and dig a foxhole.’’ There’s no way you can dig a foxhole in solid rock. Personal hygiene—the way we took a bath—you pour a little water in

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the palm of your hand, you make a cup out of it, and work around one eyeball at a time. Then you wash around your mouth a little. That was our personal hygiene. Most of the guys looked like clowns. They had white dust all over them. All you could see were their eyes and their mouth. There was just no way you could keep clean.≤≠ Medical aid was always near at hand. Initially, Company A and a detachment of Company D, 306th Medical Battalion, in conjunction with the marine hospitals, provided medical support to the Wildcats. Company C, 306th Medical Battalion, came to Peleliu with the 323rd RCT. Later in October, the 41st Portable Surgical Hospital moved from Angaur to Peleliu and established a three hundred-bed facility. The terrain determined how the medics brought down the sick and the wounded from the ridges: either hand carried, in slings, on Stokes litters, via scaling ladders, or aerial tramways.≤∞ The Japanese, too, were sick and tired, and low on supplies; but they continued fighting until killed, as ordered. All of Peleliu now belonged to the Americans except for the Pocket. Some recommended surrounding the Pocket with barbed wire and calling it a prisoner of war camp, ceasing all further assault operations.≤≤ Nevertheless, at 0700, 17 October, the 321st RCT attacked the Pocket. The plan of attack had the 1st Battalion passing through the lines of Company F, and then both the 1st and 2nd Battalions would attack south, side by side, in column of companies, with the support of tanks traveling down Road X in northern Mortimer Valley, called the Horseshoe by the marines. After a ten-minute artillery and mortar barrage, the two battalions started advancing south. The 1st Battalion assaulted south on a ridge west of the 2nd Battalion, with Company A leading the way. The 2nd Battalion attacked the Brothers, with Company E in the lead, followed by Companies F and G. Initially, Company A met only sniper fire, but Company E received heavy machine-gun fire from Brother 1, and for the rest of the day made little forward progress. Hampered by extremely rough and broken terrain, Company A had moved only about 150 yards south by early afternoon. The landscape featured seven ill-defined and relatively small parallel ridges between Company A and the West Road, and contained Japanese pill boxes, occupied caves, and sniper positions. The 1st Battalion, 323rd

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RCT, occupied the ridges nearest the West Road, but the remaining ridges flanking the China Wall remained under Japanese control. After another hour, Company A stalled when it encountered caves apparently equipped with steel doors in a nearby ridge. At 1400, Company B drew alongside Company A on the next ridge east. Company B continued moving forward, but soon received heavy machine-gun fire from caves on the Five Brothers. After gaining about 125 yards during the day, both companies withdrew between twenty-five to seventy-five yards for the night.≤≥ Roy Bergeron, Company B, 321st RCT, remembered, ‘‘We went to the top of that Bloody Nose Ridge. We had a guy that got shot right away when he got up there. You cannot show yourself, you had to peek around something. He got shot by some sniper. They threw smoke bombs out, and brought him out, but couldn’t save him. The next morning, a sergeant was up there in charge of the group going up the hill, and he raised his head to show the guys the area to cover. He was shot right through the head.’’≤∂ With Company E not being able to make progress toward Brother 1, Lieutenant Colonel Clainos sent an armored patrol into northern Mortimer Valley. The patrol consisted of the tanks of the 2nd Platoon, 710th Tank Battalion, covered by the 3rd Battalion Wildcats on Walt Ridge and preceded by armored bulldozers that scratched out a makeshift path. The tanks blasted caves on Brother 1 and the northern end of Walt Ridge. The tanks and the infantry on the ridges killed about forty Japanese driven from the caves.≤∑ The men and equipment of the 306th Engineer Battalion provided notable service against the Japanese in the ridges around the Pocket. They roughed out roads for the tracked vehicles and sealed caves for the infantrymen. One such man, Private Jett R. Rhodes, Company A, 306th Engineer Battalion, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic action against the Japanese while guarding an armored bulldozer. Another Wildcat recalled, ‘‘After we hit in the islands, he would just get up and go hunting for Japs. He was bad about going over the hill, and for punishment, they gave him a rifle and made him walk behind an armored bulldozer, which was cutting a pathway. A Jap ran out with a magnetic mine and tapped it on this dozer. Chief ran up there and with his bare hands killed this Jap. He took the detonator out of the mine. He saved that equipment and saved the [driver’s] life.’’≤∏

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Nolton Brown remembered, I was scouting for a place to position some [antitank] guns. I found a spot that looked good for two guns; we also found a cave entrance. There was a grade up to this little plateau where I wanted to place the guns. There was this cave to be dealt with—we did not want to blow it for it would blow most of the level ground where we wanted to place the guns. There were three tanks sitting just off the road. They seemed to have nothing to do, so I went over and asked them if they would go up and put a few 75mm rounds into the entrance of the cave. The sergeant looked at the grade and said, ‘‘That grade may be mined.’’ I told him we would probe the grade; he said, ‘‘Get going.’’ A couple of guys and me probed the best we could, we only had bayonets to probe with, and we were not doing too good in that coral rock. The tanker said, ‘‘Let us try it.’’ He made it about a third of the way up, and wham! A track was blown off. We took a cable and dragged him off, and we probed some more, and the second one tried it. I walked alongside of it. We were near the top of the grade when wham! It blew a track and just about all the woodwork off my rifle, which I was holding. I only got a few minor cuts, none serious. The third tank made it. He drove to the entrance of the cave and fired five or six rounds of 75s into the entrance, and backed out. Then one of the biggest Japs I ever saw, at least six feet, stepped out and threw a box charge at the tank. It failed to go off, and the Jap ducked back into the cave. I left my squad to cover the entrance with their rifles. I took off to find a flamethrower. I found a sailor with a rig I had never seen. It looked like a farm tractor, with cleats or spikes on the wheels, with a piece of sheet metal mounted on top with a hole cut through it for the nozzle of the flamethrower to go through. He was gung ho. ‘‘Come on! Let’s go give the bastards a hot foot!’’ When we returned, the guys from E Company hollered and pointed to the valley floor. I moved around some boulders and looked down to the valley floor and I could see another cave entrance. It looked to be another entrance to the cave above. I moved some guys around so they

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could cover it. The sailor boy moved his rig to the entrance and started pouring fire to them. They [Japanese] started to run and holler. My guys and some E Company guys killed nineteen coming out. We never knew for sure how many were in the cave. Some of the guys wanted to go in and check, but I would not allow it. It was too large a cave, and I did not want to lose anyone. We put our two guns in place, made some foxholes with sandbags and rocks, ate some C Rations and turned in for a little rest.≤π During the evening, several Japanese infiltrated through caves and tunnels to about three hundred yards south of the Pocket. Using knee mortars and machine guns, they attacked the 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion’s 4.2-inch Mortar Platoon and the 710th Tank Battalion’s Mortar Platoon, driving them from their positions. These two mortar platoons had been firing at Japanese positions on Brothers 5 and 4, and had obviously caused the Japanese considerable discomfort. General Rupertus ordered the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, to this area south of the Pocket to eliminate the infiltrators. Company I, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, took positions along the West Road, north of the airstrip, at 1840 hours. It attacked the Japanese, but could not take their positions before nightfall.≤∫ On 18 October, at 0430, the Japanese attacked the front lines of the 1st and 2nd Battalions on the northern edge of the Pocket. The Japanese fired mortar shells and threw grenades at the Wildcat positions.≤Ω Nolton Brown, on the plateau overlooking Mortimer Valley with the antitank guns, remembered this shelling: The next morning [18 October], the gun crews, my squad, and four men from F Company, joined us with a 60mm mortar. Just when we were ready to set up housekeeping, the Japs cut loose with mortars. They had us zeroed in, dropped about four rounds right in the middle of us. We scattered in every direction, that is, the ones that could did. Some of us went back to see about the wounded. Lieutenant Mason [Second Lieutenant Walter B. Mason] of one of the gun platoons was hit in the back, part of his spine blown away; he died a few moments later. The four men from F Company were dead. They must have died from concussion; I could not find a

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mark or a wound on any of them. Philip Blunt, my buddy, had the knuckles on his right hand knocked out. Private First Class Walter J. Marter, one of the gun crew, ran back to the antitank guns and removed their breeches [firing pins]. We did not know if we would be able to hold the hill or not. We did stay, however.≥≠ Clifton Dantin, a gunner on one of the antitank crews involved in the shelling, recalled Marter’s act of pulling the firing pin from his antitank gun. Dantin said, ‘‘What happened is he put the firing pin in his pocket, and he had a hole in his pocket. He lost the firing pin. The marines had similar guns, so we found a marine gun that had been destroyed, and we got the firing pin from that gun and put it in ours.’’≥∞ At 0900, the attack on the Brothers resumed. The 710th Tank Battalion’s Mortar Platoon, and the 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion’s Company D, in their new positions, laid down a heavy concentration of 81mm and 4.2-inch mortars on the Five Brothers ridge. This time, tanks from the 2nd Platoon along with LVT flamethrowers entered Mortimer Valley between Walt Ridge and the Brothers and supported Company E in attacking Brothers 1 and 2. Company E attacked from the east and Company F from the west. When intense fire from caves on Brother 1 stalled Company E, the tanks and LVT flamethrowers attacked the caves, allowing the Wildcats to move forward. By 1100, Company E had reached the top of Brother 1, and by 1200, a platoon of Company E had gained the top of Brother 2. After another two hours, Company F passed through Company E’s line and occupied Brother 3. However, before they could sandbag their positions, both companies were pinned down by heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from Japanese south of them on Brothers 4 and 5, east of them in caves along the western slope of Walt Ridge, and west of them on the Five Sisters. At 1450, about two platoons of Japanese from Brothers 4 and 5 counterattacked F Company. The Wildcats, extended along a small razorback coral ridge with little support and no cover, hit simultaneously by heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from three sides and a strong counterattack, were in a dire situation. Company B, less one platoon, now in battalion reserve, tried to reinforce them, but could not get there in time. The 3rd Battalion, on Walt Ridge, fired mortar shells at Brother 5, but the Japanese countermeasures were too

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strong, and Wildcats abandoned all three Brothers, with some Wildcats scrambling down their eastern sides into Mortimer Valley. Here the tanks protected them as they withdrew through the draw between the Five Brothers Ridge and Walt Ridge, near where Nolton Brown and Clifton Dantin had the antitank guns. The 2nd Battalion set up a night perimeter at the base of Brother 1, in close proximity to where they had started the attack.≥≤ Clifton Dantin remembered Captain Deerinwater, commander of Company E, coming down the hill and saying, ‘‘ ‘They have wiped out my company.’ Some of his people got killed, but they didn’t wipe it out.’’≥≥ In the meantime, the attack by the 1st Battalion on the west fared no better. At 0900, Company C replaced Company B in the attack, sending Company B into battalion reserve. Companies A and C made no progress against strong enemy resistance in its sector west of Hill 140. They brought in sandbags to place around their foxholes and dug emplacements for pack howitzers preparatory to attacking Japaneseoccupied caves in the area.≥∂ Meanwhile, south of the Pocket, the 7th Marines replaced Company I with Company L, and attacked Japanese infiltrators who had reoccupied the ridges overlooking the West Road north of the airfield. Later published versions of this action stated that the marines had underestimated the strength of the enemy force now occupying twelve cave positions, and requested a tank to attack one especially bothersome cave. Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff remembered this action differently: They [7th Marines] called up and wanted one tank because two airmen had gone up in that area hunting for souvenirs. Well, the Japs shot and wounded them. They were trying to get stretcher bearers up there to haul them out. They needed a tank to shelter the stretcher bearers from the Japs firing at them from the caves. I checked with my company commander, Captain Meyer, and he said, ‘‘Don’t you go, just send a tank.’’ I asked who wanted to go, and my crew said, ‘‘Well, we’ll go.’’ I had to get a tank commander to take my place, so I got Sergeant John Prehm, a tank commander out of another tank. My assistant driver, Charles Arazmus, lucked out that day because he had

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diarrhea. I got another assistant driver, Pfc. George Lopes, to replace him. My regular crewmembers were driver T/4 Otto Hesselbarth, radioman-loader Pfc. Howard Dahms, and gunner corporal Michael Valentino. They went up there and got the wounded guys out. Then they ran into this Captain Jones [commander of Company L], and he wanted them to go back up there and fire into the caves. So they did, and then they backed out. Of course, they didn’t do good enough to suit this Jones, so he gets on the back end and he goes up there. They backed out again, and hit this mine. I’m sure it was one of those 100-pound aerial bombs that blew it up, because it blew off the suspension system. Only Sergeant Prehm survived the explosion and fire, by being blown out of the tank.≥∑ This action near the West Road was intensifying. On the morning of 19 October, D + 34, a company from the 154th Combat Engineer Battalion, attached to the 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, replaced Company L, 7th Marines. Quickly thereafter, the Japanese infiltrators in the ridges above the engineers laid down a powerful mortar barrage extending three hundred yards south of the West Road. The engineers had to withdraw and take positions near the airstrip. This time, General Rupertus ordered the artillery of the 4th Battalion, 11th Marines, to the West Road to fire point-blank into the Japanese occupied positions.≥∏ Clair Bahrenfuse, 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, attached to the 323rd RCT, was near one of the artillery cannons, and he recalled, ‘‘A marine captain was firing, I’m sure, a 155 point blank into a cave. He said, ‘Watch this.’ He fired at that cave, and the smoke cleared, and here came the rocks. The Japs were throwing the rocks out. He said, ‘HE (High Explosive) doesn’t work. They’re throwing the debris out of the hole.’ Pretty soon, the throwing of rocks ceased. The marine said, ‘They’ve figured out how long it takes us to get loaded and fire again.’ ’’≥π On 19 October, the 2nd Battalion only patrolled around Brother 1, while the 3rd Battalion attacked. It sent an armored task force, called Task Force Thomas after its commander, First Lieutenant John G. Thomas, west around the north end of Walt Ridge into Mortimer

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Valley. The infantry force consisted of 3rd Battalion’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, the Antitank Platoon, and one platoon from I Company. The armor consisted of the 1st Platoon, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, and two M10 tank destroyers. These forces attacked the caves on the western slope of Walt Ridge, occupied by Japanese that caused so much grief to Companies E and F during the previous day’s assault. The previous day, when the 2nd Battalion retreated from Brothers 1, 2, and 3, several Wildcats went down the sides of the ridge as well as north along its crest. Now, during the movement into Mortimer Valley, a few volunteers from the 3rd Battalion climbed to the top of the Brothers ridge and tried to retrieve weapons and ammunition that might have been left behind, and to make sure that all Wildcat dead and wounded had been removed. Lieutenant Colonel Clainos planned to use a new technique originated by the 5th Marines to get at the Japanese, and he wanted all Wildcats, dead or alive, out of the area. At 1400, sixteen marine Corsairs each dropped one thirty-gallon napalm tank, without igniters, on the slopes of the Five Brothers, into northern Wildcat Bowl, and in the ridges west of Hill 140 just north of Wildcat Bowl. The tanks burst, spilling the fluid, which ran into caves and crevices and seeped through the cracks in the coral. Any Wildcats splattered with napalm had time to leave the area. Then Company D of the 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion fired 4.2-inch white phosphorus shells into the area, starting a conflagration. The burning fluid drove many Japanese from caves, pillboxes, and trees, and the Wildcats killed them as fast as they could. This tactic seemed especially effective against snipers hiding in trees.≥∫ Benton Maxwell, a combat engineer located near the mortar battalion in the southern ridges, described this napalm attack. ‘‘In a ridge on Peleliu, the Japs were holed up with rooms for living quarters. The only way to get them was to burn them out. The planes dropped napalm bombs, let’s say gasoline, and late that evening the mortar battalion set off mortars and made the whole ridge blaze. You could see the mortars; they didn’t go fast. They just went up, dropped, and ignited the napalm all along that ridge. Of course, through the crevices and the cracks in this ridge, it ran into their living quarters. You couldn’t bomb them out. They were burned out.’’≥Ω

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Lee Kunce, 323rd RCT, described marking the Wildcats’ front lines for the Corsair pilots: Panels were put out so that our air people would be able to know where our lines were, and they wouldn’t drop them in on us. The panels were white cloth, and staked in the coral. They were at least one to two yards wide, to be able to detect them from the air. The length was a decided variable; you never knew how much you were going to have. We were always very careful when we laid them out, and when we retrieved them, because the Japs were watching us all the time. What we tried to do, and it didn’t always work, but we tried to do it around dusk. I honestly don’t recall any of my men being shot when putting them out or being retrieved.∂≠ A Corsair made its run from the airstrip to the Pocket in less than fifteen seconds. Many times the pilots did not even raise the wheels on their planes, so they had little time to spot the panels and find the target area.∂∞ Edward H. Saunders, Antitank Company, 323rd RCT, remembered watching several of these air strikes. He said, ‘‘I believe they were the shortest strikes made during the war.’’∂≤ Following this napalm attack, at about 1525, the 1st Battalion, 321st, again attacked south in the western ridges toward Brother 1, but about fifty yards and an hour later found that the Japanese still occupied many caves. Once again, the 1st Battalion was stopped in its tracks. During the day, however, it did manage to use the pack howitzers to seal many caves around them.∂≥ Albert Chieffo, Company B, 321st RCT, said, ‘‘I remember a soldier being shot. There were no medics around. We made a stretcher with two shirts and two branches. Four of us took a corner to get him out. We walked about ten yards when the medics came. One took my end. He walked about ten feet and was shot in the head. I can’t remember the face, but I will always remember the red blood on his blond hair.’’∂∂ On 19 October, General Mueller moved his headquarters from Angaur to Peleliu. He established his command post near Purple Beach, and put a battle operations center in the old Japanese headquarters building near the airstrip. Again, some interservice rivalry raised its ugly head. Brigadier General Oliver Smith, assistant di-

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vision commander of the 1st Marine Division, later reported that Mueller expressed displeasure with the way the marines managed the battle, and wondered about the proficiency of the 1st Marine Division. Smith, on the other hand, belittled Mueller for establishing his command post on the beach some distance from the battle while locating only his operations center in the old 1st Marine Division’s command post nearer the front lines. Perhaps neither man knew that both the marines and the army followed standard operating procedures for their branch of service when locating the command posts.∂∑ General Mueller was wrong to question the proficiency of the 1st Marine Division—it was an excellent division—but he was right in thinking that the marines had mismanaged the battle. On 20 October, D + 35, at 0800, General Geiger passed command for the ground defense of the southern Palau Islands and the elimination of the remaining Japanese in the Pocket to General Mueller. Geiger and his staff then left immediately by air for Guadalcanal. General Rupertus and his staff flew from Peleliu to Guadalcanal at 2300. Brigadier General Oliver Smith, never a favorite of Rupertus, stayed behind to serve as a liaison with Mueller and oversee the departure of the remaining marine units. The 5th Marines, designated the last regiment of the 1st Marine Division to leave Peleliu, was attached to the 81st Infantry Division as a task force.∂∏ General Mueller, now reporting to Rear Admiral John W. Reeves, issued orders organizing his command. The 321st RCT had combat responsibility in the Pocket. The 5th Marines had the responsibility of defending northern Peleliu and all the outlying islands in the Northern Peleliu Defense Area. The 726th Amphibious Tractor Battalion drew the defensive assignment for southern Peleliu with all its beaches. The 81st Division Artillery assumed operational control over the 4th Battalion, 11th Marines, and the marines’ 3rd Field Artillery Battalion (155mm howitzers) plus the 8th Field Artillery (155mm guns). The artillery units supported the 321st RCT in the combat zone, and helped in the defense of Peleliu and outlying islands.∂π The annoying infiltrators south of the Pocket continued to cause problems along the southwestern portion of the West Road. At 0700, Company C, 323rd RCT, went to the aid of the 154th Engineers and the marine artillery that was then battling them. This company, with the demolition teams from the 154th Engineers attached, attacked

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the Japanese at 0900. They had advanced about two hundred yards when Japanese small-arm fire pinned them down, and a mortar shell fell on an observation post wounding two marine forward artillery observers. The company asked for tank support. Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff sent a tank to Company C shortly after 1200, helping that company gain another one hundred yards in the southwestern ridges.∂∫ Steve Dombrowski, Company C, said, ‘‘While in the foxholes, we heard an American tank coming, we were told to follow the tank. There was a large cave opening across from the airport. The tank sprayed flame into the cave thinking the Japs were in there. The tank driver said nothing happened, so they sent a bulldozer to dig rocks around the cave, enough to seal it up. After it was sealed, we moved into the ridges.’’∂Ω Company C had the temporary assignment of eliminating the enemy infiltrators in this area south of the main Pocket, and they stayed at this task until early November. Tanks supported Company C after the engineers cleared out buried aerial bombs in the vicinity, like the one that destroyed Lieutenant Lindloff’s tank. Company B, 321st RCT, replaced Company C, 323rd RCT, in the southern perimeter lines around the Pocket.∑≠ Before General Rupertus left Peleliu, he made one more visit to the front lines in Company B’s newly assigned sector near Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. While staring at these formidable hills, called Bloody Nose Ridge, where his frontal attacks ravaged his division, he spoke with James Fitzpatrick, a rifleman in the 1st Platoon, Company B, standing nearby. ‘‘He was very disgusted with the operation,’’ Fitzpatrick recalled; he said he was glad we had it now.’’∑∞ William Somma remembered another incident involving Rupertus when he visited the front lines: One day a marine general came up to the lines, he came up with his aide, I guess he was a captain, all decked out with pearl handle .45s on his hip. I remember this kid that was in our company, his name was Rodriguez, a Mexican, he yelled back to the general, ‘‘Better get down because there are Japs out there.’’ I remember the general, he was a major general in the marines, I don’t know his name, but he answered the soldier. He told the soldier, ‘‘Well, I’ve been up here before. You just take care of yourself. I’ll be all right.’’ Next to this

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Mexican, one of our guys got killed by that sniper that this guy was warning the general about. We said, ‘‘Jesus, it should have been the general that got it and not this guy.’’∑≤ Roy Bergeron, Company B, 321st RCT, remembered being in the southern perimeter lines. ‘‘We would play blackjack, ten or eleven in a group. Maybe we had two decks, I don’t know. When playing, one picks up the money that you lose, another one pays off, and one deals. We had played several games already, all at once, he put his hand up over his eye, and he said, ‘I’ve got shrapnel in my eye.’ Blood started coming down his cheek. Right on Old Baldy [which the marines called Hill 300], they were putting mortars that day. We were close enough that the shrapnel would fly down to us.’’∑≥ The Corsairs made another napalm strike on the Five Brothers at 0800 on 20 October, with better results than the previous day. After the strike, the tanks of the 2nd Platoon, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, now attached to the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, moved into the northern part of Mortimer Valley. Protected by the infantry, the tanks worked over the caves on the western slope of Walt Ridge and on the eastern slope of Brothers 1 and 2. The tanks and the infantry remained in the north end of the valley during the night.∑∂ Lieutenant Gilbert Lindloff described how the tanks and the infantry protected each other: ‘‘The infantry, they couldn’t dig in, so we had them stand guard for us under the tank. One of us would reach in and pull a bow gun out, which was a machine gun with a tripod on, and we had a sound power phone, we just dropped them down to one of the guys. If something happened, he just whistled over the telephone and woke us up. Which was a good deal, we got to sleep. They felt protected, you know.’’∑∑ At 1600 the Corsairs conducted a third strike on the ridges west of Hill 140 in support of the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, which still could not move forward during the day. This time they dropped the napalm on a smaller area, the base of the Five Brothers, and in northern Wildcat Bowl. Ignition of the napalm was improved, and the strike was deemed highly successful.∑∏ That night, Japanese infiltrators climbed the west slope of Walt Ridge and attacked Company L, but the Wildcats drove them back. In addition, forward observers discovered Japanese around Grinlinton

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Pond in Mortimer Valley getting water, and requested the 3rd Battalion place a mortar barrage on them. This was done, and an undetermined number were killed.∑π As previously mentioned, Admiral Nimitz had ceased putting out news releases concerning the fighting on Angaur and Peleliu. On this day, a news release about the fighting on the two island probably would have gone unnoticed, because the real headline-grabbing event occurred eight hundred miles northwest of Peleliu where General MacArthur’s troops invaded Leyte. With the Philippines invaded, the Wildcats on Angaur and Peleliu were not only fighting and dying in anonymity, they were now fighting and dying for pieces of rock that nobody really wanted or needed. From 23 September until 20 October, the period the 321st RCT had been operating on Peleliu under General Rupertus and the 1st Marine Division, 98 Wildcats were killed and 468 wounded in action. In exchange the 321st had killed 1,500 Japanese and captured another 108.∑∫ On 20 October, the transports carrying the remaining 323rd RCT Wildcats arrived from Ulithi at Purple Beach, less the 155th Engineer Combat Battalion (left on Ulithi to complete the airstrip) and the Ngulu Detachment (which continued its mission to take Ngulu Atoll). Colonel Arthur P. Watson reported to the 81st Division headquarters, and then reconnoitered the combat zone.∑Ω At 0800 on 21 October, D + 36, immediately following a napalm strike by marine Corsairs, the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, moved south toward the north end of the China Wall and the northwest corner of the Wildcat Bowl. Like the 5th Marines, the Wildcats advanced slowly, letting the Corsairs and heavy weapons clear the way ahead of them. Company A, on the right flank, took out a machine-gun nest and a knee mortar position while moving forward about one hundred yards. It then received heavy fire from Japanese in two caves on the western slope of Brother 3, and resistance all along the front increased. Company C, advancing east of Company A, made no progress at all. The attack stalled. A 75mm pack howitzer was brought forward to blast the two caves on Brother 3. The 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, spent the day patrolling around Brother 1. The first patrol left at 0900. Colonel Clainos called upon

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Lieutenant George Rasula to lead this patrol and go on a special mission. Rasula remembered: Lieutenant McKee told me that the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Clainos, wanted to see me up at the battalion observation post [called the OP] which happened to be the sandbagged 75 gun position. So off I trotted and reported to the colonel. First, he took me to one of the peepholes among the sandbags to show me the terrain out front, the northernmost of the Five Brothers and specifically a large cave. We had to observe rather cautiously as the Japanese had that position well marked by their snipers, so it was look and duck, then move to another OP hole. Then came my mission, one which to me sounded rather strange. He pointed to three engineers who were behind our position and told me I was to take a ‘‘volunteer patrol’’ around and approach the hill from the north side, go up the ridge just opposite the Japanese cave, then over with satchel charges and blow the cave, as simple as that. After being given a SCR 300 radio I moved down from the OP with my three ‘‘volunteers’’ and at the bottom by the road was met by Sergeant Short, my platoon sergeant. I told him what the job entailed and that I’d need a few ‘‘volunteers’’ from our platoon, a task which Short never had any problem fulfilling. Then came the move to the Five Brothers. We looped around the trail, which had been widened by a bulldozer to take jeeps, past the aid station, and then to the open area north of the Horseshoe, later called Mortimer Valley by the Wildcats. This open area [the plateau where Sergeant Nolton Brown had placed the two 37mm antitank guns] had caused many casualties from snipers, an area we had to cross to get to the protection offered by the base of what I’ll now call the ‘‘North Brother.’’ As my runner and I turned to brief our ‘‘volunteers’’ on how we were going to cross this area, I realized then that my ‘‘volunteers’’ had grown to be the 3rd Platoon of G Company. From here on it was a platoon operation and not a patrol, something both Short and I were accustomed to. What we did was have our men move in rushes, two or three at a time using different routes, running all-out zigzag-

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ging for the base of North Brother. Some would stumble now and then, but they were well trained to roll to the nearest cover and do it again seconds later. My runner and I along with the three demo men were the first to the bottom of the hill, there resting a moment before climbing the ridge. I recall looking back and watching our men come across the open area, feeling good as none were falling to the occasional crack of sniper bullets. From here we planned our route to climb, then began inching our way through the rubble of broken coral on that slope, doing our best to avoid falling to a knee which we knew would quickly open a nasty non-combat wound. When we got to a position no more than ten yards from the top of the ridge my radio operator tapped my shoulder and handed me the radio handset—the ‘‘Old Man’’ wanted to talk with me. At Colonel Clainos’s position, he could see me as well as the cave on the other side of the ridge, and wanted to give me the latest as to what he saw and to help orient us as to our location in relation to the cave entrance. I had my carbine in my right hand and the handset to my ear on the left, looking up the ridge and concentrating on what the CO was saying. At that moment I sensed a commotion and at the same time saw a Japanese grenade hit the ground just above me—it blew! I guess shock is the first thing that comes into play once someone is wounded, as I can’t say how long it was before I realized that the carbine and the handset weren’t in my hands. Maybe the handset was pulled out of my hand when my radioman hit the ground, as everyone around me heard the warning and took cover, other than myself who was intent on listening to my commander on the radio. Whatever, as the fuzziness left I was facing down the hill and my runner had my hand and was eager to get me down and to the medics. When we got to the bottom I thought, since he was a short man, I can run across this open area faster than he can. But I was mistaken, as he easily ran ahead of me helping me along all the way. I was probably affected by the many small wounds bleeding all over the front of my filthy fatigues. One I remember the most vividly was in the middle of my right

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cheek, which acted like a fire hose, pumping blood straight out in what seemed to be long squirts. When we rounded the next hill our battalion MSC [medical service officer] was coming to meet me. He apparently got word from the battalion commander that I had been wounded. My main concern—other than being wounded— was the patrol’s mission, who was taking it over. But, I knew Sergeant Short was there and he’d know what to do. It was at the aid station tent as the medics were checking me over when I realized what hit me. Had it been an American grenade at that short range it would have been an entirely different story. As it was, I was peppered with many small fragments, all from the waist up—chest, arms and face. Only one fairsize chunk had gone through my upper arm and didn’t hit a bone. After patching me up with bandages and a few bandaids, they put me on a litter aboard a jeep ambulance and carried me down to the field hospital on the western beach. There they serviced my wounds again, a good check-up and cleaning wounds during which they picked out a number of fragments, which were close to the skin. I finally realized that they had given me a pain killer—probably morphine—as I was getting sleepy; and before I knew it, it was the next morning.∏≠ Grenades and heavy small-arms fire from undetected Japanese on the east side of Brother 1 stopped Rasula’s patrol. As the men followed Rasula down the slope, fire from the antitank guns at the supposed Japanese positions not only protected the retreating Wildcats, but also exposed and damaged two caves. At the same time, a pack howitzer fired at a large opening at the top of the ridge. After this action, at 1300, Lieutenant Colonel Clainos organized another volunteer combat patrol, and it set out to capture the top of Brother 1. Each Wildcat in the patrol carried twelve fragmentation grenades. The Japanese contested every foot of ground, throwing their own hand grenades down on the Wildcats. The encounter turned into a grenade-throwing contest, the Wildcats kicking away the Japanese grenades from underfoot. Major Frank C. Seitz, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, in the observation post on Hill 140, radioed the location of individual Japanese positions to the patrol as the Wildcats advanced up the hill. It took four hours to get to the top of the hill, but

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they made it. Company E immediately rushed to the position to occupy and fortify it with sandbags against the expected counterattack. Troops formed a line from the base of the hill to its top, passing sandbags hand-to-hand up the hill. To draw attention away from the combat activities at the northern end of the Pocket, and to destroy caves along the west wall of Walt Ridge and the east wall of the Five Brothers, the 3rd Battalion sent an armored patrol through the south entrance of Mortimer Valley. The action started with a smoke barrage at 1145. The armored patrol consisted of tanks, LVT flamethrowers, and infantry. They spent three hours blasting and flaming caves in the valley, and then withdrew without suffering any casualties.∏∞ Sergeant Lloyd Kestin, 154th Combat Engineers, said, ‘‘We had some infantry boys that secured the top of the hills. We would go out in the day and try to close some of those caves, but the hell of it was that there was so many of them that you couldn’t begin to close them.’’∏≤ Benton Maxwell added, ‘‘We had flamethrowers. Certain men had them on their shoulders, and we had them on the tanks, too. A lot of those Japs would break and run, and I have seen them just aim that flamethrower at them. There will be a ball of fire around them, about six feet across, and it just ignites them when it hits them. It burns them alive.’’∏≥ Meanwhile, along West Road south of the Pocket, Company C, 323rd RCT, formed tank-infantry teams and attacked the Japanese infiltrators in the ridges north of the airstrip. They made slow progress, attacking and sealing caves, making sure that the Japanese could not reoccupy them. Getting rid of these infiltrators developed into a battle all of its own, and this area became known as the Southern Pocket.∏∂ All night long, the Japanese made unsuccessful grenade attacks against E Company on top of Brother 1. They again attacked Company L on top of Walt Ridge, but the Wildcats repulsed the Japanese by dropping grenades on them. Nolton Brown, still posted by the antitank guns on the plateau north of Mortimer Valley (the guns that protected Lieutenant Rasula’s patrol), said, ‘‘We were caught by sniper fire and lost two more men. My lieutenant was shot in the shoulder, and a medic was shot in the groin. That little hill produced ten Purple Hearts.’’∏∑ Night after night, Japanese infiltrators tried to get into the Wildcats’ lines and kill them, causing anxiety and some to suffer from

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combat fatigue. On the other hand, this anxiety resulted in several amusing incidents, as when Sergeant Thomas Climie unexpectedly walked into a tent, surprising a soldier inside. Climie said, ‘‘He jumped up and exclaimed, ‘Jesus Christ!’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s just Sergeant Climie.’ ’’∏∏ Unfortunately, anxiety also caused serious accidents. Clifton Dantin recalled, ‘‘Early one morning, daybreak, one of our men stood up in his foxhole, and the sergeant thought he was Japanese, and shot and killed him.’’∏π At 1600, Field Order No. 7 was issued. This order called for a fourbattalion attack on the Pocket the next day. The objective for the 1st Battalion, 321st, was to capture China Wall to the north slope of the Five Sisters. The 2nd Battalion, 321st, was to take the Five Brothers Ridge. The 3rd Battalion, 321st, was to eliminate the enemy still in, on, and around Walt Ridge and occupy all of Mortimer Valley. The 1st Battalion, 323rd, was to advance on the Japanese all along the western perimeter lines, thus supporting the attack by the 1st Battalion, 321st. Obviously, the 321st RCT had the primary combat responsibility for carrying out this attack, with the 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, supporting it. Colonel Dark expected all Wildcats to participate in the big push. Those clerks, cooks, linesmen, radio operators, and others who did not normally take part in combat operations would carry supplies and ammunition, and fill and carry sandbags, to the front lines. Ground taken would be ground retained. The attack would follow a napalm strike and a mortar barrage on the target areas.∏∫ Sunday, 22 October, D + 37, was the day of the big push. At 0515, the 4.2-inch mortar battalion and all 81mm mortar sections bombarded the Pocket for fifteen minutes. At 0615, the Corsairs made another napalm drop. Ignited by mortar fire, the napalm burned for fifteen minutes. At 0645, the infantry started the ground assault. In the 321st RCT sector, the 2nd Battalion sent Company E, followed by Company F, across the north slope of Brother 1. The 1st Battalion had Company C maneuver for a push south in its western ridges’ area. The 3rd Battalion attacked through the northern end of Mortimer Valley, intending on driving completely through the valley. After two hours, Company E had captured all of Brother 1 and had sent a patrol across Brother 2 to the northeast slope of Brother 3. This patrol covered the advance of Company F to Brother 2. The non-

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combat troops began supplying sandbags and ammunition to Companies E and F in their efforts to fortify Brothers 1 and 2. Company G had instructions to attack abreast of Company E’s right flank along the western slope of the Five Brothers. They were stymied in this effort. Company C likewise made no progress. The napalm strikes and mortar barrages had little effect on the Japanese resistance in the ridges north of China Wall. Company G, blocked in attacking south during the day, moved southwest about seventy-five yards during the night. They now were in the western ridges, but east of the 1st Battalion, overlooking Wildcat Bowl. While this was not a perfect location, it did provide firing positions for blasting the western slopes of the Five Brothers. The 3rd Battalion sent Company I, reinforced by two platoons of medium tanks, three M10 tank destroyers, and two LVT flamethrowers, south through Mortimer Valley. This force made rapid progress down the length of the valley with the flamethrowers scorching caves. At Grinlinton Pond, the Japanese occupied holes and crevices near the water’s edge. The Wildcats attacked each hole in turn, supported by the tanks, killing about thirty-five Japanese. By 1100, the force reached the southern end of Mortimer Valley, and turned to the west. The tanks fired at caves on the Five Sisters. During the afternoon, with tank support, Company I along with engineer demolition teams sealed caves that the flamethrowers had attacked earlier.∏Ω Corwin Berry, Company I, said, ‘‘I would say other than the assault [on Hill B], the move into [Mortimer Valley] was the hardest time of the invasion. We entered [Mortimer Valley] from a high ridge and moved through the area clearing all the pillboxes and crevices. I was carrying the big communication radio for I Company. I sat down the radio, a 300 radio is about five inches thick, and a corner of my radio had a hole through it. To this day, I have no idea when [the bullet] went through, but it went through while I was carrying it. I was happy that it only got that close to me.’’π≠ By 1600, Company I had established a defensive perimeter in Mortimer Valley extending from the base of Brother 2, past the north end of Grinlinton Pond, down the east side of the valley, and around the base of Walt Ridge. The Wildcats fortified their positions with barbed wire, trip flares, sandbags, and tanks, and lighted the valley with contrived spotlights from vehicular equipment.π∞

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Tanks and infantry operate in Mortimer Valley. Five Brothers Ridge is in the background. Courtesy Nolton Brown.

Of all the attacking battalions, the 3rd Battalion, 321st, came closest to accomplishing its mission. The 1st Battalion, 321st, made little progress along the ridges leading to the China Wall. The 2nd Battalion, 321st, occupied two of the Five Brothers. Although the Wildcats failed to achieve their objectives, they did gain (and subsequently retain) valuable ground. At 2000, after observing five signal fires around Old Baldy, the Japanese attacked Company C, 323rd RCT, in the Southern Pocket. One platoon had to retreat about one hundred yards, losing one killed and nine wounded. After requesting artillery support, a mortar barrage was laid down in the area vacated by the platoon. This ended the trouble for the night, but a decision was made to reinforce Company C in the morning.π≤ Also on this day, the 323rd RCT finished unloading personnel from the transport ships from Ulithi, and bivouacked just off Purple Beach. The 323rd officers started reconnoitering the combat zone, and meeting with their counterparts in the 321st RCT.π≥ John Mitchell, Company K, 3rd Battalion, 323rd RCT, described his first impression of Peleliu: ‘‘It was a rugged, small island. All

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throughout the island there were piles of rubbish . . . and oftentimes there would be a foot and leg of a Japanese person coming out of that rubbish, sticking up beyond the surface. A lot of death and damage on that island by the time we got there.’’π∂ Just before dawn on 23 October, D + 38, Company E, 323rd RCT, left its bivouac area near Purple Beach and moved into the Southern Pocket to reinforce Company C, 323rd RCT. The battalions around the Pocket consolidated and reorganized their positions. The 3rd Battalion moved Company K from Boyd Ridge to Walt Ridge. Company L moved southwest off Walt Ridge to block the entrance to Mortimer Valley from the south. This strengthened the perimeter around the east side of the Pocket. Company I remained in Mortimer Valley at the base of Walt Ridge and around Grinlinton Pond, denying this fresh water supply to the Japanese. Although the enemy still occupied positions in and around Mortimer Valley, the 321st controlled the area. The 2nd Battalion improved its defenses on Brothers 1 and 2, and prepared to attack Brother 4. Support for the attack would come from the 3rd Battalion on Walt Ridge and tanks in the valley firing on caves located on Brother 5 and the Five Sisters. At 1500, Company E attacked Brother 4 from its position on Brother 1. By dark, it had occupied the north and east slopes of the hill and had sandbagged the positions. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion, still stalled in the western ridges north of Wildcat Bowl, tried something new. To retain the ground gained, the new positions had to be sandbagged. However, to gain the ground in the first place, the first layer of sandbags had to be pushed forward by poles. This provided some protection for the men as they crawled forward to complete the emplacement. Unseen Japanese snipers were everywhere in the ridges, and the Wildcats had to literally crawl forward, pushing sandbags in front of them, to make any progress. From the sandbag emplacements fire could be directed on enemy positions. During this movement, the 1st Battalion destroyed a machine-gun nest and killed five Japanese without suffering casualties. The officers and men of the fresh, but inexperienced, 323rd RCT prepared to take over the combat zone from the 321st RCT. Before going into the combat positions, many 323rd RCT officers made an

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aerial reconnaissance of the combat zone, and then the officers and noncommissioned officers reconnoitered all parts of the combat zone on the ground.π∑ The 321st RCT spent most of 24 October, D + 39, consolidating gains, strengthening positions, and sealing caves in Mortimer Valley. Sherman tanks from the 2nd Platoon and M10 tank destroyers of the Assault Gun Platoon, 710th Tank Battalion, remained on station at the southern end of Mortimer Valley, firing at targets on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. One navy LVT flamethrower remained ready to help when needed.π∏ Clifton Dantin remembered going on missions in and around Mortimer Valley, he said they ‘‘would go around and find a cave with Japanese in it, and pour gasoline in it and light it up. I had a little book that would translate English to Japanese, and I would holler out the best I could, ‘Come out with your hands up.’ Of course, nobody ever came out. We would pour gas in there and light it up, and we would hear people screaming, but nobody ever came out.’’ππ The 1st Battalion continued to inch forward in the ridges toward China Wall. It made minimal gains, but managed to destroy a large, fortified cave guarded by four machine guns. This battalion continued to shove and stack sandbags on its front. The 2nd Battalion, occupying the peaks of four of the Five Brothers, put in a conveyor system devised by Corporal Richard D. Reinke, a member of the medical attachment to the 3rd Battalion, for moving ammunition and sandbags to the top of the ridge, and evacuating the dead and wounded down the ridge. The system consisted of a wire basket attached to a cable-and-pulley system powered by a 1⁄4-ton truck. The 3rd Battalion had been using such a system for some time. Reinke got the idea for it during the first two days of fighting in September, when the 3rd Battalion fought in the steep ridges around Dead Man’s Curve. During the previous five days of fighting in Mortimer Valley and around Five Brothers Ridge, the Japanese dead were left lying where they fell. Now the decaying bodies created an unbelievable stench around the whole area, as well as generating hordes of flies. Some Wildcats called Mortimer Valley ‘‘Stinky Valley.’’ Teams of men went around drenching the bodies with gasoline and burning them. Graves

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registration crews looked for any American dead that may have been left behind. General Marcus Bell visited the 321st command post in the early afternoon. He issued a verbal order to have the 321st RCT relieved by the 323rd RCT before dark on 25 October. By 1700, Division Field Order No. 23, just published, ordered a realignment of all troops on Peleliu and the nearby islands. With the battle for Angaur now over, some division troops on that island could be transferred to Peleliu. Units staying on Angaur were the 322nd Infantry, the 317th Field Artillery Battalion, and the 52nd Engineer Battalion. All other units, including the 316th and 318th Field Artillery Battalions, would move to Peleliu as soon as transportation became available. All units of the 1st Marine Division remaining on Peleliu were to be relieved so they could leave as quickly as possible. All of the 323rd RCT, except for the detachment still on Ngulu Atoll and the 155th Engineer Battalion on Ulithi Atoll, had arrived on Peleliu. It would now assume the primary combat role in the Pocket, being much fresher than the 321st RCT, which had been fighting for the past month on Angaur and Peleliu. Nevertheless, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT; Company D, 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion; and the navy LVT flamethrower unit, remained in the Pocket attached to the 323rd RCT.π∫ At dawn, 25 October, D + 40, before the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, could be relieved in the ridges, the Wildcats of Company C killed seven Japanese emerging from a cave near the front lines. This proved to be the last action for the 1st Battalion. At 0700, the 3rd Battalion, 323rd RCT, started up the ridges to replace both the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 321st RCT. Since most of the support ships had left the Palaus, and the airstrips on Angaur and Peleliu were now operational with little hindrance from the Japanese, General Mueller planned to continue siege tactics from now until the last Japanese soldier was killed or surrendered, thus preserving Wildcat lives as much as possible. Over a month previous, when the marines controlled the combat zone, General Julian Smith advised this very policy, which General William Rupertus rejected. Now that the army had control, Mueller implemented it.

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This siege strategy was an ideal introduction to combat for inexperienced troops trained in army tactics. The 323rd RCT would continue reducing the perimeter of the Pocket by maintaining constant aggressive pressure on the Japanese, while preventing them from escaping the Pocket by stringing barbed wire and establishing observation and machine-gun posts along the perimeter. Much of this planned aggressive pressure on the Japanese would come from the mechanical weapons of war and not manpower. Company I, 3rd Battalion, 323rd RCT, replaced Companies E and F, 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, on the Five Brothers Ridge. In the ridges north of China Wall, Companies K and L, 3rd Battalion, 323rd RCT, relieved Companies A and C, 1st Battalion, 321st RCT. The 323rd RCT’s Antitank Company and Cannon Company relieved the 321st RCT’s corresponding units on the 37mm antitank guns and the 75mm pack howitzers. The 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, less Company E currently attached to the 1st Battalion, and less the detachment still on Ngulu Atoll, replaced Company B, 321st RCT, along the southern perimeter south of the Five Sisters and Old Baldy. Old Baldy is in fact connected to the Sisters, separated from them by a saddle. In numbering the hills of the Five Sisters, the marines considered Old Baldy ‘‘Sister 1.’’πΩ Robert Voss, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, described the Wildcats of Company B, 321st RCT. ‘‘They looked pretty well beaten up. Of course, they’d been through Angaur before that. They were real glad to be relieved. I guess from what some of them told me, the marines looked worse.’’∫≠ Four officers and fifteen enlisted men in the 321st RCT remained behind for three days to orient the men of the 323rd RCT as to the type of combat that faced them. The remaining Wildcats of the two relieved battalions assembled at the base of the Pocket. Lieutenant Colonel Lester J. Evans led his 1st Battalion back to RJ 15, just south of the abandoned radio station, in northern Peleliu. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Clainos led his 2nd Battalion to LVTs waiting at the north causeway for the trip to Ngesebus, and they arrived on that island at 1400. Major Pilliod of the 3rd Battalion had his men, who were to stay in the Pocket, strengthen their positions on Walt Ridge. Since 23 September, when the 321st RCT arrived on Peleliu, they had killed 2,101 Japanese and taken 121 prisoners, including Koreans. They had lost 146 men killed and 469 wounded.∫∞

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In continual use since the beginning of the Angaur campaign on 17 September, the Company A tanks needed maintenance, and their crews needed rest. Lieutenant Colonel W. M. Rodgers, Commander, 710th Tank Battalion, had previously recommended to General Mueller that he bring Company C from Angaur to relieve Company A. Company C had now arrived on Peleliu, and it prepared to relieve Company A the next day.∫≤ By the end of the day the 323rd Wildcats had encircled three sides of the Pocket, with the 3rd Battalion in the north on Brothers 1 through 4 and in the northwestern ridges. The 1st Battalion was in the western ridges, the 2nd Battalion was in the southern ridges, and, on the east side, the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, was in Mortimer Valley and on Walt Ridge. Colonel Arthur Watson established his 323rd Regimental command post in the captured Japanese blockhouse northwest of the airstrip. During the day, all four battalion combat teams established observation posts and communications networks. Meanwhile, Companies C and E, 323rd RCT, continued battling Japanese infiltrators in the Southern Pocket, south of the Pocket’s perimeter lines. During the night, Company I, 321st RCT, wounded and captured two Japanese near Grinlinton Pond. They were given medical care and interrogated. Japanese soldiers usually fought to the death, but if captured they readily talked and reported what they knew. These two told their captors that fifteen or sixteen of their countrymen remained in the cave; all were wounded, and each man was armed with a single grenade. Further, the prisoners believed that two adjoining caves contained fifty to sixty Japanese armed with rifles and grenades; and that about five hundred to six hundred Japanese remained in the Pocket, with perhaps three hundred of them sick or wounded.∫≥

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t 0800 on 26 October, D + 41, Colonel Robert F. Dark, 321st RCT, transferred combat command in the Pocket to Colonel Arthur P. Watson, 323rd RCT. Afterward, Dark re-established his command post in the abandoned Japanese radio station in northern Peleliu and took command of the Northern Defense Sector. The Southern Defense Sector remained assigned to the 726th Amphibian Tractor Battalion. Dark had orders to relieve the remaining marine units in the Northern Defense Sector by 1200. The 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, now attached to the 321st RCT, moved from Angaur to the eastern islands and relieved the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, on Ngabad and Carlson Islands by 0900. At 1730, one platoon of the reconnaissance troop, riding in LVTs and supported by amphibian tanks, invaded Ngargersiul Island to the northeast of Ngabad. They found it unoccupied and quickly established an observation post and defensive positions.∞ Lieutenant Ross Hadfield, commander of the 3rd Platoon, 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, said: ‘‘I got all the nice details, like while all the rest of the troop was in bivouac, I had three sections [in the field]. Corporal Sistrunk had the section right at the end of Bloody Nose Ridge overlooking the airport at Peleliu; my other corporal, Corporal Isabel, was at the northern end of Peleliu Island; my third section was on an island right up next to Babelthuap.’’ 200

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Hadfield remembered setting up an observation point with Corporal Sistrunk’s section south of the Pocket. ‘‘There was sporadic firing going on. I came up over the rocks and I reached up to get something; it was a marine’s leg. It was a shoe and the bottom of his leg. I radioed back for the graves registration people to pick him up. He had been up there for, I don’t know how long, three weeks.’’≤ The 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, relieved the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, on Ngesebus, Kongauru, and Garakayo Islands. The 1st Battalion, 321st, relieved the 1st and 3rd Battalions, 5th Marines, in northern Peleliu. The 81st Division Artillery had replaced the 4th Battalion, 11th Marines, by noon on the previous day. The marines’ 8th Field Artillery Battalion (155mm guns) remained attached to the 81st Division Artillery. This marine battalion would not be relieved until the 48th Coast Artillery Battalion arrived from Hawaii on 11 November. All the marines had left Peleliu by 13 November.≥ The Wildcats of the 323rd RCT spent the day getting familiar with their new combat assignment. John Mitchell, Company K, 323rd RCT, recalled being in the northwestern ridges, ‘‘When we got there, we went on up and you couldn’t dig in that type of topsoil, it was mostly coral rock. We used sandbags. We chain-ganged the bags up to where we were going to put in. We stacked the bags up and that would be our foxhole, so to speak. Peepholes were left where we could observe the enemy. Several men were killed by the Japanese shooting through those peepholes into our foxholes. They would be up there observing, and get shot right in the head.’’∂ These inexperienced Wildcats had a lot to learn. Sergeant Hershel A. Downing, a medic with the 306th Medical Battalion, remembered: One day, a platoon [from Company E] of about twenty-five infantrymen from the 323rd was resting when one of them tripped over the wire that triggered [an] explosion. [In fact, a buried aerial bomb had been detonated, not by a tripwire, but by remote control from a Japanese observation post, killing nine and wounding twenty]. I drove up with Corporal Sistrunk shortly after the accident. After sending Sistrunk for help, I assessed there were about fifteen killed, and the rest were wounded to various degrees. Among the deceased was one man that was decapitated. I gathered some of the wounded and took them to the clearing company, Company D.

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Next, I returned to the scene to see if there were still wounded needing help. I saw one man that had both legs severed at the knees. When I approached him, I had to be careful as the Japanese took that opportunity to start firing on us.∑ Lieutenant George Rasula, still in the hospital recovering from grenade wounds that he suffered during his ‘‘volunteer’’ mission on 21 October on Brother 1, remembered: A few days later I suddenly realized there was a lot of activity among the hospital tents. These were large tents with the sides rolled up, so a patient lying on his cot could see most anything in the area. Soon I learned that a platoon of men from the 323rd Infantry had been moving up a draw and the Japanese had detonated a mined aerial bomb amongst them. Later that day, I watched a doctor probe inside the eye socket of a man not more than six feet away, a sight I will never forget. His missing eye was but one of his many wounds.∏ In the 710th Tank Battalion, the tanks and personnel of Company C relieved Company A. Lieutenant Havlick, platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, Company C, relieved Lieutenant Halsey, 2nd Platoon, Company A; and, Lieutenant Cofone, 3rd Platoon, Company C, relieved Lieutenant Lindloff, 1st Platoon, Company A. The 3rd Platoon, Company A, still on Ngesebus, remained on duty on the island and reported to Lieutenant Colonel Peter Clainos. The 1st Platoon, Company C, served as the tank reserve unit.π Colonel Nakagawa knew that fresh troops now manned the perimeter around the Pocket, and he wanted to test them. During the night, he attacked Company B on the western perimeter three times with up to twenty-five men. The Wildcats beat back each attempt with the help of heavy mortar barrages. Small groups of Japanese tried to infiltrate through Company K’s lines, but with little success. At 0400 in the morning, about fifty Japanese attacked Company I on Brother 4, losing thirty soldiers in the attempt. Earlier, at 2040, seven Japanese ran to Grinlinton Pond to get water. The troops of Company I, 321st RCT, heard canteens rattling, and turned on the lights. They killed all seven.∫ Bert Neill, Company I, 321st RCT, recalled, ‘‘Grinlinton Pond, that’s where they got their water. We had these [trip] flares, when they

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crawled along they would trip them, we could see them, and then we would shoot them. Hardly any of them were armed. Usually had a saber or something like that with them. All they wanted was water.’’Ω Private John Engstrom, Company K, 321st RCT, atop Walt Ridge, added, ‘‘We were right above that pond. They’d drag fifty or one hundred canteens on the ground and try to fill them with water and take them back into the caves. They were just ducks on the pond out there.’’∞≠ If the Japanese needed water, they got plenty of it over the next few days, beginning on 27 October. Heavy rain and poor visibility limited operations as a tropical rainstorm hit the Palaus. These poor weather conditions lasted into early November. Lieutenant Colonel Carl Darnell, Jr., commander of the 316th Field Artillery Battalion, commanded all the division artillery on Peleliu. The 316th and the 906th Field Artillery Battalions supported the 323rd RCT in the Pocket.∞∞ ‘‘I was with the 316th,’’ said Sergeant Ray Melheim, ‘‘and I remember that the marines threw away their helmets and their hammocks as they were leaving. I kept one hammock and slept in it until reports came back that at night the Japanese were crawling up and stabbing fellows from the bottom of the hammock as they slept.’’∞≤ The poor visibility aided the Wildcats of the 323rd RCT as they consolidated positions and brought rations, ammunition, and sandbags to the frontline troops. The regiment hauled additional pack howitzers onto the high ground and sandbagged them for protection. Reconnaissance patrols located Japanese defensive installations for later destruction. The poor visibility, however, did not entirely stop the Japanese snipers from their work. After Company K made a slight gain to come in line with Company L in the northwest ridges, a Japanese sniper shot and killed its commanding officer, Captain Joseph F. Mortimer. The Wildcats changed the name of the Pocket’s eastern valley from Horseshoe to Mortimer Valley in his honor.∞≥ Eugene Schoendienst was the radio man in Company K’s headquarters. He remembered how the enthusiastic captain ‘‘got shot in the back and the bullet came out near his stomach. There was a hunk of his liver sticking out, and the medics tried to pull it out, thinking that someone had stuck a bandage in there to keep it from bleeding, but he was already gone.’’∞∂

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Steve Dombrowski, Company C, remembered being in the valley where the booby-trapped bomb killed and maimed Company E’s men the day before. He said: The next morning, while on patrol, I found fresh human waste, so I called to Poncho [Lieutenant Ceballos, the platoon leader] and Joey Brown, platoon sergeant, to let them know Japs were nearby. The Japs started shooting and hit my ammunition carrier, [Private First Class Thomas E.] Randolph. He died three days later in the hospital. I called again to Poncho and Joey Brown and told them where the shots came from. Lieutenant Ceballos and Joey Brown were sitting on the pillbox, the machine gun between their legs. Joey Brown threw a grenade and got the machine gun.∞∑ At 2230, the Japanese struck again at the front lines of the Wildcats. They hit hardest at Company K, 323rd RCT, in the ridges northwest of the Five Brothers. The Japanese drove through some positions, causing casualties and forcing the withdrawal and isolation of the 1st Platoon. With their communications cut off and ammunition running low, they fought off the Japanese and reoccupied the lost ground at dawn. They counted thirty-five enemy dead in their position.∞∏ One Company K rifleman, John Mitchell, told how they handled such Japanese attacks: ‘‘They would come out at night. Our plan was to throw out fragmentation and concussion grenades all throughout the night, trying to keep them away. We were afraid they would slip up on us with their knives and their grenades and come into the hole with us. We looked after each other’s positions, because we couldn’t see around ours too well, just limited to those peepholes. The person next to our position would be looking out for our rear guard. We would look out for theirs.’’∞π Overnight on 27–28 October, five Japanese landing barges from Babelthuap managed to penetrate the defensive screen unnoticed in the rain and arrived about four miles off Purple Beach, each barge equipped with makeshift torpedo tubes. Between the enemy barges and Purple Beach lay tempting targets, including several transport ships loaded with marines. A destroyer escort and an LCI spotted the barges and attacked them. During this attack, tracer bullets from unknown sources riddled the tents on Purple Beach, amazingly

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without causing casualties. Next morning the Wildcats were just as amazed to find an unexploded torpedo, fired by one of the barges, beached near General Mueller’s headquarters. No one could explain how it passed dozens of ships and grounded itself on the beach without doing any damage whatsoever.∞∫ Brigadier General Oliver Smith, the 1st Marine Division’s liaison to General Mueller, later enjoyed telling how Mueller had established his headquarters at Purple Beach to avoid the combat zone, but now had his tent shot full of holes.∞Ω In Mortimer Valley, at 0745 on 28 October, D + 43, a Japanese officer carrying a white flag surrendered to the company commander of I Company, 321st RCT. Corwin Berry, a rifleman in Company I, remembered, ‘‘A Japanese soldier who was a doctor surrendered to us. He had studied at John Hopkins Hospital before the war. After he got to our area, he peeled a little Japanese pistol, very small, out of his pocket that he was carrying as a weapon.’’ The doctor estimated the Japanese strength in the Pocket at five hundred men.≤≠ While the rain curtailed some combat activity, Lieutenant Havlick’s 2nd Platoon, Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, remained in position near the south end of Mortimer Valley and fired on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. The tank crews watched for Japanese soldiers who carelessly appeared on the ridges of these hills, and killed many of them.≤∞ As combat operations wound down on Peleliu, the peril to the American forces in the southern Palaus switched to the Japanese forces on Babelthuap. To cope with this threat, the division installed and controlled various types of advanced warning installations from the Ground Defense Headquarters established in the old Japanese administration building north of the airstrip. In the Northern Defense Sector, 321st RCT Wildcats maintained surveillance on all possible routes of invasion. They conducted armored amphibious patrols among the outlying islands, staffed observation posts and radar units, and operated searchlights. Information from these installations came to the Ground Defense Headquarters that then distributed it to the appropriate naval, air, and ground forces.≤≤ Even so, as evidenced by the five landing barges that attacked Purple Beach early on 28 October, determined Japanese infiltrators still occasionally made it through the defenses to harass the Americans on Peleliu.

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On 29 October, in the Pocket, Company L, 321st RCT, replaced Company I in Mortimer Valley. In the only aggressive action of the day, the 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, positioned south of Old Baldy and the Five Sisters, sent a patrol supported by two tanks into Death Valley. After advancing about two hundred yards into the valley, one tank hit a mine and lost a track, resulting in three casualties. A second patrol discovered several booby traps, including a remotely controlled one hundred-pound bomb, which the engineers later detonated. Shortly after sunset, an air alert sounded. Soon, a lone Japanese floatplane circled Peleliu, dropping two parachutes. Men from the 3rd Battalion, 323rd RCT, observed at least one of these drops north of its command post and reported it to the Ground Defense Center. It immediately issued an alert to all battalions to keep parachutists away from the Pocket. Two hours later, a patrol from Company A, 321st RCT, found the parachute north of the Pocket, and attached to it was a wicker basket containing sixty hand grenades.≤≥ This incident vividly demonstrated the wretched Japanese situation on Peleliu, yet they fought on. By late October, almost all the Wildcats suffered from the poor sanitary conditions on Peleliu, especially those still fighting in the Pocket. A typical example was Lieutenant Lee Kunce, Company C, 323rd RCT, who said: I knew that I was ill, but I didn’t know what my problem was. I was fighting a losing battle just to stay up there with the men. Then I was wounded. When they took me back to the aid station, the major, who was the battalion surgeon, made a quick examination while dressing my wounds. The analysis was that I had amoebic dysentery, yellow jaundice, chronic colitis, acute hepatitis, and dengue fever. All of these things were reacting at the same time. I couldn’t even eat K Rations and keep it down, it was just that bad.≤∂ At 0900 on 30 October, marine Corsairs dropped napalm containers, but missed the target area. Fortunately, the follow-on mortar fire failed to ignite the napalm for some time. Eugene Schoendienst, Company K, said, ‘‘We had one of them drop right among the lieutenant, myself, and other members of the company. We were lucky that

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they didn’t set them off or we would have burned. We got out of there before they set it off.’’≤∑ The Corsairs made another strike at 1430 with much better results. The napalm landed on target and was immediately ignited with mortar fire. The explosions of a one hundred-pound bomb and numerous other booby traps caused by the burning napalm further devastated the area—and any Japanese who occupied it. In the only other major development, two engineers from Company C, 306th Engineer Battalion, bulldozed a rough road for tanks into a valley in the southwestern ridges. Demonstrating bravery and determination, they completed this job, staying with their bulldozers even after sniper fire wounded both men.≤∏ Clair Bahrenfuse said, concerning the incident, ‘‘I remember watching an engineer bulldozing. Somebody opened up on him with a machine gun and he methodically closed the doors on this sucker and kept right on bulldozing. They were taking the GI paint off that thing for him, but he kept on dozing.’’≤π Rain continued to limit combat on 31 October, D + 46, but in a repeat performance, a Japanese floatplane, a ‘‘Jake,’’ flew over Peleliu dropping supply parachutes and, this time, leaflets, printed in English, announcing a ‘‘cruel attack’’ and the imminent destruction of the Americans on Peleliu. The Japanese tossed flares out of caves near the base of the Five Brothers, evidently trying to mark the target area for the plane. However, the Japanese pilot tempted fate once too often. As he flew north over the 321st RCT headquarters, a marine nightfighter, a Grumman F6F Hellcat piloted by Major Norman L. Mitchell, VMF(N)-541, based at the airstrip on Peleliu, got on his tail and followed him north. Major Mitchell shot down the Jake near Arimasuku Island, northwest of Garakayo. This Japanese pilot had the misfortune to be the only one shot down by marine pilots based on Peleliu.≤∫ Dawn on 1 November brought improving weather with only patchy showers in the morning. In anticipation of clearing weather, preparations continued for a planned attack on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters scheduled for the next day. The commanders in the 81st Division wanted these heights for several reasons. The main reason was to use them to support the more formidable undertaking of attacking Wildcat Bowl, China Wall, and Death Valley. Observation posts

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Wildcat advancements in the Pocket, 17 October–27 November 1944. Map by John Gilkes.

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established on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters, as well as fortified positions for heavy guns, could support the forthcoming attacks on the three main targets. In addition, taking these hills meant denying them to the enemy for their observation posts, as well as eliminating the constant harassment from snipers posted there.≤Ω The Japanese had mauled the 1st and 7th Marines attacking these hills and ridges from the south, and now the Wildcats planned to attack from the same direction. However, the situation had changed tremendously. Now, the Americans controlled Mortimer Valley, most of the Five Brothers Ridge, the ridges north of Wildcat Bowl, and had tanks near the hills that could support them. In addition, the Japanese had to spread a much-reduced force over a longer perimeter than when facing the marines a month previously. Furthermore, the 323rd RCT was fresh, knew what to expect, and made better preparations for the attack. Preparations for the impending attacks included taking aerial photographs of the combat zone, and stockpiling sandbags behind the lines for quickly fortifying positions gained on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. Also, Corsairs dropped napalm containers subsequently ignited by mortar fire on selected targets.≥≠ At 0530 on 2 November, D + 48, the day’s action started with a forty-minute heavy mortar barrage on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. While this softening of the enemy’s resistance was going on, the Wildcats of the 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hugh K. Forsman, prepared to move forward. Spearheading the attack, Company G jumped off at 0630. The 2nd Platoon, Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, supported the attack by firing on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. Twenty minutes later, tanks moved into the southern end of Death Valley without opposition.≥∞ Facing little resistance other than random sniper fire, it took only one hour for the Wildcats of Company G to scamper across Old Baldy, a saddle between Old Baldy and the Five Sisters, and gain the top of Sister 4. Observation posts were operating within ten minutes after taking the peaks of Old Baldy and Sister 4. By 0830, the Wildcats had captured and occupied all of the Five Sisters. The troops sandbagged these positions while taking heavy fire from the Japanese farther north on China Wall. Capturing these positions put the Japanese in Wildcat Bowl at a distinct disadvantage. The Wildcats could now observe most of the caves on the east side of China Wall and the west

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side of the Five Brothers ridge around the clock, thereby disrupting Japanese inter-cave communications and sniping. Now the Wildcats could snipe at the Japanese. Following the success of the 2nd Battalion, with the Japanese now focused on driving the Wildcats from the Five Sisters at the southern end of the China Wall, Colonel Watson ordered Lieutenant Colonel Arthur W. Hutchinson, commander of the 3rd Battalion, to have Companies K and L attack south toward the northern end of the China Wall. In trying to move forward, these Wildcats again pushed sandbags in front of them for protection as they crawled forward, and so did not advance far. The Japanese facing Companies K and L protected the Japanese headquarters cave, and would be among the last defenders eliminated.≥≤ Because the men of the 2nd Battalion continued to sandbag their positions after nightfall, the firing of flares over the combat zone was at first constrained, even though a Japanese counterattack on the Wildcats occupying Old Baldy and the Five Sisters appeared likely. This Japanese attack materialized shortly after midnight. Now, the tables had been turned. The Japanese had to scale the ridges to get to the Wildcats on top. Company G defeated the attack, killing thirtyeight Japanese in doing so. The Japanese lost an additional fifteen men trying to infiltrate through the western defensive perimeter. While these nightly attacks and infiltration attempts caused casualties and considerable discomfort among the Wildcats, it probably helped them in the conquest of the island. These Japanese activities had little chance of success, and they were losing men they could ill afford to lose.≥≥ Eugene Schoendienst remembered: That coral rock was straight up and down, and they would climb that. They wore these [‘‘tabi’’] shoes with the toe separate, and they would stick that toe in a hole and pull themselves up. I will never forget OP 1 [Observation Post 1] on Bloody Nose Ridge, with sandbags all around it, and these Japanese would try to come up. These soldiers of ours would take hand grenades and pull the pin, and give it a pitch. It would take about four or five seconds to get down there. The next one they would hold it for two seconds, and drop it down. They tried to get them on different levels as they were

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coming up. But they could still get up there. In the morning, they would be camouflaged in the trees, and take pot shots at you if they had the chance.≥∂ The pressure applied to the enemy in the Pocket drove many Japanese stragglers to the north. Colonel Dark and Lieutenant Colonel Evans, 321st RCT, on an inspection tour of defensive positions in Company A’s area, startled some Japanese soldiers hiding in the marshland near Radar Hill. A patrol from Company A hunted down these stragglers and killed seven of them. Activities on 3 November started with Company C, 323rd RCT, making another patrol into the Southern Pocket. The company had been working in this same valley for the past two weeks, trying to eliminate the Japanese infiltrators. After sealing a few remaining caves in the area, Company C reported the mission completed, and by 1700 had withdrawn into a rest area. By the end of the mission, over one hundred Japanese infiltrators had been killed, while twenty-two Wildcats and marines had been killed and fifty-one wounded.≥∑ At 1105, an observation post west of the Pocket spotted an estimated twelve Japanese soldiers gathering on the beach. This was obviously a serious situation, the more so because of the proximity of these Japanese to the hospitals located along the West Road on Amber Beach between Garekoru and RJ 15. Being in the Northern Defense Sector, the hospitals were relatively unprotected at this time. The 323rd RCT wasted no time in sending patrols from the 1st Battalion and regimental headquarters to eliminate these Japanese infiltrators before they could do any damage. The 321st RCT also got into the act by incorporating all the hospitals, which included the 306th Medical Battalion Hospital, the 41st Portable Surgical Hospital, and the Naval Base Hospital No. 20 Area, into its defense plan. The 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, sent three platoons as an armed guard around the hospitals while the antitank mine platoon installed a double apron barbed wire fence along the area up to one hundred yards off the beach. While the patrols made their way to the beach, the men of the 906th Field Artillery Battalion, already in the area, blocked the West Road in an attempt to contain the Japanese infiltrators on the beach. Nevertheless, the infiltrators scattered when the artillerymen fired on them. While the Wildcats tried to find the infiltrators on the

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These Japanese skulls in their helmets impaled on steel rods near the front lines serve as a warning against souvenir hunting. Written on the sign in front is ‘‘Off limits to unauthorized personnel.’’ Courtesy James Yetter.

ground, the 323rd operations officer and the 906th Field Artillery liaison officer took to the air in a small artillery spotter plane to locate them, but failed to do so. The patrols on the ground, however, had better luck, tracking down and killing eighteen of the infiltrators by nightfall. About the time the presence of the infiltrators was reported, a wounded marine flier arrived at the observation post. He was a pilot with VMF(N)-541, the nightfighter squadron based at the Peleliu airstrip. As none of the planes had been lost, this pilot had evidently been wounded while souvenir hunting in the ridges.≥∏ Souvenirs became a medium of exchange. Lieutenant George Rasula remembered: While on the ridges we were often in a position at night to see the lights on the airfield which emphasized the difference between the way we were existing and the rear-echelon types were living. During a couple of lulls, our company would send a ‘‘souvenir patrol’’ down to the airfield to barter sou-

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venirs with the Seabees and airfield crews, especially the Seabees who were already baking real bread, [and barter with] booze which they always seemed to have available at a price. A few rifles and flags would easily barter for a few loaves of bread and cans of peanut butter and jam.≥π Roy Bergeron, Company B, 321st RCT, added: When souvenir hunting, we’d go in the caves with a candle in our hand. We’d go back in there about thirty, forty feet. There’d be dead bodies, and we would get the flags they would put around their waists. It was supposed to keep them from getting shot. When you picked up the body, you just let both ends fall out, and you take the flag. I gave several flags away, but I brought two home with me. A Mexican friend used to go in the caves with me; we were in the same squad. I’d get pistols and give them to the guys, and I didn’t know, but they’d take them to the airport and sell them for one hundred dollars. I found a sword on a Jap and I took it home with me.≥∫ While observation posts on Old Baldy and the Five Sisters could monitor the Japanese in Wildcat Bowl, the enemy’s dispositions in Death Valley remained unknown. Therefore, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, sent an armored reconnaissance patrol into Death Valley shortly after noon. Previously, on 29 October, tanks and men had entered Death Valley with little resistance, but this time they encountered a murderous crossfire from Japanese soldiers hidden in caves on both sides of the valley. It appeared to be a well-designed ambush. The tanks and men retreated from the valley leaving behind seven severely wounded or dead Wildcats. After dark, with the firing of flares curtailed, Captain Oscar D. Luttrel directed attempts to retrieve them, but could not due to the intense enemy fire. Efforts to retrieve the bodies ended at 2000, and they would lie in the valley for more than a week before finally being recovered.≥Ω The Japanese situation in the Pocket continued to deteriorate. During the night of 3–4 November, several Japanese soldiers tried to escape from the Pocket and go north. Company L, in Mortimer Valley, killed three Japanese and captured one, losing one Wildcat killed in action. Company F captured four Japanese soldiers on Kongauru

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Island. The 81st Reconnaissance Troop captured one Japanese soldier on Ngabad Island, and men of the 1st Battalion captured two more. The 321st RCT’s intelligence officer, Captain Lauren L. Shaw, Jr., interrogated the captives, and all reported trying to escape from the Pocket. They said those remaining in the Pocket had plenty of food, water, and ammunition, and planned to fight to the death. One of the prisoners reported that the patrol annihilated on the beach was supposed to conduct a surprise attack on army units.∂≠ Contrary to what these prisoners stated, the Japanese soldiers remaining in the Pocket did not have plenty of food, water, and ammunition. Even after the recent heavy rains, the Japanese suffered from lack of water, and the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, posted in Mortimer Valley and on Walt Ridge, kept the Japanese water carriers from reaching Grinlinton Pond. In addition, Colonel Nakagawa, in an effort to conserve the diminishing ammunition supply, started issuing one-half the normal allowance of small-arms ammunition. In a Japanese report discovered after the war, Colonel Nakagawa said concerning ammunition: ‘‘It was tentative as to whether it would last until 20 November.’’∂∞ It is now known that General Murai, who occupied the Japanese command cave with Colonel Nakagawa, but remained in the background, became alarmed at the deteriorating position of the Japanese. He disagreed with Colonel Nakagawa’s stance to keep on defending the Pocket, and he requested permission from General Inoue to conduct a banzai charge against the airfield. General Inoue sided with Colonel Nakagawa and denied Murai’s request for this suicide attack. The Wildcats wanted a banzai charge, which they could easily defeat, ending the battle.∂≤ Shortly before dusk, replacements arrived on Peleliu and Angaur for those Wildcats either killed or evacuated from the islands. Private First Class James Robert Ijames, a replacement assigned to the 3rd Platoon, Company C, 323rd RCT, remembered, ‘‘When we hit the beach, I jumped over the side. The first thing I saw was a redheaded sailor. He said he was the beach master. That sailor was dirty, nasty, and he smelled bad. After thirty days on Peleliu, I was dirtier, nastier, and smelled worse.’’∂≥ Heavy rain moved over the Palaus during the morning of 4 November, the leading edge of a typhoon that hit full force from 6 November

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through the morning of 8 November. The storm greatly restricted aggressive operations by the Wildcats and the Japanese, but smallunit actions, as well as defensive preparations, continued during the next five days. The rain, wind, and limited visibility provided opportunities for the Japanese to escape the Pocket. These infiltrators had to be hunted down and eliminated.∂∂ For the past several nights, the Japanese had been active in the southern Mortimer Valley, not far from Brother 5 and Old Baldy. Company L, 321st RCT, sent an armored patrol into this area to clean out remaining caves. A platoon of Sherman tanks and a navy LVT flamethrower made up the armored portion of the patrol. The LVT flamethrower moved to a cave at the base of Old Baldy where three Japanese were killed.∂∑ Eugene Schoendienst remembered hearing someone say, ‘‘We’ve been fighting up here all this while and the navy will get all the fun of getting rid of those sons-of-buggers.’’∂∏ In the only other development around the Pocket, the 323rd RCT’s Cannon Company placed some pack howitzers on the saddle between Old Baldy and the Five Sisters. From here, they could support troops moving into Wildcat Bowl.∂π By 5 November, D + 51, the Wildcats had contracted the Pocket to the point that the 4.2-inch mortars could no longer be employed. The Wildcats were simply too close to potential targets. Artillery units had ceased firing into the Pocket some time previously, except for pack howitzers shooting directly into cave openings. To replace the mortars, five more pack howitzers were added around the Pocket.∂∫ In a completely separate action, detached troops from the army’s 111th Infantry Regiment landed on and occupied Ngeregong Island, about nine miles northeast of northern Peleliu. These particular men from the Heavy Weapons Companies D and H, along with other men from the army’s 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion, and the 91st Chemical Mortar Company, served as mortar crews for the 4.2-inch mortars on the four LCI(M)s used during the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu. These four vessels were a part of the navy’s LCI Flotilla 13 currently based in Schonian Harbor, north of Garakayo. The army troops occupied this island in hopes of turning it into a recreation center.∂Ω Ngeregong Island is northeast of Garakayo Island and south of Eil Malk Island and the narrow Denges Passage. Denges Passage sepa-

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rates Ngeregong and Eil Malk, and is the eastern entrance into Schonian Harbor. Since LCI Flotilla 13, called the ‘‘Black Cat Flotilla,’’ patrolled the waters around the islands in the Northern Defense Sector for Japanese barges, its ships constantly passed through Denges Passage. Therefore, not only could Ngeregong Island be used as a recreation center for the navy, it was important to occupy the island in order to protect this important passage.∑≠ On 5 November, in a telephone message to General Inoue on Babelthuap, Colonel Nakagawa reported having 350 effective men left in the Pocket at this time.∑∞ That evening, a typhoon warning for the next morning went out to all the troops. Early in the morning on 7 November, around 0200, the typhoon hit the islands with strong winds and heavy rains that lasted all day and through the following night. All aggressive activity on Peleliu and the surrounding islands came to a stop.∑≤ As the typhoon moved on, the sun appeared on 8 November. All the Wildcats had orders to clean their weapons and repair the damage done by the high winds. However, the tanks of the 1st Platoon, Company C, moved into Death Valley and fired on suspected Japanese positions. The Japanese fired 20mm shells at one tank, but did not damage it. In the late afternoon, the tanks withdrew to the mouth of the draw where U-shaped sandbag revetments were built. The tanks spent the night within these revetments. Here, they could intercept any Japanese movement out of Death Valley.∑≥ During the night of 8–9 November, a Japanese force surreptitiously landed on Ngeregong Island. At 1000, a small detachment from the 111th Infantry Regiment encountered the Japanese, estimated at company strength. A skirmish ensued in which the soldiers killed or wounded about five of the enemy. Thought to be heavily outnumbered, the army mortar men retreated under the protection of 20 and 40mm gunfire from LCI gunboats. After the soldiers had withdrawn from the island, several LCIs and destroyers bombarded the island the rest of the day and following night. Forty-seven marine planes from Peleliu each dropped a five hundred-pound bomb on the island at dusk. The 8th Field Artillery Battalion, a 155mm gun unit originally attached to the 1st Marine Division, pounded the island from its position on Akarakoro Point on Peleliu, about eight miles south of Ngeregong.

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The 81st Division Headquarters, immediately upon learning of the Ngeregong Island incident, began planning on how to retake the island. This island, which controlled Denges Channel, was just too important to the Northern Defense Sector, and therefore to the defense of the southern Palau islands, to allow the Japanese to occupy it.∑∂ South of Ngeregong Island very little else was happening on 9 November, D + 55. Around the Pocket, only Company L, in the northwestern ridges, made any forceful moves. They continued sandbagging their way towards China Wall, moving just yards per day, in the most rugged and hotly contested terrain on Peleliu.∑∑ The tanks of the 2nd Platoon, Company C, 710th Tank Battalion, returned to its usual daily position south of Walt Ridge. They fired on targets designated by the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT. The main mission of the 2nd Platoon was to keep the Japanese from escaping over the Five Brothers into Wildcat Bowl.∑∏ At a morning conference held in Colonel Arthur Watson’s headquarters, various officers from the 323rd RCT and the attached units planned future operations in the Pocket. The 1st Battalion would be the primary attacking force, with the 2nd Battalion backing and supporting it. Mortar fire would play an important role in preparing for the coming assaults. Aerial observation revealed many dead Japanese bodies scattered around Death Valley and the China Wall, all attributed to mortar fire. Therefore, the planners included a systematic, continuous 81mm mortar barrage on the target areas, and prepared a schedule coordinating mortar fire between the battalions surrounding the Pocket. The mortar barrage would start later in the day and continue twenty-four hours a day for the next three days. Other preparations would continue for the next three days as well: bulldozers would prepare tank trails in Death Valley, and the Wildcats would stockpile sandbags and other supplies behind the lines for quick use during the battle. On the western side of the Pocket, the plan had Company B taking the lead in the attack. Company C would replace Company B on the perimeter, and Company F would replace Company C on the southern side of the western ridges. As Company B advanced through the ridges, Companies E and C would sandbag the positions gained. On the north side of the Pocket, Companies K and L, 3rd Battalion,

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323rd RCT, would move forward toward the north end of the China Wall, while Company I would take the ridges west of Brother 2, and then move south and take Brother 5. On the south side of the Pocket, Company G, on the Five Sisters, would move north on the China Wall. The attack would start on Monday, 13 November.∑π In the meantime, as these preparations were being made in the Pocket, at 0830 on 10 November, fifty-one marine planes from Peleliu bombed and strafed Ngeregong Island. The pilots reported only light machine-gun fire from the island, and that 90 percent of their bombs hit the target area. However, one TBM Avenger from VMTB-134, based on Peleliu, crashed on a coral reef south of the island, with all three crew members presumed killed.∑∫ With authorization from Rear Admiral Reeves, commander of the Western Carolines Sub-Area, General Mueller ordered the seizure and occupation of both Gorokottan and Ngeregong Islands. Gorokottan Island was three miles east of Garakayo Island and two miles southwest of Ngeregong. No one saw the need to occupy Gorokottan Island as long as Ngeregong Island remained under American control. However, with the Japanese now on Ngeregong, it became desirable to take Gorokottan Island for use as an observation post in the ground defense of Peleliu. For that reason, Gorokottan Island would be taken first, followed by Ngeregong Island several days later. Previous reconnaissance of Gorokottan Island showed it to be unoccupied, so casualties were not expected from this operation. The task of invading and occupying Gorokottan Island fell to the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, less one platoon, supported by the firepower of four amphibious tanks. Five LVT troop carriers would transport the men to the island. Captain W. D. Johnson would be in command of this task force. In addition, one battery from the 318th Field Artillery Battalion would support the invasion from its position on Peleliu. The invasion was set for 11 November. For this mission, the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop was temporarily detached from the 321st RCT and placed directly under the command of division headquarters.∑Ω The Wildcats in the reconnaissance troop scheduled to assault Gorokottan Island currently occupied defensive positions on Ngabad Island. Captain John H. Burke’s 321st Antitank Company replaced them.

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General Mueller assigned the 321st RCT the mission of taking and occupying Ngeregong Island, and General Mueller gave Colonel Dark two days to submit a plan for this operation. In order to complete the plan, Colonel Dark had to reconnoiter Ngeregong to find the number, location, and weaponry of the Japanese. The 2nd Battalion, 321st RCT, sent a patrol in LVTs from Garakayo to Ngeregong Island to both reconnoiter the island and to search for the bodies of the three marine fliers believed killed in the Avenger crash. If they found the crashed plane, they had orders to destroy any useable equipment and weapons on it. The patrol conducted a close offshore reconnaissance of the island without any interference from the enemy, but the plane and the bodies were not found.∏≠ Saturday, 11 November, was quite busy in the Northern Defense Sector. Lieutenant Colonel Clainos led another amphibious patrol to Ngeregong Island. The patrol circled the island five hundred yards offshore without observing any enemy activity or encountering any gunfire from the island. This time, however, the patrol did find pieces of the wrecked plane about five hundred yards off the south shore of Ngeregong Island, but no bodies.∏∞ While the amphibious patrol reconnoitered Ngeregong Island, at 0830, the troops of the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop departed Ngabad Island for Gorokottan Island. Throughout the night of November 10–11, a battery of 155mm howitzers from the 318th Field Artillery Battalion shelled the island, and continued the shelling right up to the scheduled landing time at 0930. At 0939, the Wildcats landed unopposed in the center of the beach on the lagoon side. They immediately split into two groups, one group searching the northern part of the island while the other group searched the southern portion. They did not find any signs of Japanese occupation, and declared the island secure at 1030. Leaving one platoon behind to operate an observation post and to defend the island, supported by the amphibian tanks and an LVT troop carrier, the rest of the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop left for Ngargersiul Island.∏≤ Very little was happening around the Pocket. The stockpiling of sandbags for the coming attack continued. On the northern side of the Pocket, the supply lines for Companies K and L in the northwestern ridges had now lengthened to eight hundred yards over craggy terrain. It took more men to keep these companies supplied than it did to man their frontline positions. Every noncombatant that

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could be spared filled sandbags. On the southern side of the Pocket, the 2nd Battalion again tried to retrieve their dead from Death Valley, but the rough terrain and enemy resistance restricted the removal to only two bodies. It had now been eight days since these Wildcats died.∏≥ However, the next day, D + 58, engineers attached to the 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, using armored bulldozers and protected by three tanks, constructed a tank trail one hundred yards long in Death Valley, and removed the remaining Wildcat bodies. West of the Pocket, the 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, sent another patrol to Amber Beach looking for Japanese infiltrators. This patrol killed thirteen Japanese soldiers and captured one. Upon interrogation the prisoner said that all of them were trying to escape to the northern islands, indicating the desperate conditions now facing the Japanese on Peleliu. North of the Pocket, Companies K, L, and I, 3rd Battalion, 323rd RCT, attacked simultaneously in an effort to join forces. Company L captured a strategic piece of land in front of Company K, and Company I cleared caves west of Brother 2. The three companies sandbagged their new defensive positions.∏∂ On 13 November, D + 59, the planned attack on the Pocket began, sending about two thousand Wildcats against three hundred well fortified, but exhausted Japanese defenders. The 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, jumped off at 0700. In the southwest ridges, Company B moved northeast through F Company’s lines, where they immediately encountered five strong enemy positions. It took four hours to eliminate them and again move forward. By 1500, Company B had gained seventy-five yards, and Companies C and E, following Company B, immediately sandbagged all the new positions. Company A tried to move southwest toward Death Valley, but strong enemy resistance blocked its efforts. During this action, an armored patrol using infantry from Company G as guards, moved into Death Valley and fired directly into caves in the ridges and in the western rise of China Wall.∏∑ Taking advantage of this armored support, at 0700, Company G moved men from the Five Sisters northward to the east ridge of China Wall, and some into Death Valley for attacking the China Wall from the west. These troops met little resistance until 1000, after which they started receiving heavy gunfire from the north end of China Wall and the northwest wall of Death Valley. Company G halted its drive

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View of the bulldozed trail in Wildcat Bowl leading to the base of the 306th Engineer ramp at the upper right. China Wall is the ridge on the left side of the road. Courtesy James Yetter.

and sandbagged the new positions. It gained seventy-five yards during the three-hour advance, taking casualties along the way. At 0630, tanks moved into Wildcat Bowl. During the past several days, engineers had bulldozed a road up the southern slope of Old Baldy to a flat spot overlooking the area between the Five Sisters and the Five Brothers. One tank climbed to this plateau and covered the other two tanks as they entered Wildcat Bowl. As the tanks fired on all the caves in their field of fire, armored bulldozers entered Wildcat Bowl and began scraping out a tank trail along the east base of China Wall. ‘‘When the infantry needed us, we had to go,’’ said Benton Maxwell, a combat engineer. ‘‘The Five Sisters and the Five Brothers were such that the Americans could get trapped. Well, if the infantry couldn’t advance, we’d take armored dozers, little slots were all we had to see out of, and make a road where we could get the equipment in there.’’∏∏ At 0830 an LVT flamethrower, operated by men from the 323rd Antitank Company, entered the bowl and followed the two tanks

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northward on the tank trail. This armored patrol attacked caves in the China Wall and the Five Brothers that previously had gone untouched and withdrew from Wildcat Bowl in the early afternoon. At 1630, the armored patrol in Death Valley also withdrew. On the northern side of the Pocket, Companies K and L continued their slow progress toward the China Wall and the Wildcat Bowl. They halted their advance about noon, and sandbagged the positions gained. At the end of the day, the 323rd RCT had reduced the Pocket by about 20 percent. The day’s activities had not only killed many Japanese defenders, but also chased some of them out of their protected cave positions. Some of these defenders tried to pass through the 323rd RCT’s lines that night, especially in the 3rd Battalion’s sector north of Wildcat Bowl. Company L reported killing thirteen Japanese in a failed counterattack west of Brother 2. Nearby, Company I killed another thirteen Japanese described as being in a jovial mood, walking about in the open, singing and laughing, apparently drunk on Sake. In all, forty-two Japanese met death this night.∏π The attack on the Pocket slowed considerably on 14 November. At 0750, Company B moved forward through Company C. It encountered enemy mortar fire while trying to attack caves. In the early afternoon, Company C relieved Company B, and started sandbagging the new defensive positions, but very little ground was gained.∏∫ On this day two replacements joined Company C, 323rd RCT: Private First Class James R. Ijames went to the 3rd Platoon and Private First Class Robert F. Joyce went to the 2nd Platoon. Ijames recalled his first night: ‘‘Standing orders at night were to stay in your place of concealment and shoot anything that moved, and never call anybody by rank. The first night the Japs attacked the line, but did not get through. I found a couple of days later that Joyce got killed that night. He was only in the company for one night and no one knew his name. I told them who he was.’’ There were many ways to die on Peleliu; Robert Joyce died when a Japanese bullet hit and splintered coral rock, driving a coral chip through his eye.∏Ω The 81st Division Headquarters finalized plans to retake Ngeregong Island in the Northern Defense Sector. Because the reconnaissance patrols made by the 2nd Battalion indicated a smaller enemy force on the island than earlier estimated (no more than one platoon,

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if any at all), General Mueller reassigned the mission to the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop. Once again, amphibian tanks and LVT troop carriers would reinforce the cavalry troop. In case of opposition, two DUKWs and a detachment of the 306th Medical Battalion were also attached. The 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop was detached from the 321st RCT, and began reporting directly to General Mueller. Mueller also ordered the 321st RCT to provide a reserve force for this operation, and Colonel Dark picked Company B for this duty. During the day, the Mine Platoon, 321st Antitank Company, relieved the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop on Ngargersiul Island, and the cavalry troop moved to Gorokottan Island. One battery of the 316th Field Artillery Battalion moved from Peleliu to the northern tip of Gorokottan to support the invasion. This battery, along with the 155mm guns of the 8th Battalion (marine) on Peleliu, fired on Ngeregong during the odd hours of the night. Two LCI gunboats of LCI Flotilla 13, in Denges Passage, bombarded the island during the night’s even hours. During the invasion, these gunboats would stand by to evacuate any wounded to Peleliu.π≠ During the night, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, east of the Pocket, killed two Japanese trying to escape from the Pocket through the southern portion of Mortimer Valley. The 323rd RCT killed another twenty-four trying to pass through its lines. While the Wildcats were in no hurry to take the Pocket, it seemed many Japanese were in a hurry to get out of it.π∞ The Ngeregong invasion force departed from Gorokottan in time for its leading elements to land on the western beach of Ngeregong at 0800 on 15 November. With General Mueller observing, the Wildcats landed unopposed and immediately occupied the northwest peninsula and prepared defensive positions. Afterwards, since the enemy did not come to them, the cavalry troop moved inland through dense jungle looking for the Japanese, but found only three decomposed bodies. It appeared that one defensive emplacement had been newly improved, but that was the only sign of recent occupation. A Japanese account of the affair, discovered later, reported that nine commandos had raided the island, and the survivors left on 12 November. The cavalry troop declared the island secure at 1155, and left one platoon on Ngeregong Island to operate an observation post while the rest returned to Gorokottan Island. These two islands became outposts in the Northern Defense Sector.π≤

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In the Pocket at 0800, Company B moved through Company C’s lines, used bazookas and flamethrowers in overcoming two strongpoints, but ran into another Japanese strongpoint around a banyan tree that stopped them for the day. The many branches and roots of the banyan tree protected the Japanese in and about the tree. To add to the problem, the tree camouflaged a huge subterranean cave that was impervious to all direct fire on it, and flamethrower operators could not get close enough to attack it or the tree. At 1630, Company C replaced Company B, and sandbagged their position.π≥ Company L gained thirty yards during the day, and immediately sandbagged its new position. Tactically, this was an important move. Now, Company L and Company I occupied positions across from one another on parallel ridges with the north end of Wildcat Bowl between them. Men in both companies could now cover future activities in Wildcat Bowl. During the night, the Japanese counterattacked Company L’s most forward position. The attack failed, with the loss of an additional seven Japanese soldiers. No other unit reported any overnight enemy activity whatsoever.π∂ On 16 November, the only assertive action involved Company C reducing the Japanese strongpoint around the banyan tree. Some clever person had the idea of using a giant flamethrower. A few Wildcats pushed a half-inch metal pipeline toward the base of the tree. They connected the pipe to a hose, the hose to an intermediate pump, and the pump to a petroleum tank three hundred yards away on a truck parked on the West Road. They pumped enough oil through it to saturate the area around the tree, and ignited the oil with white phosphorus grenades. It was a grand success. By day’s end, the Wildcats had eliminated the Japanese resistance around the tree, killing six Japanese in the process.π∑ Beginning on 17 November, D + 63, and over the next several days, armored patrols roamed Wildcat Bowl and Death Valley, burning and blasting shut caves, while the troops in the ridges fortified their positions with sandbags and went on search and destroy patrols to locate and seal caves in the ravines, returning to their sandbagged positions at night.π∏ Tanks and the LVT flamethrower entered Wildcat Bowl and attacked caves along the lower sides of China Wall and the Five Brothers ridge. After some time, infantry patrols entered the bowl to finalize

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the destruction of the caves and the Japanese soldiers in them. These tank-infantry patrols contained riflemen carrying portable flamethrowers as well as engineers with satchel charges. Patrols from Company F entered the south end of the bowl and worked their way north, while patrols from Company I moved south from the north end of the bowl. Armored bulldozers sealed as many caves as could be reached. In the afternoon of 17 November, the LVT flamethrower moved into Death Valley, and burned enemy-held caves on both sides of the valley as far north as the terrain permitted, about two hundred yards, and destroyed a Japanese ammunition dump. The LVT tried to spew fire on top of China Wall, but the ridge height prevented it.ππ Throughout the battle, Japanese snipers tried to target the Wildcat leaders. Anyone carrying binoculars or a pistol, giving instructions, or talking on a telephone became an instant target. Lieutenant Colonel Raymond S. Gates, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, fell victim to a sniper as he studied the front lines in Company C’s zone from an advanced position. He would be the highest-ranking officer killed in the 81st Division.π∫ Steve Dombrowski remembered the events leading up to Gates’s death: We went on patrol, and when we came back, the colonel pointed and told us to go over and take that hill. At dusk of the same day, we did take it. We thought we took it. In the evening, when we got to the top, there was a little flat place, with ridges; it was good for two squads. Colonel Gates wanted us to stay and hold the hill. Food and water were brought to us. That night, we were pinned down by the Japs. They were throwing grenades and shooting at us. Lieutenant Ceballos told [Private First Class Paul L.] Hall, a BAR man, to get out and give them some cover so [we] could retreat. Hall was shot and killed. I think one staff sergeant got killed. Poncho [Lieutenant Ceballos] then called me and asked if I could get out. Ijames and I crawled out and went to the side of the hill, I started shooting my BAR, and then the rest of the men, two squads from Company C, retreated. Ijames and I were going to retreat when [Private First Class Carl] Browning called, ‘‘Dumbo, I’m wounded!’’ Ijames and I went back to get him.

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We had to go back to where we were pinned down. Being in the dark, we had to feel our way to him to bring him out. We pulled him as far as we could and then made a basket with our hands to carry him to the road. While carrying Browning, grenades were being thrown at us; the grenades were falling in front of us, as we were moving. We finally made it back to the road. A decision was made to go back up the hill in the morning. At daylight, three Japs were walking toward my foxhole. I picked up my BAR, aimed it at them, and it didn’t work, it was burned out from the night before. I called to Romero, the GI in the foxhole with me, to shoot them. He froze. I grabbed his rifle and shot the three Japs. I was told to call for a new BAR. After I got my new BAR, we ate and then went up the hill with the officers, Colonel Gates, Captain Wagner, and Lieutenant Ceballos.πΩ James Ijames added: Colonel Gates wanted to know what the holdup was, we should have had our area cleaned out by then. He said he was going to see if he could find fortifications of any kind. I told Ceballos, ‘‘Why don’t you tell Colonel Gates the whole damn island is a fortification? They got holes in all these rocks and you can’t find them, you can’t see them.’’ So Gates took a pair of field glasses and he was trying to see what he could see. You can’t see anything but rocks anyway. There was a standing order not to call anybody by their rank, but everybody started hollering, ‘‘Captain Wagner, get Colonel Gates out of here! There’s a sniper down there! He’s been picking us off every day!’’∫≠ Steve Dombrowski continued the narrative: ‘‘Colonel Gates was looking through his binoculars down the ridge. A Jap was below in a tree that was level with Colonel Gates. The Jap shot Colonel Gates in the forehead and killed him.’’∫∞ That night was a busy one for the 81st Division. It appeared that some of the Japanese in Wildcat Bowl tried to get to other fortifications on China Wall, while others just tried to escape the Pocket. Companies I and L, 321st RCT, killed twenty-six Japanese, including

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ten officers, trying to escape Wildcat Bowl by going through the gap between Old Baldy and Brother 5. The 323rd RCT killed another five as infiltrators remained active during the night, especially in 1st Battalion’s sector.∫≤ James Ijames claimed that the Japanese never knew that the army replaced the marines: ‘‘Some Japanese would crawl up close to our lines and holler ‘corpsman.’ Wounded marines called ‘corpsman,’ we called ‘medic’ when we were wounded, so we knew it was Japanese. We answered, and waited for them to get closer, and then we threw grenades in their direction.’’∫≥ In the Pocket on 18 November, the 1st Battalion sent another patrol to Amber Beach, and all the battalions patrolled extensively along their front lines. James Ijames remembered: The day after we got our sandbags all in place and had a good position to come back to at night, they had another push. We went down a ravine and ran into a dead end wall down there, and there was a cave in it. We didn’t have anything to blow it with, so they said just stand by, they were going to send somebody down from engineering. They sent a guy down; his name was Lieutenant Foerster [Second Lieutenant Leroy W. Foerster]. He took a satchel charge of ten pounds of dynamite and tied it to the stick that me and Cash had, and told us he’d light the fuse and we had twenty seconds to get it in that hole. I told him, ‘‘Okay, we’re ready, go ahead and light it.’’ So he lit the fuse. Cash and I ran up there and stuck that pole in the cave, and somebody in there kept pushing it back. We would push it in, and they would push it back. I told him, ‘‘Hell, we’ve only got twenty seconds. Let’s run up there, push it in as far as we can and then run like hell because that thing is going to go off any second.’’ All we did was blow a great big hole in it, and we didn’t close the cave. Lieutenant Foerster told us, ‘‘I’ll tie a ten-pound satchel charge to a rope and swing it, and when it gets close to the hole you let me know and I’ll turn the rope loose.’’ He climbed up the ridge over the cave opening, and swung those ten pounds of dynamite back and forth until he got it over the hole, and we hollered at him and told him to turn it loose. He finally blew that hole closed.∫∂

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At 1430, a heavy rain started falling that continued all night. During the downpour, Company L Wildcats tried a new idea to catch the Japanese in the open. They started using a searchlight recently hauled to one of its forward positions north of Wildcat Bowl. When the flares died out, they turned the searchlight on, and the beam illuminated many Japanese moving around when the flares burned out.∫∑ The rain ceased during the morning of 19 November, but there was very little activity of any kind during the day. Combat patrols from Company I, 321st RCT, conducting a daily check on caves in the southern part of Mortimer Valley, killed one Japanese soldier at midmorning, and another one in the late afternoon. In the southwestern ridges of the Pocket, Company C made combat patrols. ‘‘The next day,’’ said James Ijames, discussing the day after blowing the cave, ‘‘we were pushing again. Fox was the machine-gunner. Cannonball Johnson and Cash put the machine gun on a big promontory. They [Japanese] had three marine shelter-halves tied together to get them out of the sun, not too far from our position. He turned that machine gun loose on the shelter and he got about twelve Japs out of that hole.’’∫∏ At 0800 on 20 November, the tanks and the LVT flamethrower conducted another patrol into Death Valley. This time, men equipped with portable flamethrowers rode in the LVT to attack the smaller caves. This enabled the LVT flamethrower to remain longer in the valley, attacking only the larger targets. The armored patrol engaged caves on both sides of the valley as far north as the terrain permitted, about two hundred yards from the south entrance. The patrol left Death Valley about 1000.∫π During the day in the Pocket’s western ridges, Company A, 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, ran into another Japanese strongpoint built around a banyan tree. They began assembling the improvised pipe and hose flamethrower for putting fuel around the tree. As for Company C, south of Company A in the ridges, James Ijames recalled: What we would do from one day to the next, we’d go down a ravine, any place we saw a hole that looked like a cave we’d try to shoot in it, clean them out, or dig them out, anyway you could get them. Then we would go back to the position at night. Then the next day it was the same thing all over again. Go back down in a ravine and clean it out, go into another one

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and clean it out. They told us that D Company, A Company, and B Company were doing the same thing, but we never saw anybody but us, but I guess they had to be there. I guess they were thinking the same thing about us. This went on day after day after day. You just couldn’t seem to get them all dug out, but we just kept trying.∫∫ On 21 November, tanks again entered Death Valley at 0800, and shortly thereafter more tanks and the LVT flamethrower went into Wildcat Bowl. The LVT flamethrower attacked targets pointed out by tracer fire from the 3rd Battalion. An hour later, the armored patrols reported no resistance to their movements in either valley. During this attack, Company F moved northward on China Wall from the Five Sisters, passing through G Company’s lines. At 0950, Wildcats from the 3rd Battalion entered Wildcat Bowl from the north and attacked caves which the Japanese had reoccupied and were too high for the armored bulldozer to close. By early afternoon, Company A had nearly completed assembling the recently improved, provisional flamethrower. Improvements to the system included using three hundred feet of inch-and-a-half hose fitted with a nozzle on the discharge end, with the other end attached to booster pumps taking fuel from a truck on the West Road. This allowed a stream of fuel to be sprayed greater distances. Later in the afternoon, the 1st Battalion sprayed six hundred gallons of fuel around the tree and ignited it, wiping out the entire strongpoint.∫Ω James Ijames remembered one of these unhurried days in the western ridges: One day we were sitting in the hole and I told the guys, ‘It’s nine o’clock, I’m going up to see what’s going on. Nobody has told us what to do.’ I went up to the CP and asked Lieutenant Ceballos what was going on. He said, ‘Captain Wagner has gone to headquarters to find out what to do next. We are going to have an officers meeting in about an hour. Just take it easy.’ So I hollered down, ‘Has anybody got a clean helmet to make some coffee in?’ You know, we used them as latrines at night. One of the guys said, ‘Yeah, mine is clean,’ so we made some coffee. Before we got it all drank [sic], some guy came up and said, ‘We got two dead [Japanese] bodies that’s got to go down

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the hill.’ He said, ‘You, you, you, and you.’ You know how that is. We ‘‘volunteered’’ again. So we took them down and put them on the side of the road. Before we could go back up the hill, a truck was coming up the road. The guys stopped and they said they were from graves registration. We helped them put the two Japanese bodies on the back of the truck. They had about ten to twelve on there. They said, ‘We’ve got to go down and pick up some more. We make two trips a day.’ There was an American lying on the side of the road down there, so they went down, picked him up, and threw him up on the truck. I ran down there and said, ‘What the hell are you doing, putting him on there?’ He said, ‘Well, when we get them back to graves registration, we separate them all, and we try to bury them as fast as we can so they don’t smell too bad.’Ω≠ At 1600, General Paul J. Mueller and Rear Admiral John W. Reeves visited the 323rd regimental command post. These two leaders plus Colonel Arthur Watson and their staffs reviewed the final attack plan for ending the battle, which would begin the next morning.Ω∞ The free movement of the armored patrols in Wildcat Bowl convinced the 81st Division commanders that the Japanese had withdrawn to defensive positions in the China Wall. Colonel Nakagawa had his command post at the base of China Wall, near the far north end of Death Valley. He had chosen this site well. The height of China Wall provided an excellent observation post over the entire area. The terrain at this end of Death Valley prevented any tracked vehicles from approaching it. The precipitous walls at the north end of the valley prevented any direct fire from above on caves in the sides of the walls. The ridges to the north and west gave such protection that a few snipers could hinder the movement of entire companies. While the 81st Division commanders could see that the end was near, they would not rush the outcome by exposing their men to undue risk. The commanders decided that the 323rd RCT would attack the last stronghold from a north-south direction using the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, supported by tanks and the LVT flamethrower. The 1st Battalion would support the attack from the western ridges. The first objective was to occupy the north end of China Wall. Since Com-

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panies K and L had not been able to reach this point, Company F would do so by moving northward through Wildcat Bowl to its north end and scaling the east wall to a position on top, just south of Company L. The attack jumped off at 0600 on 22 November. Tanks entered both Death Valley and Wildcat Bowl. The LVT flamethrower followed the tanks into Wildcat Bowl at 0630. Thirty minutes later the Wildcats of Company F passed through the saddle between Old Baldy and the Five Sisters, and moved into Wildcat Bowl, moving north along the base of China Wall under the protection of the armored units. During this time, aerial observers were flying over the Pocket, watching for enemy positions and movements. The tanks stationed in Death Valley served a dual purpose, preventing the Japanese soldiers from moving toward Company F, and keeping them from escaping from the valley.Ω≤ John Hirsch, Company F, remembered this move into Wildcat Bowl: It was about 7:00 a.m., we entered this large semi-circle of a cul-de-sac. The hills to our left and right had been cleared out. Third Platoon, mine, penetrated deep into the valley, 2nd Platoon behind us, and then we wheeled left to start up the hill. As we paused, waiting for 2nd Platoon to get into position, Sergeant Elba Davis knelt down. Unfortunately, this brought him into line with a depression in the top of the hill through which a Jap rifleman killed him. Our first casualty of the day. We started up the hill. While we were below the crest, we drew no fire. Lieutenant Lee Szetela [Second Lieutenant Leon W. Szetela] ordered a sergeant to take his squad through the opening [to the crest].Ω≥ Robert Voss, Company F, a member of the squad sent over the crest, added: My platoon leader sent me and two other guys over the top behind a big rock to set up a machine gun. When we got over, the rock was so big we couldn’t see over it. We were pinned down by the Japanese. During the time we were there, my platoon leader, Lieutenant Szetela, was talking to me, and he got killed. He was about ten feet from me. He was hollering at me at the time. I heard a gunshot and I looked at him, and he

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was dead. We were in there about fifteen minutes. I had three or four smoke grenades on my belt. I tossed them and we got out. We went back over the hill. The lieutenant had been shot right between the eyes.Ω∂ Nevertheless, Company F made it to the top of China Wall. ‘‘Meanwhile, the 2nd Platoon was having troubles of its own,’’ John Hirsch continued; ‘‘they were forced to withdraw, taking several casualties. At this point, 3rd Platoon was ordered to take a flanking action, which we did, and then, as was customary with us in this type of action, we began sandbagging in to protect our position. We formed a human chain, passing the sandbags from the floor of the valley to where we flanked the Japs.’’Ω∑ At 0730, Company I, on the Five Brothers ridge, sent patrols to Brother 5, and found it abandoned. The company immediately occupied the hill and fortified it.Ω∏ Around noon, at the south end of China Wall, Staff Sergeant Lawrence E. Colby, Company H, climbed the east ridge of China Wall about twenty-five yards in front of Company G to determine if preselected sites for automatic weapons had satisfactory fields of fire. He anchored a climbing rope to the side of the ridge before leaving the position. Technical Sergeant Alfred C. Sell, with other members of Company H, climbed the rope and prepared machine-gun and BAR posts. Ropes were used to bring up sandbags to fortify the positions. The next day, 23 November, Company H moved another thirty-five yards north and fortified the new positions.Ωπ In the northwest ridges, at 1025, Company A used the newly improved hose-and-nozzle flamethrower to burn off areas to its front. Subsequently, Japanese resistance dwindled in Company A’s front, and they gained about seventy-five yards by the close of action on 23 November. On one occasion, John Wick, 306th Engineers, watched this improvised flamethrower in action. He said, ‘‘I saw a Japanese sniper shoot at a soldier and hit a phosphorus grenade he was carrying, hooked to his uniform, and it exploded, setting the soldier on fire. The medics rushed to the soldier, but there was nothing they could do to save him.’’Ω∫ By late on 23 November, Companies A and B had joined flanks, and Company A had joined its left flank with Company L. Personnel from

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the Antitank, Cannon, and Headquarters Companies served as sandbag details throughout the whole battalion, and the Wildcats sandbagged all the newly gained positions. A captured Japanese soldier stated that about sixty to seventy Japanese remained in the western ridges, and about 150 remained around Colonel Nakagawa’s command post. Many of them were sick and wounded, and not anxious to continue the fight. As proof of this, twenty-one Japanese were killed that night trying to escape through the lines.ΩΩ On 24 November, Wildcats in the northern and western ridges made some gains as they consolidated the front lines. Companies A and B advanced abreast about seventy-five yards, and sandbagged the new positions. Company A maintained contact with Company L during this move forward. Company C, however, in the southwestern ridges, had not yet made contact with Company B. James Ijames recollected: One day me and Sergeant Smith were sitting in the foxhole by ourselves. I looked out that sandbagged position and I said, ‘‘Smith, my God, there’s three Japs standing right outside the hole on your side over there. I can’t shoot them from where I’m at.’’ He asked, ‘‘Where are they?’’ I told him, ‘‘They’re right in front of your hole. Just stick your rifle out the hole, you can’t miss them.’’ So he took his rifle and shot the three of them. Then he came back with his rifle and he started to load it, and I shook my head no, and I handed him another M1 that was already loaded. So he took it and shot them with those eight rounds, and he stuck his rifle back in and I handed him another rifle. While he was shooting, I was loading. He got all three of them on the ground. Two were dead. The youngest one in the middle was still alive. He took three Japanese hand grenades and tried to commit suicide, but he couldn’t do it. I told Smith, ‘‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we give him one of ours and you won’t have to shoot him? Let him do it himself.’’ He replied, ‘‘Okay, go ahead.’’ I said, ‘‘You take a bead on him, and I’ll pitch one of ours, and if he tries to throw it back, shoot him.’’ I pulled a sandbag out so I could get my head and shoulders out. I motioned to the Japanese, I showed him our hand grenade, I showed him the ring to pull, and the handle would fly off. He nodded his head yes. So I told him I would throw it

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to him, but would he throw it back? He shook his head no. We communicated just in sign language. I told Smith, ‘‘Okay, I’m going to throw it to him now.’’ I threw him that hand grenade, he put it under him, pulled the pin, and he blew himself about six to eight inches off the ground. So that was all of him.∞≠≠ On China Wall, Company H moved its machine-gun emplacements another forty yards north, about one hundred yards in front of Company G.∞≠∞ Company C, 306th Engineer Battalion, assigned three bulldozers to the job of building an earthen ramp to the top of China Wall at the northern end of Wildcat Bowl. The crest of the China Wall ridge had high pinnacles on both its eastern and western flanks, forming a gorge in the middle. The purpose of the ramp, the brainchild of Captain James L. Hall, was to provide access inside the gorge on top of the China Wall for tanks and the LVT flamethrower. This armor could support the troops on China Wall and help in the final attack on the enemy.∞≠≤ With the Pocket growing ever smaller, and the enemy now gone from Mortimer Valley, the Five Brothers, and Wildcat Bowl, General Mueller decided to detach the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, from the 323rd RCT, and let it revert to its normal control. The 323rd Cannon Company replaced the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, on Walt Ridge, and the relieved 3rd Battalion moved into the Northern Defense Sector. Also, the antitank platoon of the 2nd Battalion, 323rd RCT, built and occupied defensive positions on the saddle between Brother 5 and Old Baldy, and strung concertina wire between the two points.∞≠≥ On 25 November, the 323rd RCT further tightened the perimeter. Shortly after 0700, the Wildcats jumped off. Company H moved north on China Wall, fortifying new positions from which its personnel could fire into the area the Japanese had chosen for their final stand. The engineers continued work on the ramp to the top of China Wall, completing it by nightfall. The 1st and 3rd Battalions moved slowly toward Death Valley, using portable flamethrowers and automatic weapons, searching every nook and cranny along the way, eliminating all Japanese soldiers they encountered, making sure none were bypassed. Companies L, A, B, and C, in that order from north to south, had joined flanks in the move forward, sandbagging positions along the way. Companies A and B met the most enemy resistance, killing

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more than thirty Japanese. The Japanese resisted the push, but no longer had the strength to stop it.∞≠∂ James Ijames remembered: We were running down the ridge line, and we’d been going about twenty, thirty yards, Lieutenant Holardbank told us all to hold up and take a break. Well, there was a big log lying over there, and four or five guys ran over and sat down on the log. A Japanese came out from under that log and jumped on the back of one of them, grabbed him around the neck, and kept hollering, ‘Me give up, Joe! Me give up, Joe!’ That guy was having an absolute fit trying to get him off his back. You can’t believe it, but everybody in that company was just laughing like hell. That guy was having a fit trying to get him off his back, and he’s trying to give up! When we got him captured, they took him back to the CP, and I don’t know what happened to him after that. We never saw them after they took them back to the headquarters.∞≠∑ Upon interrogation, the prisoner taken that day revealed that Colonel Kunio Nakagawa and General Kenjiro Murai had committed suicide the previous evening after burning the regimental colors and destroying the radio equipment. This prisoner reported that Colonel Nakagawa had been in radio communication with the Japanese leaders on Babelthuap until 1800, 24 November. Colonel Nakagawa left Captain Nemoto in charge of the known fifty-six troops left around the command cave area, many of whom were killed that night. In the last radio message to Babelthuap, and passed on to Tokyo, Colonel Nakagawa reported splitting his men into seventeen teams. These teams were to escape the Pocket, reorganize, form raiding parties, and attack the Americans everywhere.∞≠∏ Action began at 0630 on 26 November. Tanks and the LVT flamethrower entered Wildcat Bowl from the south and drove north to the ramp. They started up the ramp at 0700. At the same time, Company F moved southwest and occupied positions near the top of the ramp on China Wall, encountering heavy Japanese fire along the way. Companies H and L supported Company F during this movement. Coordinating its attack with Company F, Company G moved northward on China Wall until making contact with Company H. Now, most of the eastern side of China Wall belonged to the Americans, with armored

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units on its top. The Wildcats started sandbagging all of these new positions by 1200. Companies B and C continued moving towards Death Valley in the western ridges, while other nearby companies supported them. Even though these companies gained ground, they could not reach the ridge overlooking Death Valley, now called the 323rd Infantry Ridge. Regardless, the Pocket continued to grow smaller, and the Japanese force remaining had to be few in number.∞≠π Monday, 27 November, D + 73, officially became the final day of the battle. At 0700, the final push began when Company E, 2nd Battalion, left its position in the southern ridges and entered the south end of Death Valley. As Company E progressed northward up the Valley, Company G, on top of China Wall, kept abreast of E Company and covered the movement. At 0730, Company K, 3rd Battalion, moved through the lines of Company L, and together with Company A on its right flank, advanced to the west side of China Wall and the north end of Death Valley, respectively. Companies B and C attacked eastward toward Death Valley. Companies F, H, and L remained in position, supporting the attack, and preventing any Japanese from escaping the Pocket.∞≠∫ Soon, Companies B and C stood on the 323rd Infantry Ridge, looking into Death Valley, with Company E below them. Companies K and G met above the Japanese command cave on China Wall. All the companies were in contact with each other. Because of the nearness of all the American troops, they had orders to fire only at known enemy. During the final movement, the Japanese offered little if any resistance. All the attacking units met in the enemy’s final stronghold, near the command cave, at 1030. At 1100, Colonel Arthur Watson reported to General Mueller that all organized resistance had ended. The battle was over.∞≠Ω The battle that General William Rupertus said would take three days actually took seventy-four days. To be sure, the army could have ended the battle quicker, but at the cost of additional American lives. The end of the fighting did not make headlines at home. On 30 November 1944, CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 193, the only one issued concerning the termination of the battle, stated about Peleliu: ‘‘Between October 20 and November 26 (West Longitude Date) 81st Army Division Units killed 1,300 Japanese and captured 143 pris-

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oners on the Island of Peleliu in the Palaus. Main points of resistance offered by these remnants of the enemy garrison were the caves on the island. Our forces lost 92 killed, 622 wounded and 5 missing.’’∞∞≠ Actually, from 23 September to 27 November, the 81st Infantry Division and attached units had 282 men killed and 1,108 men wounded and injured in action on Peleliu. The medical troops treated an additional 1,701 men for non-combat ailments, including disease, injuries, and fatigue. During this period, the Wildcats killed 3,249 Japanese and captured 180. The prisoners of war included laborers, mainly Korean, as well as Japanese soldiers.∞∞∞ During and after the battles on Angaur and Peleliu, elements of the 81st Infantry Division were used for other minor forays. These assignments included capturing Pulo Anna Island, Kayangel Atoll, and Fais Island. Rear Admiral Reeves was ordered to take and defend Pulo Anna with units of the 81st Infantry Division, and to construct a transmitting tower required for a new radio navigational system named LORAN∞∞≤. Pulo Anna is about 180 miles southwest of the Palau Islands, about half way to Morotai. Previous aerial reconnaissance provided inconclusive evidence of any Japanese occupation of Pulo Anna, so Brigadier General Bell, the assistant division commander, conducted a personal aerial reconnaissance of the Pulo Anna area with two natives from Angaur on 27 October. They flew over the area, escorted by Corsairs based on Peleliu. No sign of Japanese occupation on the island was evident. On 4 November, thirty-five men in two LCIs made a nautical and ground reconnaissance of Pulo Anna. Included among the thirty-five men were engineers, coast guard officers, marine air group officers, personnel from civil affairs, and four native guides from Angaur. Again, the Corsairs flew escort for the team. After an inspection, it was determined that Pulo Anna would be suitable for the LORAN facility. At 0630 on 19 November, an occupying force left Peleliu for Pulo Anna in two LCIs and an LST towing two LCMs. The occupying force consisted of detachments from division headquarters; Headquarters Company, Service Company, and Company A of the 52nd Engineer Battalion; and the 81st Signal Company, 306th Medical Battalion, and 481st Amphibian Truck Company. The task force reached Pulo Anna the next morning after sailing through rough seas caused by a typhoon north of the Palau Islands. Several Corsairs covered the oper-

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ation, and they flew over Pulo Anna looking for hostile forces. Finding none, they investigated neighboring islands looking for amphibian vessels that might carry Japanese soldiers to Pulo Anna to contest the American occupation. Seeing nothing that might hinder the operation, the planes returned to Peleliu and the task force began landing the men. Soon, construction began on the LORAN station, living quarters, roads, supply dumps, and defense positions. Most of the work had been completed by 24 November, and the men not detailed to garrison the island sailed back to Peleliu, arriving there the next day. On 26 November, the LORAN equipment and its coast guard operators landed on Pulo Anna, and the facility started transmitting on 1 December. Another transmitting tower was later built on Peleliu, and a monitoring station on Angaur. In addition to the expedition to take Pulo Anna, Vice Admiral John H. Hoover, commander of the Forward Area Forces, also wanted expeditions organized to take Kayangel Atoll and Fais Island. Hoover thought Kayangel Atoll might be a good rest and recreation location for crews aboard ships anchored in Kossol Passage north of Babelthuap. As for Fais Island, the Japanese had a radio station and other facilities Hoover wanted destroyed. Supposedly, the Japanese used Fais as an observation station for gathering information about American activities in the area, including Ulithi Atoll. About the time that the Pulo Anna operation was winding down, a task force was organized from Peleliu to investigate the possibilities of using Kayangel Atoll as a small boat haven and a recreation area for forces anchored in Kossol Passage. Kossol Passage is located south of Kayangel Atoll, and north of Babelthuap. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Goddard, the division intelligence officer, commanded a task force that reconnoitered Kayangel Atoll on 30–31 November. The task force consisted of detachments from division headquarters; 306th Engineer Battalion; 306th Medical Battalion; 81st Signal Company; 726th Amphibian Tractor Battalion; and Company D of the 776th Amphibian Tank Battalion. Two Chamorro native guides from Babelthuap, and the 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, less a detachment, were also included in the task force. Four LCIs from Peleliu and three ships from Kossol Passage provided transportation

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and fire support. The men embarked at Purple Beach on Peleliu, while the amphibian tractors, tanks, and a truck with a radio for communicating with division headquarters on Peleliu, loaded at Orange Beach. The force left Peleliu before nightfall on 27 November, and arrived in Kossol Passage early the next morning. On 28 November, the two Chamorro guides took a small boat to Ngajangel Island, the largest island of the atoll. When they returned that evening, they brought with them one of the leaders of the island tribe, the Kanaka, and the news that about sixty of the Kanaka natives lived on Ngajangel, but the other smaller islands were uninhabited, and that no Japanese occupied any of the islands. A storm prevented any reconnaissance until 30 November, when a squad from the Reconnaissance Troop landed on Gorak, the smallest island in the atoll, followed by two platoons in amphibian tractors. From Gorak, the men moved to Ngarapalas, and then to Ngariungs, but found nothing. After spending the night on Ngariungs, the force moved on to Ngajangel early the next morning. By this time, the Kanaka leader, back on the island, had informed the natives how to act during the American occupation. The force stayed at the atoll for one more day, scouting out the islands, and left the afternoon of 3 December for Kossol Passage. Lieutenant Colonel Goddard turned over the Kayangel Atoll to the port director of Kossol Passage the next day, and the task force sailed to Peleliu, where they arrived on 5 December. Besides providing the sailors with a recreation area, the use of Kayangel Atoll prevented the Japanese from using it to monitor the American activity through Kossol Passage. Taking Fais Island became the last expedition to an outlying island. Fais was a small island about fifty miles southeast of Ulithi that contained an unknown number of Japanese and about 280 native Micronesian Christians. Admiral Hoover wanted to destroy a small Japanese weather station and a radio station that supposedly reported ship movements in and out of Ulithi, but he saw no need to occupy the island afterward. Once again, Brigadier General Marcus Bell commanded the task force. The landing force would originate from Peleliu, with supporting units from Ulithi. Bell visited Ulithi on 22 December to arrange air and naval support for the invasion. While there, he requested that

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a detachment of the 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, the unit the 323rd RCT left behind on Ulithi Atoll, and some Ulithi natives familiar with Fais Island, go to that island, do some preliminary reconnaissance, and make contact with the natives. This detachment was to be at Fais by 24 December, and report to Bell before 1 January 1945, the day set for the invasion. Other than determining the number of Japanese personnel on the island, the detachment’s tasks included informing the Fais natives of the landing, and have them stay away from the landing beaches on 1 January. Bell used elements of the 321st RCT as the Fais landing force. It provided Company I, a section of 81mm mortars from Company M, a squad from the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of the 3rd Battalion, a medical detachment, and a communication section. Bell also requested a squad from the 3rd Platoon, Company A, 306th Combat Engineer Battalion, and a squad from the 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion on Ulithi. He used six landing craft from the 726th Amphibian Tractor Battalion, three amphibian tanks from Company D of the 776th Amphibian Tank Battalion, and two DUKWs from the 481st Amphibian Truck Company. The navy provided three LCIs and support aircraft from Ulithi, and an LST and a destroyer escort from Peleliu. The 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery detachment with the natives did arrive off Fais on 24 December, and on 28 December the landing force embarked on the LST and sailed for Fais. Both the 483rd detachment and the landing force rendezvoused off Fais Island on New Year’s Day, 1945, as planned. The detachment reported that the natives on Fais were scattered around the island. This forced the elimination of the planned bombardment and strafing of the landing beaches for fear of harming some of the natives. Without knowing what they might encounter, the troops landed on the beaches anyway, but without any opposition.∞∞≥ Lieutenant Commander J. F. McFadden commanded the LCIs and the LST, collectively dubbed the ‘‘Ulithi Navy.’’ The Ulithi Navy landed 238 officers and men and the tanks on the southern coast of the island. The Ulithi detachment from Patrol Bombing Squadron VPB-23 provided air cover for the operation. Lieutenant (jg) Willis B. Decker commanded two PBY Catalina flying boats. One of the planes carried General Bell, a Colonel June, and a vice admiral.∞∞∂

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After landing, the Wildcats found the leader of the island, King Mahoru, and instructed him to gather his people at the assembly house on the beach, where they placed a protective guard around them. Immediately thereafter, the troops started searching the island for Japanese. The search proved fruitless. The troops did find some signs of recent Japanese occupation, but did not encounter any armed resistance. The next day, 2 January 1945, the American force searched the eastern side of the island, but again did not find any enemy soldiers. At the same time, the communication, intelligence, and engineering personnel collected Japanese radio equipment, records, and any other material that might be of value. They moved these captured items to their camp on the invasion beach for safekeeping. The following morning, three platoons from Company I, the mortar section from Company M, the 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery detachment, and the amphibian tanks formed a skirmish line extending from their camp on the beach to 350 yards inland. This line started rotating around the island in a clockwise direction. After an hour, a sudden burst of machine-gun and rifle fire from a cave on the southwestern side of the island killed three men and wounded five. Although the Wildcats had previously searched this cave, the Japanese had returned to it to make their last stand. The Americans formed a semicircular line around the cave, and positioned two amphibian tanks to blast it. Even so, ninety minutes later, the Japanese still resisted, so the infantrymen attacked them. When the fighting ended, eight Japanese had been killed. During this action, six Japanese in the center of the island surrendered.∞∞∑ Sergeant Robert G. Hoog, who took part in this mission, reported, ‘‘We were ambushed and lost Albert Norman [Private First Class Albert Norman], Robert Thornsberry [Sergeant Robert W. Thornsberry], and a tanker [Second Lieutenant Frank H. Carlson of Company D, 776th Amphibian Tank Battalion].’’∞∞∏ The six POWs turned out to be Japanese civilians. They told their captors that the Japanese ‘‘force’’ on the island consisted of five navy men with a machine gun and three rifles, four postal and radio station workers with one rifle, and eight civilian employees of the phosphate plant with three rifles. Eight Japanese died in the assault on their position and, counting the six civilian POWs, that left one navy man

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and two civilians not found. The Americans destroyed the radio station, boats, and any buildings of value to the Japanese. The American dead and wounded were placed in an LCI and taken to Ulithi. The next day, General Bell claimed Fais as a possession of the United States, and raised the flag of the United States over the island. General Bell informed the people that King Mahoru would be retained in his present capacity but follow the directives from the commander of Ulithi Atoll. All the men, equipment, and captured material then sailed to Peleliu and Ulithi.∞∞π After fighting the Japanese on Angaur and Peleliu for so long in horrible conditions, the Wildcats were exhausted physically and mentally, and many suffered from various ailments. Obviously, it was impossible for them to occupy and mop up these islands as originally planned. The 81st Infantry Division needed rest and rehabilitation in a more hospitable climate. On 22 November, orders arrived for the division to move to Guadalcanal as soon as possible. Six days later, an advanced party led by Brigadier General Rex Beasley, commander of the 81st Division Artillery, flew to Guadalcanal, but once there, received instructions to continue on to New Caledonia. On Angaur, the 322nd Infantry Wildcats started packing in late November, and the 1st and 2nd Battalions left on 6 December, the first units to leave the Palau Islands. The 3rd Battalion remained on Angaur for three more weeks before it, too, left. On Peleliu, the 710th Tank Battalion, less Company D, departed for New Caledonia in December, and the 1st Battalion, 323rd Infantry, with some attached troops, left Peleliu on 7 January 1945. The remainder of the 323rd Infantry with attached troops left on 20 January. Meanwhile, General Mueller closed his headquarters, and flew with a portion of his staff to New Caledonia. With the 81st Division Command Post closed, and the 323rd Regiment gone from the island, the 321st RCT remained as the garrison fighting force reporting to marine Brigadier General Harold D. Campbell, the garrison forces commander. At this time, the 321st RCT consisted of the 321st Regiment, the 316th Field Artillery Battalion, Company A of the 306th Combat Engineer Battalion, and Company D of the 710th Tank Battalion.∞∞∫

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Periodically, Japanese troops tried to reach Peleliu by barge. Marine Corsair pilots conducting daytime sweeps destroyed many of these barges before they left Babelthuap and the other islands. When the Japanese tried infiltrating at night, LVT gunboats and other ships patrolling around Peleliu intercepted and destroyed them, leaving the wreckage of the vessels and Japanese bodies to wash ashore. If the infiltrators successfully landed on any of the small islands north and east of Peleliu, infantry patrols sought them out and eliminated them. The Japanese were still making trouble for the Americans on Peleliu as late as 18 January 1945. Shortly after 0200 on this date, about seventy-five Japanese invaders in two barges from Babelthuap landed on White and Purple Beaches. Immediately, the 321st RCT was alerted. By 0400, fifty artillerymen from the 316th Field Artillery Battalion manned positions near Purple Beach. One hour later, these artillerymen were reinforced by seventy-five troops of the 726th Amphibian Tractor Battalion, and only ten minutes later the entire 321st RCT came to combat readiness. Each unit started searching assigned areas. By 1040, the 1st Battalion, 321st RCT, had destroyed all the Japanese invaders in the White Beach sector.∞∞Ω The Wildcats quickly eliminated the Japanese infiltrators, but not before the enemy troops frightened the Marine pilots bivouacked not far from Purple Beach, and killed Private Benjamin E. Schiffman as he searched the Amber Beach area. The Japanese shot Schiffman, Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, between the eyes; he was probably the last Wildcat killed on Peleliu. Two captured raiders, when interrogated, said that they made this suicide mission as atonement for escaping from Peleliu during the fighting. Their mission was to destroy planes, blow up supply dumps, and to kill as many soldiers as possible before dying.∞≤≠ Two weeks after eliminating the Japanese infiltrators, two units arrived to relieve the 321st RCT: the 111th Infantry Regiment and the 819th Tank Destroyer Battalion. The 111th Infantry Regiment was a Pennsylvania National Guard unit inducted into federal service in 1941 before the war began. Members of D and H Companies, 111th Infantry, served on the LCI gunboats firing 4.2-inch mortars during the invasion of the Palau Islands. Now, the remaining regiment arrived at Peleliu on 1 February and relieved the 321st RCT on 6 February.∞≤∞

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Peleliu cemetery after the battle. Courtesy James Yetter.

The 819th Tank Destroyer Battalion also arrived on Peleliu on 1 February. The battalion, less Company C, was stationed on Peleliu, reporting to the 111th Regiment. Company C moved by LCTs to Angaur, and became the defense force reporting to the Angaur garrison force commander, army Colonel Ray A. Dunn.∞≤≤ With these two replacement units now on Peleliu and Angaur, the 321st RCT left Peleliu on 8 February 1945.∞≤≥ The performance of the Wildcats in the Palau Islands and Ulithi Atoll campaigns added to the already brilliant record of the 81st Infantry Division begun in World War I. Now, all of the division and attached units were gone from the islands except for their honored dead resting in the military cemeteries on Ulithi, Angaur, Peleliu, and at the bottom of the ocean surrounding the islands, 546∞≤∂ men in all. In addition to these, the 1st Marine Division left behind 1,252 dead.∞≤∑ Sergeant Lloyd Kestin, 154th Engineers, summed up his experiences on Angaur and Peleliu, which no doubt mirrored the opinions of all the Wildcats and marines who served on and survived the battles for these two islands. ‘‘It was a rotten place to be, I tell ya.’’∞≤∏

9 After the Battles

E

ven before General Mueller had closed his headquarters at Purple Beach on Peleliu, he knew that the 81st Infantry Division was assigned to the upcoming invasion of Okinawa, scheduled for 1 April 1945. It would be attached to the Tenth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. General Buckner visited Mueller in New Caledonia on 21–22 January. Buckner informed Mueller that while the 81st Infantry Division would be held in area reserve, it had to be ready to move to Okinawa and fight whenever and wherever it might be needed. Taking Ie Shima, an island off the western coast of Okinawa; landing on the southeast coast of Okinawa; and reinforcing troops fighting inland were three alternative missions assigned to the 81st Infantry Division for planning purposes. Although none of these missions required the division to be ready for the 1 April invasion date, it had to be ready shortly afterward. The first troops arriving in New Caledonia set about getting an old division camp ready for the rest of the men. These first troops included the advance party; the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 322nd Infantry; and the 317th Field Artillery Battalion.∞ John Wick, 306th Engineers, a member of the advance party, remembered: ‘‘I left [Peleliu] a little early, because they sent a squad of us down to New Caledonia that had been a staging area for the army, and as we moved north of the equator, they didn’t need the staging area any more. So, we had to 245

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clean all the army’s facilities out. Tear it down, drive through the buildings with a bulldozer, pile it up and set it on fire. We came with a couple of D8 bulldozers and some trucks, and that was about it.’’≤ Meeting the advance party on New Caledonia were a number of formerly wounded and injured Wildcats evacuated from Angaur and Peleliu, who had since healed and were now rejoining the division. Company L, 322nd Regiment, arrived in Noumea on 22 January; the unit’s historian reports that ‘‘we disembarked the following day and boarded trucks and after a 65 mile drive we arrived at Camp Ritchie which was to be our new camp. We found many of our boys there who had been evacuated on Angaur, and we were sure glad to see them back.’’≥ In order for the troops to recuperate from their ordeal in the Palaus, two rest camps had been established: Camp Hadsell, on the coast north of the division camp, and Camp Stevens, near New Caledonia’s capital city, Noumea. The men rotated in and out of these camps, spending four days at one or the other, doing whatever they pleased. At Camp Hadsell, operated by the Red Cross and division troops, they had meals on chinaware served by waitresses at tables covered with tablecloths; clean sheets on the beds; beaches for swimming, boating, and fishing; music for dancing played by members of the 81st Division band; and even an arts and crafts shop. While Camp Stevens offered the same services and activities as Camp Hadsell, it had one additional attraction: Noumea and its pleasures. Noumea offered a golf course, tennis, bicycling, restaurants, bars, and women. At the main division camp, several Red Cross clubs, operated by eighteen Red Cross hostesses, offered facilities for writing letters, music, refreshments such as coffee and doughnuts, craft shops, and special events staged by members of the division. The men went swimming, played a variety of sports, pitched horseshoes, had boxing matches, hunted ducks and deer, and went both fresh-water and salt-water fishing. They watched the latest motion pictures and USO shows, had barbecues, and put on a rodeo. They ate excellent food. More importantly, the finance officer arrived and paid them in full for their time in the Palau Islands. A chapel had been built, and the chaplains held regular religious services. The officers and the chaplains answered letters they had

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received from the families of those killed on Angaur and Peleliu, often inquiring as to how their loved one died and whether or not he had suffered. Ceremonies were held to pass out medals, badges, and battlefield commissions. On 16 April, the division held a memorial service for President Roosevelt, who died on 12 April. The division began publishing a daily newspaper, The Wildcat. Tuffy arrived from Hawaii, and was treated like royalty.∂ The Wildcats relocated to New Caledonia to get back in top fighting form, both physically and emotionally, and to train for their next assignment. A jungle training center had been built, and the battalions each spent eight days at the center learning platoon and squad combat techniques and leadership skills in a jungle setting. Combined arms training involved infantry, tanks, and artillery attacking a reinforced platoon very well entrenched in pillboxes on a hill. They also practiced street fighting, hand-to-hand combat, bayonet practice, stream crossings, and other combat techniques. As usual, the army soldiers marched. The infantry hiked in full combat gear on at least three marches from ten to twenty-five miles in length, over mountains, through marshes, and on roads. They practiced amphibious landings. Veterans of the amphibious storm landings on Angaur and Ulithi helped train the new replacements. The Tenth Army invaded Okinawa on 1 April 1945. Transport and cargo ships arrived in Noumea Harbor in late March and early April for combat loading and for moving the 81st Infantry Division to Okinawa, if needed. On 19 April, after the ships had been about 75 percent loaded, General Mueller learned that the Tenth Army no longer needed the 81st Infantry Division, and he received new orders to move his division to the Philippines and join General MacArthur’s command as part of the Eighth Army under Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger. An advance party again went ahead to prepare camps, flying from New Caledonia to Leyte on 28 April. The division embarked on 2 May and sailed out of Noumea Harbor on 3 May. The Wildcats were once again in top physical condition, combat experienced, and ready for their next assignment. They had definitely benefited from their time on New Caledonia, and it became one of their favorite locations. The 81st Infantry Division landed on Leyte on 17 May. They went ashore on a beautiful beach just south of Rizal, on the island’s eastcentral coast. The advance party had already established much of the

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camp on the narrow sandy beach, which was over seven miles long and abundant with palm trees. Occupied during their first week on Leyte with unloading the transports and unpacking their equipment, the Wildcats then spent a month on improving the camp while their officers planned the training regimen. Only individual training in military discipline, hygiene, and Japanese weapons was possible at this camp. However, the Wildcats had been ordered to eliminate the last few Japanese stragglers on Leyte near Villaba, in the island’s northwestern sector. Located about fifteen miles southeast of Villaba was an area suitable for extensive field training. This training and the search-and-destroy missions continued into August 1945. On 1 July, the 81st Infantry Division officially became part of the Sixth Army, although it still reported operationally to the Eighth Army. On 15 July, it was assigned to the IX Corps, whereupon General Mueller’s staff started detailed planning for the division’s role in Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu (and the first of several invasions of the Japanese home islands), scheduled for 1 November 1945.∑ Not knowing the plans for the division, the Wildcats indeed feared that their next operation would be the invasion of Japan. Many believed this would be their last fight; that they would never see home again. It is impossible to express the relief they felt on first hearing that Japan had offered to surrender. This date, 10 August 1945, is forever engraved in their memory. We know that the Japanese emperor had only decided to accept the Potsdam Proclamation of unconditional surrender in the early morning hours of 10 August. Japanese foreign minister Togo decided to send a message to that effect to the United States and Europe in English via Morse code. Unfortunately, in the translation from Japanese to English, it appeared that the Japanese still wanted the emperor to reign without interference from the American military. Also, to avoid the delay involved in using the diplomatic channels, Togo had Saiji Hasegawa, foreign news editor for the Domei News Agency, send the message at 8:00 p.m. using his transmitters. This unofficial channel of communication confused the Americans as to whether or not this was an official Japanese government response to the Potsdam Proclamation. Nevertheless, one hour later the news arrived at the Wildcat camp that the Japanese were

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willing to surrender. How the Wildcats originally received this news is now lost in time, but it did not come through official channels. Upon hearing this news, a loud shout arose in the camp near the division headquarters. Soon a boisterous crowd gathered and formed a parade led by the division band. This parade went in search of General Mueller at division headquarters, and found him in the G-3 (intelligence) section. After the band played ‘‘The Wildcat March,’’ and the Wildcats yelled for a speech, the general said he hoped the news was true and would be followed by an official announcement of surrender. The news spread quickly over the large camp and to units in the field. According to Kenneth Andersen, Company L, 322nd Infantry, it became ‘‘the day I will never forget. From then on I had a little hope of seeing home again.’’∏ ‘‘The camp went wild. The beer ration was issued and we celebrated until morning. It was unbelievable,’’ remembered John Mitchell, Company K, 323rd Infantry. He continued: I shall never forget the night of the 10th of August, when our battalion was in the Valencia area on the northwest side of Leyte, and was to start our operation against the remaining Japanese. We had spent the night preparing our packs and equipment and were to leave at 3:00 a.m. to embark our boats heading for the outlying areas where we would once again face the Japanese. We would be gone for ten days and supplies would be dropped by airplanes. As I was taking a sponge bath in my helmet at the back of my tent at 10:30 p.m., we began to hear shouting from the soldiers in the bivouac reverberating, and as it got closer, I remarked, ‘‘What has happened, the war ended?’’ When the news reached us, we learned that the war had, in fact, ended. There was no place to go to celebrate in the dark jungles, but many thankful soldiers attended impromptu prayer meetings in the middle of the night.π After learning that atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan, the Wildcats were thankful that President Harry S Truman made the decision to use nuclear weapons. They remembered the violent struggles on Angaur and Peleliu, and believed that the battle for Japan would be much worse. Later, during their occupation of northern Japan, the Wildcats got along well with the Japanese population; but

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they believed that dropping the atomic bombs had saved their lives, and they had no misgivings at all about it. The situation on Leyte immediately after the Japanese surrender remained somewhat chaotic. Neither the officers nor the men in the division knew what their short-term prospects might be. News arrived quickly that they would be part of the occupation force of the Japanese homeland, but they did not know how they would be received by the populace. Nor did they know, now that the war had ended, how long they had to wait to be eligible for going home.∫ Several of the combat units attached to the 81st Infantry Division that served with them on Angaur and Peleliu were now detached. The 710th Tank Battalion was detached on 18 September 1945; it arrived at the Port of Embarkation in Los Angeles on 16 January, 1946, and was inactivated on 17 January at Camp Anza, California.Ω The 81st Infantry Division and remaining attached units shipped out of Leyte on 18 September 1945, leaving behind about two thousand personnel. Of these, about two hundred were enlisted men eligible for return to the United States. Other personnel belonged to units left behind because of lack of transportation, and those assigned to guarding equipment left on Leyte.∞≠ When the convoy carrying the 81st Infantry Division arrived at its assigned occupation sector in Japan, Aomori Prefecture in northern Honshu, on 25 September, the area appeared deserted. The commanders knew that the landings would be peaceful. Lieutenant Colonel John J. LaPage, assistant chief of staff for training and operations, had flown to Japan ahead of the division, and spent the week before the division’s arrival driving around the prefecture. His report to the division commander explained that the attitude of the Japanese people was such that the landings and subsequent occupation would be peaceful. In fact, most of the citizens of the city of Aomori had gone into the mountains at the order of the Japanese officials to prevent any possibility of confrontation with the American troops. The 322nd and 323rd Regiments landed at 0900 on 25 September and began to move to their assigned locations. Movement was unrestricted and they made good progress. By late afternoon, it was decided to use trains for carrying these troops to their final destination, beginning the next day.

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The 321st Regiment started landing at about 0800 on 26 September. By 1100, all units were ashore. That same morning, three trains had arrived for carrying the 322nd and 323rd Regiments to their destination, much to the surprise of the soldiers who had expected to walk the distance. The Japanese train conductors and stationmasters bowed in their traditional manner to the troops, and were otherwise very respectful of Americans. The 322nd detrained at Hirosaki, and the 323rd at Hachinohe Airbase. The next day, the 321st Infantry Regiment moved its 3rd Battalion to Ominato Naval Base, while the rest of the regiment went to Misawa Airbase, just north of Hachinohe. The medical and headquarters personnel, band, military police, some engineers, and the 438th Quartermaster Laundry Detachment remained in the city of Aomori. Those left on Leyte, absent personnel who had return to the United States, arrived on 8 November and moved into Ominato. After settling in at their new quarters, the troops began the task of collecting and inventorying Japanese weapons. For most of October and November, patrols searched assigned areas, finding concealed weapons in private homes, schools, police stations, and in religious shrines. They destroyed all the found ammunition at sea, but the officers and enlisted men kept Japanese rifles and swords as souvenirs. Many of the soldiers already processed out of the division received a rifle or some other souvenir by mail. There were plenty of rifles to go around, but ceremonial swords were in short supply. So many men shipped rifles and other souvenirs home that it swamped the postal units assigned to handle the division’s mail. Throughout this time in Aomori Prefecture, hundreds of Wildcats left the division to return to the United States or join other divisions, causing a decline in morale and effectiveness in the units thus affected. Even Tuffy, who had joined the division in New Caledonia, was sent home in late October to take up residence in the Overton Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee. When the men arrived back in the states, they had to deal with paper work and stand in seemingly endless lines waiting for trains; and no welcoming home parades were held in their honor. Soon they went their separate ways, finally returning to their civilian lives.∞∞ By the end of December 1945, the 81st Infantry Division had been reduced to about half of its original authorized strength. Many of

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the attached units had already been inactivated. On 1 January 1946, the IX Corps commander, Major General Charles W. Ryder, assumed control of the military government, in Aomori Prefecture, and administered the prefecture through the 75th Military Government Company. For all essential purposes, the 81st Infantry Division had completed its mission. By now, all the commanders of the major units were gone, either retired or reassigned to other units. On 20 January 1946, General Order No. 10, the last one published by the division, reported the inactivation of the 81st Infantry Division as of 20 January 1946, in Aomori Prefecture. Once again, the division made history, as the 81st Infantry Division was the first division in the Pacific Theater of Operations inactivated overseas. Only General Mueller, Colonel Andrew Forsyth and a few others on the staff remained, and they were gone in two days. Major General Paul Mueller took command of the 86th Infantry Division in the Philippines, and in April 1946, became chief of staff for General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo. He retired in 1954, and died on 9 September 1964. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.∞≤

Epilogue

I

n early April 1945, shortly before his death, Ernie Pyle, perhaps America’s best-known war correspondent, spent a few days with the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, on Okinawa. One day he found himself seated on a hillside, taking a break and talking with a group of 5th Marines, when the topic of conversation turned to the fighting qualities of army infantrymen. One marine mentioned fighting alongside a certain army division, and allowed as how it was as good as any marine division. Several of his buddies scoffed at this remark and laughingly said he must be crazy, but the marine repeated what he had said, this time more emphatically. Now other marines joined him in praising this army division, asserting that it was as good as their own outfit. Although Ernie Pyle never identified the army division under discussion, it is likely that the Marines were referring to the 81st, which had joined the 5th Marines (and, for that matter, the entire 1st Marine Division) in the struggle for Peleliu. For the 81st Infantry Division to be so recognized by the men of the 5th Marines is high praise, indeed.∞ The ferocious battles on Angaur and Peleliu forged the inexperienced 81st Infantry Division Wildcats into one of the best fighting divisions in the Pacific War. To be so transformed in such a short period is phenomenal. It is a transformation that can be attributed to good training, good discipline, good leadership, innovative thinking, and fortunate circumstances. 253

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The Wildcats were particularly fortunate in receiving training that prepared them to counter the new fukkaku defensive tactics employed by the Japanese. Where the marines struggled with these tactics, the Wildcats readily adapted, developing methods that proved extremely effective in dealing with their enemies. Only the 5th Marines, commanded by Colonel Harold D. Harris, displayed the same adaptability, employing siege tactics in the Umurbrogol Pocket similar to the tactics used by the Wildcats after the 81st Division replaced the 1st Marine Division on Peleliu. Perhaps this is one reason that some 5th Marines regarded the Wildcats as their equals. The Wildcats also used innovative methods of combating the Japanese in the caves and tunnels. They were especially creative with sandbags, using them to build foxholes, protect heavy weapons, fortify defensive positions, and as shields when crawling forward against enemy fire. They used armored bulldozers to close caves and carve trails through difficult terrain to attack Japanese fortifications with tanks and LVT flamethrowers. They made extraordinarily effective use of pack howitzers, firing them directly into cave openings at close range. The Wildcats used napalm and gasoline for attacking the Japanese in their subterranean positions. On Peleliu, they improvised a large ‘‘flamethrower’’ utilizing a pump, hose, and nozzle for spraying oil over a large area. They ignited the oil with phosphorus grenades, either burning the Japanese out of their positions or driving them from the area. The Wildcats also devised a conveyor system for quickly hauling sandbags, supplies, and ammunition to the top of ridges, while lowering the dead and wounded from the ridges. They made good use of makeshift spotlights in Mortimer Valley and Wildcat Bowl. Throughout the battles on Angaur and Peleliu, the Wildcats demonstrated excellent discipline and good leadership from Major General Mueller on down through the ranks. On countless occasions the enlisted men who constituted the division’s rank-and-file assumed leadership roles and received field promotions to higher ranks. Scores of Wildcats were awarded medals, many of them posthumously, for acts of bravery. The three regiments of the 81st Infantry Division never fought together as a unit. The 321st and 322nd RCTs fought together for about one week on Angaur, after which the 321st RCT was attached to the 1st Marine Division on Peleliu and the 323rd RCT dispatched to oc-

EPILOGUE

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cupy Ulithi Atoll. Later, after the marines were withdrawn from Peleliu, the 321st RCT and the 1st Battalion, 323rd RCT, fought together for a few days around the Umurbrogol Pocket. Later, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 323rd RCT, replaced the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 321st RCT, and the 323rd RCT, and the 3rd Battalion, 321st RCT, finished the battle. The 322nd RCT stayed and fought on Angaur through the entire campaign. In the battles for Angaur and Peleliu, the 81st Infantry Division and attached units lost 546 men killed, 2,462 wounded, and 2,641 noncombat casualties. Of the 546 killed, 264 died on Angaur, and 282 died on Peleliu. For the assaulting infantrymen only, not including attached troops, fatalities by regiment are as follows: 321st Regiment, 172; 322nd Regiment, 211; 323rd Regiment, 118. The Wildcats killed 1,338 Japanese soldiers and captured 59 on Angaur, and killed 3,249 Japanese soldiers on Peleliu while capturing 180. The 1st Marine Division lost 1,252 killed and 5,274 wounded on Peleliu. The marines killed 10,695 Japanese, and captured 301. While the marines suffered many more casualties and killed more Japanese than did the Wildcats, this book provides evidence that the 81st Infantry Division contributed greatly to the success of Operation Stalemate II and in defeating the Japanese on Peleliu, and deserve recognition for doing so.≤ The most valuable asset gained by Operation Stalemate II, Ulithi Atoll, was the one obtained at the least cost, no American casualties. A month after occupation, and for about six months thereafter, Ulithi was the biggest and most active naval base in the world. In contrast, Americans may now visit the Palau Islands for the excellent scuba diving near Peleliu and Angaur, but they may never know the terrible life-and-death struggles that took place on those islands. Although the seizure of Angaur and Peleliu contributed little to the war against Japan, all those who served in the island campaigns in any capacity served honorably; and more than a few served in ways that can be considered truly heroic. Many of them died so that we, and future generations of Americans, can enjoy the blessings of freedom. That we still live free is testimony that these men did not die in vain.

Notes

INTRODUCTION 1. Adams, Witness to Power, 253. 2. Potter, Nimitz, 315–18; Leahy, I Was There, 250–51; MacArthur, Reminiscences, 214–16. 3. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 450–53; Leahy, I Was There, 251; Alexander, Storm Landings, 105. 4. Mueller, et al., The 81st Infantry Wildcat Division in World War II, 59. 5. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 1, 3–6; ‘‘United States Army Reserve-81st Regional Readiness Command-History,’’ www.usar.army.mil/ USARC/RRC/0081RRC/0081eRRCeHistory.htm; Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades, 47, 55–61, 70– 72, 82, 87, 97,102,109, 116–17, 156, 169–71; Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, 1:21, 83–86, 2:241 fn, 379–80, 385–86. 6. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 3; Bellanger, U. S. Army Infantry Divisions 1943–45, vol. 1, Organization, Doctrine and Equipment, 1–2, 7, 25. 7. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 32–41;. Gailey, Howlin’ Mad Vs the Army, 27. 8. ‘‘History of the 323 Infantry Regiment,’’ 4–5; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 39–44. 9. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 44–45. 10. James Yetter, interview, October 15, 2005. 11. A reinforced infantry division is one to which combat support units are attached and come under the direct control of the infantry division’s commander. This is necessary when supporting units cannot be controlled by their own higher command, especially in amphibious operations when supporting units must be immediately responsive to the commander on the 257

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ground. The supporting combat units are normally mortar, armor, engineer, antiaircraft, and amphibious tractors, trucks, and tank units. Other noncombat units are often attached to the division, such as hospitals, ship-toshore communication units, and quartermaster units, including graves registration personnel. When various supporting combat units are assigned to a particular infantry regiment, the regiment becomes a regimental combat team (RCT), commanded by the infantry regiment’s commander. Colonel George A. Rasula (Ret), e-mail message, September 5, 2006. 12. Moore, Spies for Nimitz, 14–60. 13. Morison, Leyte, 31–32. 14. Moore, Spies for Nimitz, 28–30; 153–154, 166; Winton, ULTRA in the Pacific, 180. 15. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 60. 16. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 10–11. 17. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 46. 18. Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 17. 19. Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 194–95. 20. Hoyt, To the Marianas, 237–238; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 60–61; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 46, Gailey, Howlin Mad Vs the Army, 33. 21. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 46–50. 22. The Fifth Fleet under Admiral Spruance became the Third Fleet when Halsey was in command, a tactic that led the Japanese to believe two large American fleets were operating in the Pacific. Potter, Nimitz, 294. 23. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 63–64; Griffith, MacArthur’s Airman, 170; Faltum, The Essex Aircraft Carriers, 157; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 101–102; Scannon, ‘‘The BentProp Project, The War and Palau, The Importance of Palau,’’ www.bentprop.org/ sap3.htm; Moore, Spies for Nimitz, 153. 24. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 62, 64, 79; ‘‘Geiger,’’ www.history.navy.mil/danfs/g2/geiger.htm. 25. ‘‘Island Directory, Islands of Palau,’’ UN System-Wide Earthwatch web site, www.unep.ch/islands/ILW.htm; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 1; Rottman, World War II Pacific Island Guide, 398–400. 26. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 52–57. 27. Rottman, World War II Pacific Island Guide, 407. 28. Alexander, Storm Landings, 87, 109–10; quotes from ‘‘Palau Sector Group Training for Victory’’ from translation found in CinCPac-CinCPOA Item No. 11,190, cited in Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 192–93. 29. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 54. 30. Ibid., 62. 31. McMillan, The Old Breed, 227–29. 32. Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 93, 265, 270, 275, 283, 328; Hallas, The Devil’s Anvil, 13–14, 16; Sledge, letter to Bobby C. Blair, March 17, 1999. 33. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 62. 34. LVT: Landing Vehicle, Tracked, often called amphibian tractors, alligators, amphtracs, amtracs.

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35. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 63; McMillan, The Old Breed, 270. 36. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, chart 14 on 465; ‘‘Pennsylvania,’’ The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, 5:250–54, DANFS Online, www.hazegray.org/danfs/battlesh/bb38.htm; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 102–103; Y’Blood, Little Giants, 113. 37. ‘‘The Capture of Angaur Island,’’ 81st Infantry Division Operation Report, unpublished manuscript, 18, 79–80; ‘‘Tennessee,’’ Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, 7:88–100, DANFS Online, www.hazegray .org/danfs/battlesh/bb43.htm; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 24. 38. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 104–105; Hoyt, To the Marianas, 242–43; Alexander, Storm Landings, 113; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 25; Moore, Spies for Nimitz, 168. 39. Robert F. Entrican, letter to Peter DeCioccio, June 23, 2000. 40. Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 138. 41. Stanley Falk, Bloodiest Victory: Palaus, 26; Hallas, Devil’s Anvil, 5– 6; Potter, Nimitz, 323; Potter, Bull Halsey, 272–73, 277; Alexander, Utmost Savagery, 231, Alexander, Storm Landings, 105. Smith and Finch, Coral and Brass, 111–12. 42. Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 194–201; Keating, Fleet Admiral: The Story of William F. Halsey, 158; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 65; Potter, Bull Halsey, 277–78; Griffith, MacArthur’s Airman, 177–78, Potter, Nimitz, 322; Morison, Leyte, 15–16. 43. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 573; Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 198–199; Hoffman, ‘‘The Legacy and Lessons of Peleliu,’’ Marine Corps Gazette, September 1994, Marine Corps Association Archives, http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mca-marines/faq.html; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 47; Morison, Leyte, 13–16. 44. Tillman, ‘‘Was Halsey Out of His Depth?,’’ World War II, July/August 2007, 54–59; Potter, Nimitz, 323; Morison, Leyte, 33; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 65; Alexander, Storm Landings, 105– 106, 124; Wright, To the Far Side of Hell, 160, Rottman, World War II Pacific Island Guide, 314–18, 411; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 190–91; Griffith, MacArthur’s Airman, 177–78; Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 144–45. 45. Frank, Downfall, 33, 147, 276; Burrell, The Ghosts of Iwo Jima, 158–61; Potter, Nimitz, 284–85. 46. Leahy, I Was There, 245, 251, 259–61; MacArthur, Reminiscences, 216. 47. Manchester, American Caesar, 371, citing Dorris Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, 2:535. 48. Shawnee News-Star (Oklahoma), September 15, 1944, 8. 49. Alexander, Storm Landings, 105–106. 50. Miller, The War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II, 456; Morison, Leyte, 47; Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 421. 51. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 66. 52. Robert Voss, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 53. In the DANFS history of the attack transport Sumter II (AP-97) it is recorded that advanced assault troops and a beach party landed on Angaur on

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September 15, 1944. The history of the 81st Infantry Division does not mention this activity. Troops of the 1st Battalion, 321st Regiment, were on the Sumter II, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, www.hazegray.org/ danfs/auxil/ap97.htm. 54. The actual number of tanks in the attack and destroyed is in dispute. 55. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division in World War II, 66–67. 56. Ed Frazer, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 57. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 67; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 499; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 108. 58. Hallas, The Devil’s Anvil, 110. ∞. FOX DAY FOR ANGAUR 1. William Somma, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 7, 2000. 2. Ed Collins, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, January 29, 1999. 3. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 79, and Enclosures Nos. 1 and 2. 4. Ibid., 79, 81, and Enclosures Nos. 3 and 4. 5. Ibid., 113, and Enclosures Nos. 1 and 2; Morison, Leyte, Map: Angaur, 17 September 1944, 45. 6. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 68–71. 7. Mueller, Ibid., 71; ‘‘Mortar Gunboats 15 September 1944—Peleliu, Palau Islands: first LCI(M) combat use,’’ www.4point2.org/gunboats.htm; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 23. 8. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 51, 72. 9. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 113, and Enclosures Nos. 1 and 2; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 71–72. 10. William Somma, letter written to Peter DeCioccio, October 30, 1999, and interview with Peter DeCioccio. 11. Also called Battalion Landing Teams 1 and 2. A battalion landing team is a regimental battalion with attached units, such as artillery, armor, and engineers. Three battalion landing teams constitute one regimental combat team. 12. John Spielmann, interview with Bobby C. Blair, September 6, 1999. 13. Roy Bergeron, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 14. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 113, and Enclosures Nos. 1 and 2; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 17 September 1944; John Walker, ‘‘The Beach Approach,’’ Time, October 2, 1944, www.time .com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,933102,00.html. 15. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 73; McGee, The Amphibians Are Coming! 27. 16. Clifton Dantin, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 17. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 23–25; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 72–73; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 17 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504–505.

NOTES TO PAGES 36–47

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18. Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 109–11; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 8. 19. ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ map following p. 8. 20. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 23–25, 82; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division in World War II, 72–73. 21. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 25, 27; Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001. 22. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 27. 23. Daugherty, Fighting Techniques of a Japanese Rifleman, 72–79. 24. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 76. 25. Nolton Brown, letter and questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 26. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat, 73; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 25, 27, 29; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 6–7. 27. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, Map 6, RCT 322, 76; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 17 September 1944. 28. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 75; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 27. 29. Brooks Nicklas, Beyond My Dreams, 86–88. 30. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 168. 31. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504, 506; Moore, Spies for Nimitz, 159. 32. Jowett, The Japanese Army, 1931–45, vol. 2, 1942–1945, 44; Daugherty, Fighting Techniques, 83. 33. Information from Peter DeCioccio. 34. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 73; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 25, 27, 29; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 6–7. 35. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 27–31; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504. 36. George Rasula, e-mail messages to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 2000, September 6, 2000; e-mail message to Bobby C. Blair, January 22, 2006; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 31; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504. 37. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 27–31; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504–505. 38. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 29–31; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 7; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 505. 39. ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 6–7; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 133. 40. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504–505; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 169. 41. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 31. 42. George Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, September 6, 2000. 43. Keith Axelson, letter to Peter DeCioccio, December 15, 1999.

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≤. ANGAUR SECURED 1. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 507; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 17 September 1944. 2. Robert Crochet, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 3. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 507; Daugherty, Fighting Techniques, 64–65. 4. Roy Bergeron, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 5. William Somma, letters to Peter DeCioccio, October 30, 1999 and June 4, 2000. 6. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 78–79; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 507–509; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 33, Map: 18 September 1944, 34; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 9; Nafziger, Banzai! Japanese Infantry Organization and Tactics in WWII, 1:2, 19–23; John Spielman, e-mail message to Bobby C. Blair, October 23, 2000. 7. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 508; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 79–80; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 9– 10; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 35. 8. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 80; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 31–35; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 504–509. 9. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 31–37; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18 September 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 80–86; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 505–10. 10. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 80; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 509;’’Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18 September 1944; Brooks Nickles, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 14, 2005. 11. There is some confusion as to whether the target area was properly marked. The ‘‘Unit History of the 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18 September 1944, reported the target area was properly marked. In Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 172, it is reported that a subsequent investigation stated that the target area was improperly marked, and that the pilots of the planes were not at fault. 12. Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 35–37; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18 September 1944; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 10–11; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 82– 86; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 509–10; John Spielmann, interview with Bobby C. Blair, September 6, 1999; Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001; George Rasula, e-mail message to Bobby C. Blair, September 5, 2006. 13. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 39; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 12. 14. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 509; Ed Frazer, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2003. 15. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 80; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 33–39.

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16. Ronald Garrie and Saquanna Carrillo, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 1999. 17. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 86; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 511, 533; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 11. 18. ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 12; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 39–41; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 88–89. 19. Not only were the Japanese masters at camouflage, but their weapons used ammunition with smokeless powder, had little report and muzzle flash, and some machine guns came equipped with a flash suppressor attached to the muzzle. All this made the source of fire difficult to locate. ‘‘Japanese Ordnance Material of WWII,’’ www.wlhoward.com/museum/id 577.htm; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 105–106. 20. Keith Axelson, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, September 23, 1999, and letter to Peter DeCioccio, December 19, 1999. 21. ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Tank Battalion,’’ unpublished manuscript, 4. 22. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 88–89; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 39–41; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 511. 23. Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001. 24. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 90–91; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 13; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Tank Battalion,’’ 4–5; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 66; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 41–43; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 515–16. 25. ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Tank Battalion,’’ 4–5; Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 512–13; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 88. 26. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 90–91; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 66; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 513, 516–17; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Tank Battalion,’’ 5. 27. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 90–91; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 66; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 513, 516–17; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Tank Battalion,’’ 5. 28. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 90–91, 95–96; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19 September 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 41–43, 82–85; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 517. 29. The M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage was a self-propelled, 75mm artillery weapon. It had a crew of four. Peter Chamberlain and Chris Ellis, British and American Tanks of World War II, 93–97. 30. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20 September 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 45–47; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 99–100; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 517–518. 31. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 100; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20 September 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 47.

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32. Ross Hadfield, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 33. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 100; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 517–18; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20 September 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 47–49. 34. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 47–49; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 66–67; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 13–14; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 97–98; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 513–14; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 176–77. 35. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 98. 36. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 86, 101–102, 219; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 47, 99, 108; Stanton, World War II Order of Battle, 591. 37. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 232–35; Keith Axelson, letter to Peter DeCioccio, December 15, 1999. 38. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 518. 39. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 103; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 49–51, 108; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21 September 1944; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Tank Battalion,’’ 6; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 42–45; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 519; Brooks Nicklas, e-mail message to Bobby C. Blair, September 30, 2006. 40. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 103; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 51; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 44; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 519. 41. Brooks Nicklas, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 14, 2005. 42. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 51; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21 September 1944. 43. Clay Sheffield, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 44. Richard Neal Smith, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 45. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21 September 1944. 46. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 103; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 51; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21 September 1944; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 44; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 521. 47. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202–203; Morison, Leyte, 47. 48. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 104. 49. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 103–105; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 51–53; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 15–17. ≥. ULITHI AND NGULU ATOLLS 1. Potter, Nimitz, 320; Morison, Leyte, 47. 2. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 180–81; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202.

NOTES TO PAGES 75–81

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3. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202–203; Morison, Leyte, 47. 4. Spangler, ‘‘Ulithi,’’ www.laffey.org/Ulithi/Page%201/Ulithi.htm; Rottman, World War II Pacific Island Guide, 409–11; Potter, Bull Halsey, 278; Potter, Nimitz, 320. 5. Morison, Leyte, 48; ‘‘Yap: Ulithi—Visitors: Aftermath,’’ www.pacific worlds.com/yap/visitors/aftrmath.cfm; ‘‘Yap: Ulithi—Memories: World War II,’’ www.pacificworlds.com/yap/memories/memory1.cfm; ‘‘Yap: Ulithi—Visitors: Colony,’’ www.pacificworlds.com/yap/visitors/colony.cfm; ‘‘Ulithi,’’ http://community-2.webtv.net/ebb26/ULITHI/page6.html. 6. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202–203; Falk, Bloodiest Victory: Palaus, 97; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 9. 7. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202–203; ‘‘Sands,’’ www .hazegray.org/danfs/destroy/dd243txt.htm; ‘‘WWII UDT Team Ten,’’ Underwater Demolition Team Histories, http://users,frii.com/archives/UDT10 .html; ‘‘Montgomery V DD-121,’’ http://data.historycentral.com/Navy/de stroyer/MontgomeryVdd121.html; ‘‘Gull,’’ www.hazegray.org/dangsmine/ yms324.htm; ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray .org/navhist/denver/ logsep44.htm. 8. ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/ navhist/denver/logsep44.htm; ‘‘WWII UDT Team Ten,’’ http://users,frii .com/archives/UDT10.html. 9. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202; ‘‘WWII UDT Team Ten,’’ http://users,frii.com/archives/UDT10.html. 10. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 203; ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/navhist/denver/logsep44.htm. 11. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 9. 12. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 203; Y’Blood, Little Giants, 110; ‘‘PC Patrol Craft of World War II,’’ www.astralpublishing.com/pa trolcraft.html. 13. ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/ navhist/denver/logsep44.htm; ‘‘WWII UDT Team Ten,’’ http:// users,frii .com/archives/UDT10.html. 14. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 203; ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/navhist/denver/logsep44.htm; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 9–10. 15. ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/nav hist/denver/logsep44.htm; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 203– 206; ‘‘WWII UDT Team Ten,’’ http://users,frii.com/archives/UDT10.html. 16. Robert Voss, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 17. John Hirsch, letter to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 1999. 18. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 206. 19. ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/ navhist/denver/logsep44.htm. 20. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 11; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 206–207. 21. Steve Dombrowski, letter to Bobby C. Blair, January 24, 2005. 22. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 207.

266

NOTES TO PAGES 81–90

23. Eugene Schoendienst, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 24. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 207; Falk, Little Giants, 97; Morison, Leyte, 49. 25. ‘‘CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 158, OCTOBER 17, 1944,’’ www .ibiblio.org/pha/comms/1944-10.html. 26. ‘‘USS Denver Deck Log Book & War Diary,’’ www.hazegray.org/ navhist/denver/logsep44.htm; ‘‘Ross,’’ (DD-563) Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, DANFS Online, www.hazegray.org/danfs/destroy /dd563txt.htm; ‘‘WWII UDT Team Ten,’’ http://users,frii.com/archives /UDT10.html. 27. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 11–12. 28. Robert Voss, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 29. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 208; Morison, Leyte, 49. 30. Potter, Bull Halsey, 280. 31. Lee Kunce, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 32. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 166, 209. 33. Morison, Leyte, 51; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 209; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 12. 34. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 209; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 12. 35. Morison, Leyte, 51; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 209. 36. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 210. 37. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 12. 38. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 13; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 210–11. 39. Morison, Leyte, 51. 40. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 209; Morison, Leyte, 49; ‘‘History of the USS Rall,’’ www.wvswrite.com/rall/history.htm. ∂. ANGAUR BOWL 1. Halsey and Bryan, Admiral Halsey’s Story, 201; Miller, War at Sea, 456. 2. Shawnee News-Star (Oklahoma), September 21, 1944, 1. 3. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 105, stated that Company B, 710th Tank Battalion, supported the 2nd Battalion, while ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 45, stated that Company C supported them. 4. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 105–106; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 53; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 22 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 521–22; Herman Soblick, interview with Bobby C. Blair, 2001. 5. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 106–107; ‘‘Armor in AngaurPeleliu Campaign,’’ 45. 6. ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 46; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 107; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 522. 7. ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 17–18.

NOTES TO PAGES 90–98

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8. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 107, 109–10; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 522. 9. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 179. 10. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 110; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 55; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 23 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 523. 11. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 110; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 55; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 23 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 523. 12. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 24 September 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 57; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 524; ‘‘History of the 306th Engineer Combat Battalion,’’ 20; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 110–11. 13. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 70; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 110–11; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 24 September 1944, Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 524. 14. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 111. 15. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 112; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 24 September 1944. 16. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 113; ‘‘Armor in AngaurPeleliu Campaign,’’ 47; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 57, 59, 103; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, p. 524. 17. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 114; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 524–25; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 59, 60 (map, 27 September 1944), 85, 107; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 47. 18. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 525–26; ‘‘Your Victory,’’ booklet. 19. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 26 September 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 526; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 115. 20. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 115–16; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 526; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 59. 21. Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 526; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 116. Smith reported that the forward companies of the 3rd Battalion had forty casualties, plus Company A had a few more in the Japanese counterattack. Mueller reported that the forward companies of the 3rd Battalion had twenty casualties in the Japanese counterattack. This is a total of sixty casualties. 22. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 117; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 61. 23. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 117; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 27 September 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 61; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 527. 24. Herman Soblick, interview with Bobby C. Blair, 2001. 25. Herrschaft and Leonardini, ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945,’’ 3.

268

NOTES TO PAGES 98–106

26. ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 47–49; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710th Battalion,’’ 8; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 119. 27. ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 49–51; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710 Tank Battalion,’’ 8–9; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 119. 28. James Fitzgerald, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. 29. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 63; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 29 September 1944. 30. Brooks Nicklas, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 14, 2005; Nicklas, Beyond my Dreams, 96–98. 31. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 63. ∑. ROMAULDO HILL 1. Herrschaft and Leonardini, ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945,’’ 3, 7; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 121. 2. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 120–21; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 63; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 30 September 1944. 3. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 63. 4. Ibid., 106 (map). 5. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 121–22; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 63, 69, 94; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 1 October 1944; Elzie Brown, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 6. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 121–22; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 63, 94; ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 1 October 1944. 7. Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 527. 8. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 121. 9. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 122; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 64, (map, 2 October 1944.) 10. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 2 October 1944; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 527. 11. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 2 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 122; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 65. 12. Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001. 13. Herrschaft and Leonardini, ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945,’’ 3; Richard Neal Smith, letter to Bobby C. Blair, February 11, 1999; Nicklas, Beyond My Dreams, 98. 14. Richard Neal Smith, letter to Bobby C. Blair, February 11, 1999. 15. Ray Melheim, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio.

NOTES TO PAGES 106–17

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16. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 2 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 122; Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001; Richard Neal Smith, letter to Bobby C. Blair, February 11, 1999. 17. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 3 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 122–23; Herrschaft and Leonardini, ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945,’’ 4. 18. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 4 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 123; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 85. 19. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 5 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 123; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 54 (map), 85. 20. Herrschaft and Leonardini, ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945,’’ 4; Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001. 21. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 7 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 125; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 65. 22. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 8 October 1944; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 90. 23. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 127. 24. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 9 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 127. 25. Ray Melheim, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. 26. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 70, 93–94; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 229. 27. Elzie Brown, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 28. DeWan, ‘‘A Wartime Surgeon’s Photo Diary’’, Newsday, Millville, NY, August 15, 1984, Part II/4. 29. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 10 October 1944; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710 Tank Battalion,’’ S-3 Journal-Angaur Operation. 30. Brooks Nicklas, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 14, 2005; Nicklas, Beyond My Dreams, 100. 31. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 10–14 October, 1944. 32. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 15–16 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 128 (Map, 2400 14 October 1944); Kenneth Andersen, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 2001. 33. Brooks Nicklas, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 14, 2005. 34. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 128, 132 (Map, 2400 18 October 1944). 35. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19 October 1944; ‘‘Operation Report for Angaur Island, 710 Tank Battalion,’’ S-3 Journal-Angaur Operation. 36. Joseph Abreu, letter and questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, March 9, 2000.

270

NOTES TO PAGES 117–27

37. ‘‘Unit History 322nd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20 October 1944; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 130–33. 38. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 219–20. 39. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 132–33; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 530; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 112. 40. Burrell, Ghosts of Iwo Jima, 83–84. ∏. THE WILDCATS LAND ON PELELIU 1. Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 62–63; McMillan, The Old Breed 269; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 192–93. 2. Gayle, Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu, 25; Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 269. 3. Donigan, ‘‘Peleliu: The Forgotten Battle,’’ Marine Corps Gazette, September 1994, The Marine Corps Association Archives, http://pqasb.pq archiver.com/mca-Marines/faq.html. 4. Shawnee News-Star (Oklahoma), September 20, 1944, 1; ‘‘CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ #NO. 123, SEPTEMBER 19, 1944’’, www.ibiblio.org/pha/ comms/1944–09.html. 5. Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 264–65. 6. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 103. 7. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 90, fn66, citing 1st Marine Division Special Action Report, Palau Operation, II, 5, 7, and 93, 103, 104–106; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 534; Hallas, The Devil’s Anvil, 175; Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 274–75, 279–80. 8. Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 134; Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 272, 275– 76; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 186. 9. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 103–105; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 51–53; ‘‘History of the 321st Infantry’s First Operation,’’ 15–17. 10. Hallas, Devil’s Anvil, 180–81; Woodard, Before the First Wave, 101– 102; ‘‘DD-663 Heywood L. Edwards,’’ www.hazegray.org/danfs/destroy/dd 663txt.htm; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 104–105, 109; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 138. 11. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, September 6, 2000. 12. William Somma, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 7, 2000. 13. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Bobby C. Blair, September 19, 2006. 14. Edward F. Brackett, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 6, 1999. 15. Albert Chieffo, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 2001. 16. Ray Deihl, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 16, 1999. 17. James Lamson, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, February 11, 1999. 18. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 139–40.

NOTES TO PAGES 127–35

271

19. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 90, fn66, citing 1st Marine Division Special Action Report, Palau Operation, II, 5; 104–106. 20. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 141; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 15; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 110–11. 21. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 141; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 111; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 3. 22. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 111–12; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report, Capture of Peleliu,’’ 4–5. 23. 7th Marine R-2 Journal, Sheet #83, quoted in Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 112. 24. A remark allegedly made by General Rupertus, quoted in Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 283. 25. Lieutenant Colonel Edward. H. Hurst, letter to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, dated March 15, 1950, in Peleliu Comment File, quoted in Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 197. 26. Major Dallas A. Pilliod received the Silver Star for this action. His citation states: ‘‘For gallantry in action on Peleliu Island, Palau Group, 23 September 1944. As battalion commander MAJOR PILLIOD learned that rumors of enemy strength and difficulties of terrain had been circulated to such an extent that one of his companies appeared hesitant in making an assault against its assigned objective. Realizing the seriousness of the situation MAJOR PILLIOD took command of the company and courageously led it to its objective. By his expeditious appraisal of a critical situation and his decisive remedial action he reestablished a high state of morale within a disorganized unit, and proved himself an exemplary leader.’’ From ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 34; John Engstrom, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 2004. 27. In June 1944, a navy flamethrower detachment of one officer and three enlisted men joined the marines on Pavuvu, along with three Mark 1 flame throwing units and four LVT(4)s. Attached to the 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion, they mounted the flame units on three LVT(4)s, and used the fourth for carrying supplies. Three more flame units arrived from Hawaii shortly before the invasion, and all six were used on Peleliu. The sailors instructed the marines on their use, but a lack of napalm fuel prevented adequate training and practice. ‘‘Chapter 15: The Flame Thrower in the Pacific: Marianas to Okinawa,’’ www.Army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/chems incmbt/ch15.htm; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 32. 28. This Hill 100 is not the same Hill 100 named by the marines south of Walt Ridge. 29. Edward F. Brackett, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 6, 1999. 30. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 141–42; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 537–38; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 112; Tom Jones, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 10, 2008. 31. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 142–44; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 538–39; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 114–15, fn 160; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 21.

272

NOTES TO PAGES 135–45

32. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 144; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 71; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 65; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 115. 33. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 144. 34. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 5–6. 35. ‘‘CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 129, SEPTEMBER 23, 1944’’; ‘‘CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 131, SEPTEMBER 25, 1944,’’ www.ibiblio .org/pha/comms/1944–09.html. 36. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 145; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 2–5; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 115; Harry G. Singer, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 10, 2008. 37. Bert Neill, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 38. Corwin Berry, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, August 14, 1999. 39. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 5–6; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 145. 40. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 143 (map Peleliu, 26 September 1944), 145, 147; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 7; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 25. 41. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 6; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 71. 42. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 2000. 43. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 147; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 6; New York Times, September 27, 1944, 1. 44. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 147; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 543; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 3. 45. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 7; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 147–48; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 8–9; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 554–55. 46. John Engstrom, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 2004. 47. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 148; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 9; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 555. 48. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 9. 49. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 147; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 74; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 544. 50. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 148; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 9; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 123; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 29. 51. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 150; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 29. Note that these divisional sources mistakenly state that Company B captured this ridge. The regimental reports do not mention which company took the ridge. However, Company C faced the ridge during the previous night, and Smith, Approach to the Philippines 545, reports regimental overlays and sketch maps place Company C on the ridge and Company B at RJ 15 at the end of September 28. 52. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 150; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 555; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 29;

NOTES TO PAGES 145–53

273

‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 10; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 74; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 147. 53. Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001. 54. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 150; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 555; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 74–75. The divisional reports state that the composite battalion consisted of Companies E, F, and I, but Companies E, I, and L conducted the attack south. 55. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 151, Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 328. 56. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 151; Sledge, With the Old Breed, 126; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 75. 57. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, September 8, 2000. 58. Edward F. Brackett, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 6, 1999; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 151. 59. Sledge, With the Old Breed, 118–20. 60. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 31, 2000. 61. Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 62. John Wick, interview with Bobby C. Blair. 63. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 31–33. 64. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 11; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 22–24; ‘‘321st RCT Unit Report 7, 30 September 1944.’’ 65. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 33; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 11. 66. Merle F. Niethe, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 67. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 33–35; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 12; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 151. 68. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 127–29. 69. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 153; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 133. 70. Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 71. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 153; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 77. 72. Lloyd Kestin, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 73. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 35; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 126. 74. 1st Marine Division, Special Action Report, Peleliu Operation, II, 13, cited in Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 135; ‘‘321st RCT Unit Report 7, 30 September 1944,’’ 2; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 549. 75. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 153; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 77; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 14; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 35–37; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 547; ‘‘History of the 306th Engineer Combat Battalion,’’ 23. 76. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 153; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 547; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 14. 77. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 153, 318.

274

NOTES TO PAGES 153–63

78. Gayle, Bloody Beaches, 48. 79. Alexander, Audio Tape No. 8 (Part II), ‘‘Opening Remarks, Peleliu, Pacific D Days,’’ Admiral Nimitz Museum Symposium, Fredericksburg, TX, September 22–23, 2001; Potter, Bull Halsey, 280. 80. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 154; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 547–48; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 15. 81. Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 82. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 135. 83. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 154–55; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 13. 84. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 149–51; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 231–33. 85. Thomas G. Climie, letter to Bobby C. Blair, July 8, 2007. 86. ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 75–77; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 556; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 135. 87. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 155, 224–25; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 233; James J. McElroy, ‘‘Victory Line,’’ The Leatherneck, May 1945, Marine Corps Association Archive, http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mca-Marines/faq.html. 88. James Lamson, interview with Peter DeCioccio, August 3, 1999. 89. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 155; James Abney, interview with Bobby C. Blair, 2001. 90. Roy Bergeron, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 91. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 14; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 11. 92. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 151–54; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 233–36; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 10; Gailey, Peleliu 1944., 170; Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 325. 93. Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001. 94. Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 269–71, 347. 95. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 19–20; Robert L. Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II, 256; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 196. 96. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 31, 2000. 97. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 166; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 167; Gayle, Bloody Beaches, 40; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 16. 98. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 20; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 41. 99. Woodard, Before the First Wave, 101. 100. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 43. 101. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 17; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 21. 102. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, September 8, 2000. 103. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 22; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 17; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’

NOTES TO PAGES 164–73

275

(Peleliu), 45; Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation, 255; Moran and Rottman, Peleliu 1944, 18 (task force organization for the Palau operation); Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 209. 104. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 45. 105. Sledge, With the Old Breed, 142–47; E. B. Sledge, personal letter to Bobby C. Blair, March 17, 1999; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 170. 106. Gayle, Bloody Beaches, 40–41; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 168; Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 333–35; Marine Corps Historical Archives, notes on interview with Colonel H. D. Harris, October 28–31, 1949, 3, as cited in Gailey, Assault on Peleliu, 166. 107. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 156–59, 166; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 24; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 47. 108. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 159. 109. Sledge, With the Old Breed, 151. 110. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 14–15. 111. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 159. 112. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 165–67. 113. Ross, Peleliu: Tragic Triumph, 335. π. THE ARMY TAKES CONTROL ON PELELIU 1. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 25–26; Clifton Dantin, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005; Sledge, With the Old Breed, 104. 2. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 31, 2000. 3. Edward F. Brackett, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 6, 1999. 4. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 26. 5. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 15. 6. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 159. 7. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 26. 8. Steve Dombrowski, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 9. James Green, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 10. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 162; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 18–19; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 22. 11. Smith, Major General Oliver P., ‘‘Personal Narrative,’’ as cited in Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 166; ‘‘Central Pacific Operations Record,’’ vol. 2, as cited in Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 229, 249. 12. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 19; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 162. Common names for the terrain features are used throughout this book, even though those names might not have been given until the latter stages of the battle. 13. ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 91–92. 14. ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 91; Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001. 15. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 166, 169.

276

NOTES TO PAGES 173–85

16. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 161. 17. Steve Dombrowski, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 18. William Somma, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 7, 2000. 19. Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 20. James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 21. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 167–69. 22. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 158, footnote 58. 23. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 27–28; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 53; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 563. 24. Roy Bergeron, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 25. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 53; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 563. 26. Also recorded in Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 163. 27. Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 28. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 53; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 169. 29. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 29. 30. Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 31. Clifton Dantin, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 32. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 29–30; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 55; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 563–65; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 164–66. 33. Clifton Dantin, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 34. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 30; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report,’’ 55; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 565. 35. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 169; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 251; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 16; Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 565. 36. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 21; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 565. 37. Clair Bahrenfuse, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 38. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 166; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 31–32; McMillan, A History of the First Marine Division in World War II, 339. 39. Benton Maxwell, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 1999. 40. Lee Kunce, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 41. Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation, 257. 42. Edward H. Saunders, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. 43. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 166. 44. Albert Chieffo, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 2001. 45. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 166–67; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 173. 46. Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 252. 47. Moran and Rottman, Peleliu 1944, 18; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 59. 48. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 22; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 17; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 169.

NOTES TO PAGES 185–98

277

49. Steve Dombrowski, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 50. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 23; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 17. 51. James Fitzpatrick, interview with Bobby C. Blair, September 1, 1999. 52. William Somma, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 7, 2000. 53. Roy Bergeron, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 54. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 23; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 18. 55. Gilbert Lindloff, interview with Bobby C. Blair, April 2001. 56. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 23. 57. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 59. 58. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 167. 59. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 13. 60. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 34; George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 31, 2000. 61. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 23–24; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 59–61; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 34. 62. Lloyd Kestin, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 63. Benton Maxwell, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 1999. 64. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 61; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 566. 65. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 61; Nolton Brown, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. 66. Thomas G. Climie, letter to Bobby C. Blair, July 8, 2007. 67. Clifton Dantin, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 68. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 61. 69. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 173; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 63–65; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 35–36; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 24–25. 70. Corwin Berry, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 71. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 63; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 36; Corwin Berry, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 72. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 25; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 37. 73. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 14. 74. John H. Mitchell, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 75. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 14. 76. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 26–27; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 175–77. 77. Clifton Dantin, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 78. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 175–78; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 39–40; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 26–27. 79. ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 26–27; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 41–42; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Re-

278

NOTES TO PAGES 198–205

port’’ (Pelelui), 69; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 177–78; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 176, footnote 8. 80. Robert Voss, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 81. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 41–42; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 28; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 569. 82. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 14; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu ‘Campaign,’’ 97. 83. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 178; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 43. ∫. VICTORY AT PELELIU 1. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 69–70; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 178. 2. Ross Hadfield, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2000. 3. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 178–79; Stanton, World War II Order of Battle, 485; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 135, 169–70, footnote 87. 4. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 69; John H. Mitchell, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 5. Ted Downing, e-mail message, and handwritten notes to Peter DeCioccio, May 10, 2001. 6. George A. Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 31, 2000. 7. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 18. 8. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 179. 9. Bert Neill, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 10. John Engstrom, interview with Peter DeCioccio, January 2004. 11. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 177, 179; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 43; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 30. 12. Ray Melheim, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. 13. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 16; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 182; ‘‘Joseph F. Mortimer,’’ American Battle Monuments Commission, www.abmc.Gov/search/detailwwnew.php. 14. Eugene Schoendienst, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 15. Steve Dombrowski, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 16. James Yetter and Eugene Schoendienst, interviews with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 16. 17. John H. Mitchell, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 18. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 182. 19. Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 173. 20. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 44; Corwin Berry, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 21. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 19. 22. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 73.

NOTES TO PAGES 206–15

279

23. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 17; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 45; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 183. 24. Lee Kunce, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 25. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 183; Eugene Schoendienst, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 26. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 183–84. 27. Clair Bahrenfuse, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2001. 28. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 46; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 185; Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation, 257. 29. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 73–75. 30. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 18–19; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 185. 31. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 19. 32. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 19; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 75; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 185. 33. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 185–86. 34. Eugene Schoendienst, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005. 35. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 566. 36. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 48; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 186. 37. George Rasula, e-mail message to Peter DeCioccio, August 31, 2000. 38. Roy Bergeron, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 39. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 20. 40. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 48–49; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 32; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 187–88. 41. ‘‘Central Pacific Operations Record,’’ vol. 2, as cited in Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 261. 42. Major General Paul J. Mueller, letter to Director, Marine Corps History Center, dated August 9, 1950, Enclosure, 2nd Lieutenant James J. Wickel, US Army, interrogation of Colonel Tokechi Tada, Imperial Japanese Army, dated May 24, 1947, as cited in Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 263. 43. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 49; James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 44. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 188–90. 45. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 50; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21. 46. Eugene Schoendienst, interview with Bobby C. Blair, October 15, 2005.

280

NOTES TO PAGES 215–20

47. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21. 48. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 50; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 189. 49. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 189; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 261; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 79; ‘‘15 September 1944-Peleliu, Palau Islands: first LCI(M) combat use,’’ History of the 4.2& Chemical Mortar,’’ www.4point2.org/mortar42.htm; William J. Huber (compiler), ‘‘The 111th Infantry Regiment in World War II,’’ www.rootsweb.com/≈utsaltla/111thInf/Research/111theWWII.html. 50. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report,’’ 79; ‘‘Dick Arnold’s Peleliu Memories,’’ http://home.sprynet.com/≈kier/arnold.htm. 51. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 21; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 50; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 189. 52. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 22; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 20. 53. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 22; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 52; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 20. 54. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 80; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 52; ‘‘Unit History 321st Infantry Regiment,’’ 33; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 189–90. 55. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 52; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 22. 56. ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 21. 57. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 22–25. 58. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 190–191; Patrick J. Scannon, ‘‘The BentProp Project, P-MAN III-4, ‘‘Ngeregong/Scullins/Smith/ TBM-1c,’’ www.bentprop.org/pm3/pmiii04.htm. 59. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 190; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 81, 155. 60. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 81; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 53. 61. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 83. Note: On November 12, 2001, Patrick J. Scannon and the P-MAN III team discovered debris fields for the TBM-1C on the reef south of Ngeregong. The plane crashed into the reef after a low altitude bombing run and was utterly destroyed, strewing debris over the area. Scannon listed the crew for that plane as being Major Harry V. Scullin, Sergeant Bertrand L. Smith, and Corporal Matt L. Miller. The remains of Matt L. Miller were recovered on November 12, 1944, and buried on Peleliu, but the remains of the other two men were never recovered. A discussion of this event can be found in Patrick J. Scannon, ‘‘The BentProp Project, P-MAN III-4, ‘‘Ngeregong/Scullins/Smith/TBM-1c,’’ www.bentprop .org/pm3/pmiii04.htm; additional information obtained from an e-mail message from Patrick J. Scannon to Bobby C. Blair, May 10, 2005. 62. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 83; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 190–91. 63. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 23.

NOTES TO PAGES 220–29

281

64. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 23–24; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 85; ‘‘Operation Report Stalemate II,’’ 21; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 191. 65. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 85; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 24; ‘‘Armor in Angaur-Peleliu Campaign,’’ 102; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 193–94. 66. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 24; ‘‘Armor in AngaurPeleliu Campaign,’’ 100–102; Benton Maxwell, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 1999. 67. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 24–25; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 85–87; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 194. 68. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 25. 69. James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 70. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 87–89, 157–59; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 56–57. 71. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 56; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 194. 72. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 89, 157–60; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 194. 73. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 25–26; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 89; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 194–95. 74. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 25–26; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 195. 75. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 26; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 91. 76. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 91. 77. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 26. 78. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 197–98; ‘‘Raymond S. Gates,’’ American Battle Monuments Commission, www.abmc.gov/search/ detailwwnew.php. 79. Steve Dombrowski, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 80. James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 81. Steve Dombrowski, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. 82. ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 58; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 26–27. 83. James Ijames, interview with Bobby C. Blair, December 22, 2007. 84. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 27; James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 85. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 27; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 59. 86. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 27; ‘‘321st Infantry Regiment Operation Report,’’ 59; James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 87. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 27. 88. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 27; James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000.

282

NOTES TO PAGES 229–43

89. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 28; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 195. 90. James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 91. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 28. 92. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 93; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 28; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 198. 93. John Hirsch, letter to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 1999. 94. Robert Voss, interview with Peter DeCioccio. 95. John Hirsch, letter to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 1999. 96. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 93. 97. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 198; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 28–29. 98. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 93; John A. Wick, interview with Bobby C. Blair. 99. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 29; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 198–99. 100. James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 101. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 29; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 198. 102. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 29; ‘‘History of the 306th Engineer Combat Battalion,’’ 23–30; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 199. 103. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 29. 104. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 30; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 95–97; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 199. 105. James Ijames, interview with Peter DeCioccio, November 30, 2000. 106. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 199. 107. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 97; ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 30–31; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 200. 108. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 31; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 97. 109. ‘‘Unit History 323rd Infantry Regiment,’’ 31; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 97; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 200. 110. ‘‘CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 193, NOVEMBER 30, 1944,’’ www.ibibliw.org/pha/comms/1944–11.html. 111. ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 101, 109. 112. Jerry Proc, Editor, ‘‘LORAN-A,’’ http://webhome.idirect.com/ ≈jproc/hyperbolic/loranea.html. 113. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 202–18. 114. Don Klotz, On Hell’s Perimeters, 201. 115. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 214–18. 116. Robert G. Hoog, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 2001. 117. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 214–18.

NOTES TO PAGES 243–55

283

118. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 232–33. 119. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 200–201. 120. A discussion of this event can be found in Heatley, Breathes There A Soldier, 297–99; Gailey, Peleliu 1944, 183–84; Hallas, The Devil’s Anvil, 278–279; Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation, 257; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 200–201. 121. Stanton, World War II Order of Battle, 217; Huber, ed., ‘‘The 111th Infantry in World War II,’’ www.rootsweb.com/≈utsaltla/111thInf/Research/ 111theWWII.html; ‘‘History of the 819th Tank Destroyer Battalion,’’ www .fortunecity.com/boozers/lansdowne/235/page3.html, 3; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 232. 122. ‘‘History of the 819th Tank Destroyer Battalion,’’ www.fortune city.com/boozers/lansdowne/235/page3.html, 3. 123. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 232. 124. Total obtained by adding casualty figures from: ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 112; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 109. 125. Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 183. 126. Lloyd Kestin, interview with Peter DeCioccio, October 2002. Ω. AFTER THE BATTLES 1. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 238–45. 2. John A. Wick, interview with Bobby C. Blair. 3. Herrschaft and Leonardini, ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945,’’ 5. 4. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 238–45. 5. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 237–74; Frank, Downfall, 33. 6. Handwritten note by Kenneth Andersen; Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 275; Toland, The Rising Sun, 1003–10. 7. Mitchell, World War II Plus Fifty, unpublished manuscript. 8. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 275–79. 9. Stanton, World War II Order of Battle, 300. 10. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 279. 11. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 283–307. 12. Mueller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, viii, 283–307; Gayle, Bloody Beaches, 2; United States Department of Veteran Affairs, ‘‘Nationwide Grave Locator,’’ http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/nglev1. EPILOGUE 1. Ernie Pyle, Last Chapter, 138–39. 2. Casualty figures are derived from: Meuller, 81st Infantry Wildcat Division, 132–33, 200; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, 530, 573; Garand and Strobridge, Western Pacific Operations, 284–85; Hough, Assault on Peleliu, 183; ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Peleliu), 101, 109, ‘‘81st Infantry Division Operation Report’’ (Angaur), 69, 112.

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PERSONAL LETTERS AND QUESTIONNAIRES Abreu, Joseph, Company C, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Peter DeCioccio, March 9, 2000. Allen, Henry S., Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Bobby C. Blair, August 13, 1999. Axelson, Keith, Company K, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letters to Peter DeCioccio, September 23, 1999; December 15, 1999; February 16, 2000. Bahrenfuse, Clair, 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, January 22, 2001. ———, letter to Peter DeCioccio, March 25, 2004. Berry, Corwin, Company I, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, August 14, 1999. Brackett, Edward F., Company H, 321st Infantry, 81st Infantry Division, map in Peter DeCioccio’s files. ———, letter and questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 6, 1999. ———, letter in Peter DeCioccio’s files, June 11, 1998. Brown, Nolton, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter and questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 1999. Chieffo, Albert, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 2001. Clift, Wendall R., Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letters to Bobby C. Blair, July 21, 2004, May 5, 2005. Climie, Thomas G., Service Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letters to Bobby C. Blair, June 6, 2001, July 8, 2007.

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Collins, Ed, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, January 29, 1999. Crochet, Robert, Company M, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, October 16, 1999. Deihl, Ray O., Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, July 16, 1999. Dombrowski, Steve, Company C, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Bobby C. Blair, January 24, 2005. Downing, Ted, letter to Peter DeCioccio, 2001. Edwards, Isaac, Company C, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, August 19, 1999. Entrican, Robert F., Company C, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter in Peter DeCioccio’s files, September 22, 1998. ———, letter and questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, June 23, 2000. Fitzgerald, James, Company E, 322nd Regiment, 81st Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. Frazer, Ed, Headquarters Battery, 317th Field Artillery Battery, 81st Division Artillery, letter to Bobby C. Blair, August 16, 2004. Hadfield, Ross, 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, December 18, 1999. Hirsch, John, Company F, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 1999. Hoog, Robert G., Company I, 321st Regiment, 81st Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, 2001. Ijames, James R., Company C, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Bobby C. Blair, January 30, 2005. Kessinger, Madie A., letter to Peter DeCioccio, June 2, 2001. Laba, John, Company C, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. Lamson, James, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, February 11, 1999. Melheim, Ray, Service Battery, 316th Field Artillery Battery, 81st Division Artillery, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. Monde, Pat, Company C, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Bobby C. Blair, December 7, 1998. Neill, Bert, Company I, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, November 13, 2000. Rasula, George A., Company G, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, e-mail messages to Peter DeCioccio, August 29, 2000; August 31, 2000; September 6, 2000; September 8, 2000; January 17, 2001; October 31, 2002. ———, e-mail message to Bobby C. Blair, January 22, 2006; September 19, 2006. Saunders, Edward H., Antitank Company, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. Sheffield, Clay, Antitank Platoon, Headquarters Company, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. Smith, Richard Neal, Company B, 306th Medical Battalion, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Bobby C. Blair, February 11, 1999.

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———. Questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio. Somma, William, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter and questionnaire returned to Peter DeCioccio, October 30, 1999. Spielmann, John, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, letter to Bobby C. Blair, September 8, 1999; September 21, 1999; November 1, 1999; March 11, 2002. Letter in files of Bobby C. Blair, August 12, 1999. INTERVIEWS BY THE AUTHORS Abney, James, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, 2001. Abreu, Joseph, Company C, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, 2000. Andersen, Kenneth, Company L, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2001. Bahrenfuse, Clair, 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, 81st Infantry Division, October 2001. Bergeron, Roy, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2002. Berry, Corwin, Company I, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2001. Brown, Elzie, Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2000. Brown, Nolton, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2000. Carrillo, Saquanna, daughter of Thomas R. Garrie, 317th Field Artillery, October 1999. Collins, Ed, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 1999. Crochet, Robert, Company M, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2000. Dantin, Clifton, Antitank Company, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2001 and October 15, 2005. Deihl, Ray O., Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, August 11, 1999. Dombrowski, Steve, Company C, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2002. Engstrom, John, Company K, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2000, January 2004. Entrican, Robert F., Company C, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division. Fitzpatrick, James, Company B, 321st Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, September 1, 1999, and 2000. Frazer, Ed, Headquarters Battery, 317th Field Artillery Battery, 81st Division Artillery. Garrie, Ronald, son of Thomas R. Garrie, 317th Field Artillery, October 1999. Giannini, Louis, Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 322nd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2000. Green, James, Company C, 323rd Regiment, 81st Infantry Division, October 2000.

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Gilbert Lindloff, Company A, 710th Tank Battalion, attached to 81st Infantry Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. 9 vols. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1959–1991. Herrschaft and Leonardini. ‘‘Company ‘L’, 322nd Infantry, 21 June 1944 to 9 September 1945.’’ Unpublished MS, typewritten, in personal library of Bobby C. Blair, submitted by Kenneth Andersen of Company L, 322nd Infantry, 81st Infantry Division.

Index

Abney, Jesse, 157 Abreu, Joe, 116–17 Air support: at Angaur, 37, 41, 43, 50; at Angaur Bowl, 69, 71; friendly-fire incidents, 53–54, 262n11; interservice rivalry, 27; invasion planning for bases, 13, 24, 26–27; Japanese capability destroyed, 25; Japanese defenses, 38; Japanese resupply, 206, 207; landing strips, 56–57, 68, 82–83, 85, 117, 187; at Ngeregong Island, 216, 218; at Peleliu, 163, 205, 207, 212; plane crashes, 218, 219, 280n61; pre-invasion bombardment, 13, 15, 21–22; supply and medical evacuation, 157; at Ulithi Atoll, 80, 239–40; use of napalm, 182–83, 186–87, 192, 206–207 Almeida Island, 163 Amato, Joseph, 49 American Red Cross, 246 Amphibian tanks/amphtanks (LVTAIs), 34, 162 Amphibious operations assault forces mission, 160–61; feigned landing as diversion, 30; Japanese strategy against, 19; organization

and combat support, 257n11, 260n11; Pacific Theater strategy, 23–28; practice landings, 21, 247; stateside training, 6; training at Hawaii, 7–8. See also Siege tactics Andersen, Kenneth, 53, 59, 104, 105–106, 249 Angaur Bowl: 322nd attack at, 67– 73, 87–93; assault on ‘‘The Island,’’ 95–97; attack through ‘‘Bloody Gulch,’’ 93–95; capture of, 97–101; Japanese withdrawal to, 86. See also ‘‘Bloody Gulch’’; ‘‘Suicide Hill’’ Angaur Island: 81st Division landing, 12, 30–32, 259n53; as 81st Division objective, 8, 20–21; 81st Division occupation, 86–87; airstrip construction, 117; casualties, 117–18; fukkaku defensive positions, 20, 119, 122, 254; invasion planning, 7; Japanese defenses and strategy, 9, 18–20, 38– 39, 86–87; location and description, 16–18; as military objective, 11–13, 23–30; pre-invasion bombardment, 21–23; siege strategy, 105, 109–110. See also Blue 297

298

INDEX

Angaur Island (cont.) Beach; Fox Day; Red Beach; Romauldo Hill Arazmus, Charles, 180–81 Arlington National Cemetery, 252 Asor Island, 77, 79–81, 83 Atomic bomb, 248–50 Axelson, Keith, 47, 57–58 Babelthuap (Palau Island ): attack planning, 11–12; feigned assault on, 30; Japanese infiltration from, 204–205; Japanese presence on, 159–60, 163; Japanese reinforcements from, 122, 124, 147, 243; naval bombardment, 21–22 Bahrenfuse, Clair, 181, 207 Banzai charge: Japanese policy toward, 19–20, 48, 119–21; Japanese use of, 50, 90, 214; nighttime fighting, 49; U.S. defense against, 110–11 Battlefield promotions, 247, 254. See also Medals and awards Battle of Cape Gloucester, 20 Beasley, Rex, 242 Bell, Marcus B., 8, 61, 66, 161, 197, 237, 239–40, 242 Belt (Lieutenant), 70 Bergeron, Roy J., 35, 50, 158, 176, 186, 213 Berry, Corwin, xv, 137, 193 Black Beach, 16, 63, 68–69, 87–93, 96–98, 103–105, 111–12, 115 Blair, Samuel Sylvester (‘‘Buddy’’), xi, 157–58 Blandy, William H. P., 13, 31, 73–80, 87, 123 ‘‘Bloody Gulch,’’ 70, 87–91, 93–98, 101, 103, 110. See also Angaur Bowl Bloody Nose Ridge, 120–21, 123, 127, 130, 141, 159, 176, 185, 210 Blue Beach (Angaur Island): Japanese counterattack, 49–51; landing assaults, 34–35; location and description, 16; troop landing and advances, 36–40, 42–46, 54–56. See also Fox Day; Red Beach

Blunt, Philip, 179 Brackett, Ed, 124, 147, 169 Bratton (medic), 100 Brown, Elzie, 103, 111 Brown, Joey, 204 Brown, Nolton, 38, 147, 150, 174, 177, 178–79, 191 Browning, Carl, 225–26 Brunneman (Sergeant), 100 Buckner, Simon Bolivar, Jr., 245 Burials, 68, 106, 244, 252. See also Graves registration Burke, John H., 218 Burny (322nd soldier), 98 Camp Anza, Calif., 250 Camp Beale, Calif., 6–7 Campbell, Harold D., 163 Camp Hadsell, New Caledonia, 246 Camp Heeia, Hawaii, 4 Camp Kahuka, Hawaii, 4 Camp Ritchie, New Caledonia, 246 Camp Rucker, Ala., 5–6 Camp San Luis Obispo, Calif., 6 Camp Stevens, New Caledonia, 246–47 Camp Stoneman, Calif., 7 Cape Ngariois (Angaur), 35, 46, 54, 56, 108 Cape Ngatpokul (Angaur), 35, 45, 54, 56 Cape Pkul A Mlagalp (Angaur), 39, 45 Carlson, Frank H., 241 Carlson Island, 149, 163, 200 Caroline Islands campaign, 13, 15, 25, 75–77, 87 Cash (323rd soldier), 227–28 Casualties, Japanese: at Angaur Island, 65, 93, 117–18; disposal of corpses, 160, 196; naval bombardment, 22; Palau Islands campaign, 255; on Peleliu, 122, 149, 152, 187, 198, 211, 236–37 Casualties, U.S.: 1st Marines, 29, 31, 152, 164, 255; 1st Marines at Peleliu, 120–22, 158–59, 255; 81st at Angaur, 255, 267n21; 81st at Peleliu, 66, 129, 135, 145, 152, 198,

INDEX

255; 81st at the Pocket, 187, 211, 237; at Angaur, 39, 54–55, 70–71; at Angaur Bowl, 87, 91, 97–98; bodies decomposing, 58, 157, 164, 174, 196; expectations for Palau Islands, 11, 23, 27, 255; from friendly fire, 54–56, 262n11; Iwo Jima, 118; Japanese strategy toward, 19, 103, 106, 122; medics as, 106; at Peleliu, 158; personal recollections of, 57–58, 72, 231; at Romauldo Hill, 104, 113, 117–18; Tarawa, 23 Cave-clearing operations: 81st Division handling of, 254; bulldozers, 185; napalm strikes, 182–83; sealing tactics, 71, 94, 114, 115, 157. See also Flamethrowers; Satchel charges Ceballos (Lieutenant), 174 Ceballos (‘‘Poncho,’’ Lieutenant), 204, 225–26, 229 Chemical warfare, 154 Chieffo, Albert, 125, 183 China Wall, 192–96, 207–10, 217– 26, 230, 232–36 Churchill, Winston, 29 CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 193, 236–37 Clainos, Peter D., 67, 138, 146, 168, 171–73, 176, 182, 188–90, 198 Climie, Thomas G., 155–56, 192 Cofone (lieutenant), 202 Colby, Lawrence E., 232 Collins, Ed, 33 Cooley, James (‘‘Cougar Boy’’), 114– 15 Cordoray Island, 162 Courtemanche, Harry D., 173 Crochet, Robert, 49 Crowder (322nd soldier), 98 Cutshall, Leonard L., 40 D Day (Peleliu, September 15), 119 D+1 to +3, 119–20 D+4, 120–21 D+6, 121–24 D+7 to +8, 124–28

299

D+9, 128–33 D+10, 133–36 D+11, 136–40 D+12, 140–43 D+13, 144–46 D+14, 146–49 D+15, 149–52 D+16 to +17, 152–55 D+18 to +19, 155–58 D+20 to +25, 158–63 D+26 to +29, 163–67 D+30 to +32, 168–78 D+33 to +34, 178–84 D+35 to +36, 184–92 D+37 to +40, 192–99 D+41 to +45, 200–207 D+46 to +49, 207–14 D+50 to +55, 214–18 D+56 to +60, 218–23 D+61 to +65, 223–28 D+66 to +69, 228–33 D+70 to +72, 233–36 D+73 (November 27), 236–37 Dahms, Howard, 181 Dantin, Clifton, 35, 168, 179, 180, 192, 196 Dark, Robert F., 37, 45–46, 50, 57, 61–62, 90, 140, 161, 165, 169, 200, 211 Darling, Robert F., 163 Darnell, Carl, Jr., 203 DDT (insecticide), 157, 174 Deakin, Harold O., 159 Death Valley, 206–209, 213, 216–17, 220–25, 228–31, 234, 236 DeCioccio, Rocco, 42 Decker, Willis B., 240 Deerinwater, Lloyd E., 131, 168–69, 180 Deihl, Ray, 125 Dewey, Thomas, 29 Disease. See Medical care Dombrowski, Steve, 81, 170, 173– 74, 185, 204, 225–27 Dosier, Richard H., 88 Downing, Hershel A., 201 Dunn, Ray A., 244 DUKWs, 149, 155, 223, 240

300

INDEX

Early, Stephen, 29 Eichelberger, Robert L., 248 Engstrom, John, 130, 141–42, 203 Entrican, Robert F., 22 Evans, Lester J., 39, 148, 198, 211 Fais Island, 237–42 Falalop Island, 77, 83, 85 Fields, Lewis, 123 Fitzgerald, James, 98, 100 Fitzpatrick, James, 185 Flamethrowers: 81st Division use of, 254; armored/track-mounted, 130, 135–39, 166, 215, 221, 228– 35, 271n27; cave-clearing operations, 61, 96, 145, 173, 177–79, 191, 193, 196–97, 224–25, 254; use and tactics, 38–39, 43, 71, 88– 89, 105–107, 143, 225 Foerster, Leroy W., 227 Formosa, 3–4, 28 Forsman, Hugh K., 209 Forsyth, Andrew, 252 Fort, George H., 74–75, 123, 164–65 Forte, Andrew J., 141 Fort Hase, Hawaii, 4, 7 Fort Jackson, S.C., 4–5 Fox Day (Angaur, September 17): assault codename, 12; beach landings, 33–36; bombardment, preinvasion, 33; inland advances, 36– 37; Japanese defenses, 38–39; Japanese resistance, 39–42; position consolidation, 42–48. See also Angaur Island; Blue Beach; Red Beach Fox+2: 81st Cavalry actions, 56; 321st actions, 51–57, 61–63; 322nd actions, 59–61, 63–65; 710th Tank actions, 57–59; issuance of orders for, 51 Fox+3: 306th Medical support, 72; 317th/318th Field Artillery actions, 69; 321st actions, 66–68; 322nd actions, 65–66, 68–73; 1884th/1887th Engineer construction, 68 Fox+5, 87–88

Fox+10, 97–98 Fox+11, 98 Fox+12, 98–101 Fox+13, 102–103 Fox+14, 103–104 Fox+15, 104–106 Fox+16, 106–107 Fox+18, 107–108 Fox+19, 108–109 Fox+20, 109–10 Fox+21, 110 Fox+22, 110–12 Fox+24, 112–13 Fox+26, 113 Fox+27, 113–14 Fox+28, 114 Fox+29, 114–15 Fox+30, 115 Fox+31, 115 Fox+32, 115–17 Fox+36 (October 23), 117 Frazer, Ed, 31 Friendly-fire incidents, 54–56, 262n11 Frogmen. See USN Underwater Demolition Team 10 Fukkaku defensive tactics, 20, 119, 122, 254 Garakayo Island, 159–63, 166, 201 Garrie, Thomas R., 56 Gates, Raymond S., 225–26 Geiger, Roy S., 11, 15, 21, 31, 56–57, 73, 121–24, 158–60, 164–65, 169, 184 General Order No. 10, 252 Georgolis (322nd medic), 58 Goddard, Paul, 238–39 Gorokottan Island, 218–19, 223 Goto, Ushio, 18–20, 117. See also Japanese Imperial Army Graves registration, 106, 196–97, 201, 230, 258n12. See also Burials Graves (sergeant), 100 Green Beaches (Angaur), 36–37, 58– 59, 61–63, 67, 109 Green, James T., 170 Greenland, Walter, 49

INDEX

Guadalcanal Island, 20–22, 119, 184, 242 Guam: battle for, 3, 12, 22, 42 Hadfield, Ross, 66, 200–201 Hall, James L., 234 Hall, Paul L., 225 Halsey (lieutenant), 166, 202 Halsey, William (‘‘Bull’’): invasion planning, 23–29; recollections of battles, 86; as Third Fleet commander, 11, 15, 74, 258n22; tour of Angaur, 104; tour of Peleliu, 75, 153–54 Hankins, Joseph F., 155–56 Harris, Harold D., 121, 136, 159, 164, 255 Havlick (lieutenant), 202 Hawaii: 81st Division arrival, 7; 81st Division shipping out, 8, 20; Pacific Theater planning at, 3–4 Hayler, R. W., 77–79 Heller, Irving, 93 Hess, Charles R., 35 Hesselbarth, Otto, 181 Higgins boats (LVCPs), 35, 40, 80 Hill 100, 131–34, 136, 138, 140, 271n28 Hill 140, 165–66, 168, 171, 174, 190 Hill 300. See Bloody Nose Ridge Hill B, 134–41, 143, 145, 193 Hiroshima, bombing of, 248–50 Hirsch, John, 80, 231 Hodge, John R., 11, 15 Holsinger (lieutenant), 101 Hoog, Robert G., 241 Hoover, John H., 164, 166, 238, 239 Hough, Frank O., 122 Hurst, E. Hunter, 129–30, 156 Hyder, Ariz., 6 Ijames, James Robert, 174–75, 214, 222, 226–30, 233, 235 Inoue, Sadae, 19, 82, 124, 214, 216 Irby (captain), 151 Isabel (corporal), 200 Iwo Jima, 8

301

Japan: Allied surrender demands, 19, 28; dropping of atomic bomb, 248–50; 81st Division invasion role, 248; 81st Division occupation duties, 250–52; MacArthur and military government, 252; Operation Olympic, 248 Japanese Imperial Army: 14th Division Angaur defenses and strategy, 18–20; Angaur resistance, 68–73, 90–97, 104, 108, 115–17; beach landing defenses, 35–36, 41–42; withdrawal to Romauldo Hill, 48– 49, 51–53, 86 Japanese tactics banzai charges: 19– 20, 48, 50, 90, 110–11, 119–21; beach landing defense, 19; camouflage, 9, 38, 64, 139, 263n19; nighttime fighting, 48–49; U.S. handling of, 254. See also Snipers Johnson, ‘‘Cannonball,’’ 228 Jones, Arthur E., 131 Jones (captain), 181 Jones, T. D., 130 Joyce, Robert, 222 June (colonel), 240 Jungle training, 7, 247 Kayangel Atoll, 237, 238–39 Keller (lieutenant), 156 Kessing, O. O., 83–84 Kestin, Lloyd, 151, 191 King, Ernest J., 3–4 Kinkaid, Thomas C., 24 Kongauru Island, 147, 149, 152, 160 Korean laborers, 135, 148–49, 154, 198, 237 Koror: Japanese headquarters, 18– 19; Japanese reinforcements from, 122, 124, 160, 163; naval bombardment of, 21–22 Kossol Passage, 21, 25–26, 238–39 Kunce, Lee, 83, 183 Lake Aztec, 16, 45, 60, 64, 93, 110 Lamson, James, 125, 157 LCI (landing craft, infantry), 34, 36, 51, 58, 78, 80, 84, 160, 215–16, 223, 237–38, 240, 242

302

INDEX

LCI(M)s (landing craft, infantry[mortar]), 69, 215, 243 League of Nations, 9 Leahy, William D., 4, 27–28 Lee (Sergeant), 100 Letjegol Island, 84–85 Leyte/Luzon. See Philippines Lightsey (Captain), 70, 100 Lindloff, Gilbert, 62, 145, 156, 158, 170, 173, 180, 185, 186 Lopes, George, 181 LORAN station at Pulo Anna, 237– 38 LSD (landing ship, dock), 78 LST (landing ship, tank), 20–21, 30– 31, 33–34, 78, 90, 124, 156, 237, 240 Luttrell, Oscar D., 84–85, 213 LVCPs (Higgins boats), 35, 40, 80 LVT(4)s (landing vehicle, tracked), 271n27 LVT(A)Is (amphibian tanks/amphtanks), 34, 162 MacArthur, Douglas: Operation Stalemate II cancellation, 24–28; as Pacific Theater commander, 28– 29; planning Pacific operations, 3–4; return to the Philippines, 117, 187. See also Philippines Mahoru (king, Fais Island), 241, 242 Mariana Islands, 3, 25 Marshall, George C., 28 Marter, Walter J., 179 Mason, Walter B., 178 Maxwell, Benton, 182, 191 McFadden, J. F., 240 McKee (lieutenant), 188 Medals and awards: ceremonies for, 247, 254; Distinguished Service Cross, 176; Medal of Honor, 153; nominations for, 117; Purple Heart, 158, 191; Silver Star, 102, 150, 153, 271n26 Medical care: corpsmen and medics, 227; hospitals and aid stations, 58, 68, 158, 175, 190, 202, 211, 258n11; Japanese soldiers, 235;

native population, 110–11; noncombat injuries and disease, 17, 117, 157, 206, 237; POW, 103– 104. See also Sanitation Melheim, Ray, 106, 110, 203 Memphis, Tenn., 251 Meseran Island, 85 Meuse-Argonne Offensive (1918), 4– 5 Meyer (captain), 180 Middle Village (Angaur), 16–17, 54, 56, 59, 61 Miller, Matt L., 280n61 Miller, Nathan, 86 Milwaukee Railroad, 17, 60, 64, 87, 93–95 Mindanao. See Philippines Mitchell, John, 194–95 Mitchell, Norman L., 207 Mogmog Island, 77–81 Moorman, Wallace B., 154 Morotai invasion, 4, 11, 27 Mortimer, Joseph F., 203 Mortimer Valley (‘‘Stinky Valley’’), 176, 179–88, 191–96, 199, 205– 206, 209, 215, 228 Mueller, Paul J.: arrival in Hawaii, 7–8; arrival in New Caledonia, 242; command decisions, 197, 205, 218–19, 223, 230, 234, 236; command organization, 184; interservice rivalry, 183–84; invasion planning, 11–12; leadership of, 254; orders following Peleliu, 244, 247; retirement and death, 252 Murai, Kenjiro, 214, 235 Murphy, William, 135, 141–42 Murphy Island, 163, 164 Nakagawa, Kunio, 18–20 Neal, George C., 137–38 Neill, Bert, 137, 202–203 Nemoto (captain), 235 New Caledonia, 242, 245–47 Ngabad Island, 148–48, 151, 155, 163, 200, 214 Ngargersiul Island, 200, 219

INDEX

Ngeregong Island, 215–19, 222–23, 280n61 Ngesebus Island, 11, 143, 146–47 Ngulu Atoll, 84–85 Nicholson (lieutenant), 98 Nicklas, Brooks, 41, 70, 100, 111, 114–15 Niethe, Merle, 148–49 Nimitz, Chester W.: Operation Stalemate II cancellation, 23–24; Pacific operations planning, 3–4; as Pacific Theater commander, 28– 29; Palau assault plans, 9–11 Norman, Albert, 241 Northern Railroad, 18, 53 Oahu. See Hawaii Octagon Conference (Quebec, 1944), 29 Okinawa: invasion planning, 82; Japanese defenses, 19, 87; marines at, 8, 253; reassignment of 81st Division, 245; Tenth Army invasion of, 247 Oldendorf, Jesse B., 21 Operation Olympic, 248 Operation Stalemate, 9–11 Operation Stalemate II: attack phase on Peleliu, 119–24; attack planning, 11–15; goals, 24–26; official end of assault phase, 166–67; proposed cancellation, 23–30; relief of 1st Marines by 81st, 164–67, 255; Ulithi Atoll as objective, 74, 77. See also Angaur Island Overton Zoo (Memphis), 251 Pacific Railroad, 18, 40, 53–55, 64 Pacific Theater: 81st assignment to, 4, 6; 81st inactivation, 252; Caroline Islands campaign, 13, 15, 25, 75–77, 87; CINCPAC COMMUNIQUÉ NO. 193, 236–37; MacArthur as supreme commander, 28–29; Operation Stalemate II cancellation, 23–30; operations planning, 3–4; Philippines as major objective, 23

303

Palau Islands: command structure, 15; invasion planning, 4, 8–12; location and strategic importance of, 15–16; Operation Stalemate, 9–11; Operation Stalemate II, 11. See also Angaur Island; Peleliu ‘‘Palaus Sector Group Training for Victory,’’ 19–20, 48, 119 Palomas Hill (Lighthouse Hill), 17, 60–66, 93–94 Pavuvu Island, 20, 123, 155, 271n27 Pearl Harbor, 5. See also Hawaii Peleliu: 1st Marine beach landings, 12, 30–32; 1st Marine difficulties and losses, 73, 119–22; Japanese defenses and strategy, 9, 18–20, 119, 122; Japanese reinforcements, 124, 243; as military objective, 11–13, 20–21, 23–30; preinvasion bombardment, 21–23. See also Bloody Nose Ridge; D Day; Hill 100; Hill 140; Hill B; Umurbrogol Pocket; USMC 1st Marine Division Peleliu, 81st Division at: 321st assignment to, 87, 90; 321st landing and relief of 1st Marines, 124–28; 321st operations, 128–33; 321st relief of 5th Marines, 165–70; 323rd arrival, 170, 187; assault on Garakayo Island, 159–61; assault on Hill B, 133–40; assault on Radar Hill, 149–50, 152–53; assaults beyond Hill B, 141–46; establishment of Division HQ, 183– 84, 204–205; termination of battle, 236–37. See also Umurbrogol Pocket Pennsylvania National Guard, 243 Pershing, John J., 5 Personal hygiene. See Sanitation Philippines: 81st assignment to, 247–50; beginning of invasion, 187; Leyte invasion, 3–4, 23–26, 28–29, 74, 79, 117, 247–51; Luzon invasion, 3–4, 28; MacArthur return to, 117; Mindanao invasion, 3–4, 23–26

304

INDEX

Pilliod, Dallas A., 130, 141, 198, 271n26 ‘‘Pocket, The.’’ See Umurbrogol Pocket Poison gas, 154 Potangeras Island, 77, 80–81 Potsdam Proclamation, 248 Prehm, John, 180–81 Prisoners of war: on Fais Island, 241; Japanese infiltrators, 160, 199, 243; Japanese soldiers, 64–65, 214, 220, 233, 235; Korean laborers, 154, 237; natives as, 103–104; on Peleliu, 141, 148–49, 187, 198, 236–37. See also Surrender Pryor (322nd soldier), 98 Puller, Lewis B. (‘‘Chesty’’), 57, 121– 23 Pulo Anna Island, 237–38 Pyle, Ernie, 253 Radtke (sergeant), 98 Randolph, Thomas E., 204 Ranger training, 6 Rasula, George A., 43–46, 124, 139, 146–47, 160, 163, 168–69, 188, 190–91, 202, 212–13 Red Beach (Angaur Island): landing 81st Division HQ, 51; landing assaults, 34–35, 39–40; landing site selection, 13; location and description, 16–18; troop landing and advances, 41–43, 45, 56–59, 64. See also Blue Beach; Fox Day Red Cross hostesses, 246 Reeves, John W., 184, 218, 230, 237 Regimental combat teams (RCT), 257n11, 260n11. See also USA 321st Regiment; USA 322nd Regiment; USA 323rd Regiment Reinke, Richard D., 196 Reynolds, Glenn R., 142 Rhodes, Jett R., 176 Rich (322nd soldier), 98 Rocky Point (Angaur), 17–18, 36– 38, 41–43, 49–51, 54–58 Rodriguez (321st soldier), 185–86 Romauldo Hill (Angaur): 322nd ac-

tions, 60–66; advance toward, 102–107; artillery support and tactics, 108–109; assault continuation on, 111–13; capture and mopping up operations, 116–17; cave-clearing operations, 113–14; Japanese defenses, 20, 41; Japanese withdrawal to, 86–87; surrender and care of natives, 110–11 Romero (323rd soldier), 226 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 3–4, 27, 28–29, 247 Rottogorn Island, 84 Rupertus, William H.: attitude toward 81st Division, 21, 129–30, 146, 160, 164; command of 1st Marines, 11, 20; command of 321st Regiment, 87, 123–24; departure from Peleliu, 184–85; fitness for command, 159, 164, 170; tactics at Peleliu, 121 Ryder, Charles W., 252 Safstrom, Allen I., 137 Saiji Hasegawa, 248 Saipan, battle for, 3, 6, 9, 19, 82, 157 Saipan Town: as army objective, 13, 16, 18; capture of, 59, 61, 64, 69; military advance on, 51, 54, 56 Sanitation: disposal of corpses, 160, 196; flies and decomposing bodies, 58, 157, 164, 174; hygiene training, 248; multiple uses of the helmet, 229, 249; personal hygiene, 157, 206, 214. See also Medical care Satchel charges, use and tactics, 38– 39, 69, 96, 105–107, 188, 225, 227 Saunders, Edward H., 183 Scannon, Patrick J., 280n61 Schechet, Manuel M., 87 Schiffman, Benjamin E., 243 Schoendienst, Eugene, 81, 203, 206– 207, 210–11, 215 Schofield Barracks (Hawaii), 7 Scullin, Harry V., 280n61 Seitz, Frank C., 190 Sell, Alfred C., 232

INDEX

Shaw, Lauren L., Jr., 90, 214 Sheffield, Clay, 71 Sherman, William E., 88 Sherry, William E., 153 Shipley, Chester W., 142 Short (sergeant), 188–90 Shrine Hill, 60–61, 63 Siege tactics: amphibious warfare and, 28, 105; at Angaur, 109–10; at Peleliu, 120–21, 164, 197–98, 254 Singer, Harry G., 136 Sistrunk (corporal), 200, 201 Smith (sergeant, 323rd), 233 Smith (sergeant), 233–34 Smith, Bertrand L., 280n61 Smith, Holland M. (‘‘Howling Mad’’), 6, 23 Smith, Jack, 171, 171–73 Smith, Julian C., 11–13, 15, 74, 82, 121–22, 198 Smith, Oliver, 183–84, 205 Smith, Richard Neal, 72, 106 Snipers: cave-clearing operations, 138; flamethrower use against, 182; Japanese use of, 41–43, 56, 59, 100–104, 146, 191, 230; marine losses from, 164; sandbag emplacements as defense, 195; shooting to wound, 106; supply columns as targets, 136, 148, 155– 56; targeting of officers and leaders, 185–86, 203–204, 225– 26; U.S. use of, 105, 106, 110–11, 115 Soblick, Herman, 88, 98 Solnosky, Louis, 141 Somma, William, 33, 50, 124, 174, 185–86 Sorlen Island, 77–81 Southern Railroad, 17–18, 50–51, 53–55 ‘‘Souveniring,’’ 117, 147, 180, 212– 13, 251 Spafford (322nd soldier), 98 Spielmann, John, 34, 50 Stimson, Henry L., 7 ‘‘Suicide Hill,’’ 70, 88. See also Angaur Bowl

305

Surrender: Allied demands for, 19, 28, 248–49; at Angaur Bowl, 93; Japanese policy toward, 20; of Japanese soldiers, 141, 154, 197, 205, 241; of local natives, 105, 110–11; at Romauldo Hill, 103. See also Prisoners of war Sutherland, Richard, 24 Tada, Tokechi, 19 Taffe, Richard P., 78 Tan Beach (Angaur), 107, 109, 110 Tarawa, 12, 22, 23, 119 Thomas, John, 137 Thomas, John G., 181 Thornsberry, Robert, 241 Togo, Shigenori, 248 Tokyo Rose, 22 Truman, Harry S, 249 Tuffy (Wildcat mascot), 7–8, 247, 251 Ulithi Atoll: 321st reassignment to, 73; 323rd invasion orders, 32; 323rd landing at, 79–85; 906th Artillery use at, 61; location and description, 75–76; as military objective, 11–13, 74–75, 255; reconnaissance of, 77–79 ‘‘Ulithi Navy,’’ 240 Umurbrogol Mountains (Peleliu), 20, 119–20, 125, 131, 133–35, 140 Umurbrogol Pocket: as 1st Marine responsibility, 149; 1st Marines failure to secure, 158–59, 209; 5th Marines relieved by 321st, 165– 70, 184–85; 81st Division actions at, 255; 321st assignment to, 159– 61; 321st begins operations in, 171–78; 321st combat operations, 187–91, 192–94, 196–97; 321st relief by 323rd, 197–99; 323rd arrival, 170, 187; 323rd attack planning, 217–18; 323rd combat operations, 191–92, 194–96, 209–15, 219–21; 323rd destruction of resistance, 221–36; 323rd official end of battle, 236–37; air support

306

INDEX

Umurbrogol Pocket (cont.) and use of napalm, 182–83, 186– 87, 206–207; artillery support, 215; engineer support, 221; Japanese counterattacks, 178–82, 222; Japanese infiltrators, 202–204; Japanese strength at, 152; map of, 172; siege strategy, 120–21, 164, 198–99, 254. See also China Wall; Death Valley; Wildcat Bowl U.S. Sixth Army, 248 U.S. Eighth Army, 247 U.S. Tenth Army, 245, 247 U.S. 75th Military Government Company, 252 U.S. III Amphibious Corps, 9, 11– 12, 15, 25, 73–75, 79, 163, 165 U.S. V Amphibious Corps, 23 U.S. Coast Guard, 237–38 U.S. X-Ray Provisional Amphibious Corps, 11–12, 15 USA 7th Infantry Division, 9, 11, 24 USA 27th Infantry Division, 9, 11 USA 41st Portable Surgical Hospital, 111, 175, 211 USA 48th Coast Artillery Battalion, 201 USA 52nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 197, 237 USA 77th Infantry Division, 9, 11 USA 81st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop: actions at Angaur, 56; actions at Angaur Bowl, 66; departure from Angaur, 200; invasion of Gorokottan Island, 218–19; invasion of Ngargersiul Island, 200, 219; organization and equipment, 5; recon of Kayangel Atoll, 238– 39; retaking of Ngeregong Island, 222–23 USA 81st Cavalry Troop personnel: Bahrenfuse, Clair, 181, 207; Hadfield, Ross, 66, 200–201; Isabel (Corporal), 200; Sistrunk (corporal), 200, 201 USA 81st Division: arrival at Palau Islands, 30–32; assignment to Peleliu, 83; combat contributions,

167, 170, 187; combat support units, 257n11; discipline and leadership, 254; HQ arrival at Peleliu, 183–84; HQ departure from Peleliu, 245; invasion of Pulo Anna, 237–38; Japan invasion planning, 248–50; Japan occupation, 250– 52; marine attitude toward, 21, 125, 129–30, 136, 146, 253–54; reassignment to New Caledonia, 242, 245; reassignment to Okinawa, 245; reassignment to Philippines, 247–50; return to the U.S., 250–51; training at Hawaii, 4, 7–8; WWI authorization, 4–5; WWII activation, 5–6; WWII deactivation, 252. See also Angaur Bowl; Angaur Island; Casualties, U.S.; Medals and awards; Operation Stalemate II; Peleliu USA 81st Division Artillery, 5, 184, 201 USA 81st Division Band, 5, 246, 249, 251 USA 81st Division Headquarters Company, 5, 72, 251 USA 81st Division Military Police Platoon, 5, 251 USA 81st Division Quartermaster Company, 5, 75 USA 81st Division Signal Company, 5, 237, 238 USA 86th Infantry Division, 252 USA 88th Chemical Weapons Battalion, 87, 171, 178, 179, 182, 197, 215 USA 96th Infantry Division, 24 USA 111th Infantry Regiment, 215– 16, 243–44 USA 154th Combat Engineer Battalion, 151, 164, 181, 184–85 USA 155th Combat Engineer Battalion, 83, 85 USA 155th Engineer Battalion, 197 USA 306th Combat Engineer Battalion: actions at Angaur Bowl, 93; actions at the Pocket, 176, 207, 234; actions on Angaur Is-

INDEX

land, 67, 75; actions on Peleliu, 128, 133–34, 136, 146, 148, 152– 53; occupation of Japan, 251; organization and equipment, 5; support at Fais Island, 240; support at Kayangel Atoll, 238–39; support at New Caledonia, 245–46 USA 306th Engineer Combat Battalion personnel: Hall, James L., 234; Rhodes, Jett R., 176; Wick, John, 147, 232, 245 USA 306th Medical Battalion: at Angaur Bowl, 72; occupation of Japan, 251; organization and equipment, 5; at Peleliu, 131, 175, 223; at Pulo Anna, 237; support at Kayangel Atoll, 238–39 USA 306th Medical Battalion personnel: Bratton (medic), 100; Downing, Hershel A., 201; Georgolis (medic), 58; Smith, Richard Neal, 72, 106 USA 316th Artillery Battery: Darnell, Carl, Jr., 203; Melheim, Ray, 106, 110, 203; organization and equipment, 5; relocation to Peleliu, 197; retaking of Ngeregong Island, 223; support at Angaur, 45–46; support at the Pocket, 203 USA 317th Artillery Battery: Frazer, Ed, 31; Garrie, Thomas R., 56; landing at Angaur, 56; organization and equipment, 5; relocation to New Caledonia, 245; support at Angaur Bowl, 69; support at Romauldo Hill, 108; support of 322nd, 197 USA 318th Artillery Battery: caveclearing at Romauldo Hill, 108– 109; organization and equipment, 5; relocation to Peleliu, 197; support at Angaur Bowl, 69; support at Gorokottan Island, 218–19 USA 321st Regiment: Angaur assault objectives, 31–32; Angaur Bowl actions, 64–65; Angaur inland advances, 51–55, 67–68; Angaur landing, 33–36; arrival in

307

Japan, 251; assignment to Peleliu, 87, 90; attachment to 1st Marine Division, 254; departure from Peleliu, 243–44; Fox Day actions, 36– 46; Japanese reinforcements, 243; occupation of Fais Island, 237–42; organization and equipment, 5–6; relief of Marines at Ngesebus, 201; relief of Marines at the Pocket, 168–70. See also Umurbrogol Pocket USA 321st Regiment personnel: Abney, Jesse, 157; Arazmus, Charles, 180–81; Axelson, Keith, 47, 57–58; Bergeron, Roy J., 35, 50, 158, 176, 186, 213; Berry, Corwin, xv, 137, 193; Blair, Samuel Sylvester (‘‘Buddy’’), 157–58; Blunt, Philip, 179; Brackett, Ed, 124, 147, 169; Brown, Nolton, 38, 147, 150, 174, 177, 178–79, 191; Burke, John H., 218; Chieffo, Albert, 125, 183; Clainos, Peter D., 67, 138, 146, 168, 171–73, 176, 182, 188– 90, 198; Climie, Thomas G., 155– 56, 192; Collins, Ed, 33; Courtemanche, Harry D., 173; Dahms, Howard, 181; Dantin, Clifton, 35, 168, 179, 180, 192, 196; Dark, Robert F., 37, 45–46, 50, 57, 61– 62, 73, 90, 140, 161, 163, 165, 169, 200, 211; Darling, Robert F., 163; DeCioccio, Rocco, 42; Deerinwater, Lloyd E., 131, 168–69, 180; Deihl, Ray, 125; Engstrom, John, 130, 141–42, 203; Evans, Lester J., 39, 148, 198, 211; Fitzpatrick, James, 185; Forte, Andrew J., 141; Hess, Charles R., 35; Hesselbarth, Otto, 181; Irby (Captain), 151; Jones (Captain), 181; Jones, Arthur E., 131; Jones, T. D., 130; Lamson, James, 125, 157; Lopes, George, 181; Marter, Walter J., 179; Mason, Walter B., 178; McKee (Lieutenant), 188; Meyer (captain), 180; Moorman, Wallace B., 154; Murphy, William, 135, 141–42;

308

INDEX

USA 321st Regiment pers. (cont.) Neal, George C., 137–38; Neill, Bert, 137, 202–203; Niethe, Merle, 148–49; Pilliod, Dallas A., 130, 141, 198, 271n26; Prehm, John, 180–81; Rasula, George A., 43–46, 124, 139, 146–47, 160, 163, 168– 69, 188, 190–91, 202, 212–13; Reinke, Richard D., 196; Reynolds, Glenn R., 142; Rodriguez (soldier), 185–86; Safstrom, Allen I., 137; Schiffman, Benjamin E., 243; Seitz, Frank C., 190; Shaw, Lauren L., Jr., 90, 214; Sherry, William E., 153; Shipley, Chester W., 142; Short (sergeant), 188–90; Singer, Harry G., 136; Smith, Jack, 171–73; Solnosky, Louis, 141; Somma, William, 33, 50, 124, 174, 185–86; Spielmann, John, 34, 50; Thomas, John, 137; Valentino, Michael, 181; Wagner, Clarence E., 137 USA 322nd Regiment: actions at Angaur, 31–32, 254–55; actions at Angaur Bowl, 87–97; actions at Romauldo Hill, 63–66; Angaur inland advances, 59–67, 68–73; Angaur landing, 33–36; arrival in Japan, 250–51; assignment to Angaur, 197; Fox Day actions, 36–46; Operation Stalemate II objective, 12–13; organization and equipment, 5–6; relocation to New Caledonia, 245–46 USA 322nd Regiment personnel: Abreu, Joe, 116–17; Amato, Joseph, 49; Andersen, Kenneth, 53, 59, 104, 105–106, 249; Belt (lieutenant), 70; Brown, Elzie, 103, 111; Brunneman (sergeant), 100; Burny (soldier), 98; Cooley, James (‘‘Cougar Boy’’), 114– 15; Crochet, Robert, 49; Crowder (soldier), 98; Cutshall, Leonard L., 40; Entrican, Robert F., 22; Fitzgerald, James, 98, 100; Graves (sergeant), 100; Greenland, Walter, 49; Holsinger (lieutenant), 101; Lee (sergeant), 100; Lightsey (captain),

70, 100; Melheim, Ray, 106, 110; Nicholson (lieutenant), 98; Nicklas, Brooks, 41, 70, 100, 111, 114– 15; Pryor (soldier), 98; Radtke (sergeant), 98; Rich (soldier), 98; Schechet, Manuel M., 87; Sherman, William E., 88; Soblick, Herman, 88, 98; Spafford (soldier), 98; Venable, Benjamin W., 41, 44–45, 61, 64, 73, 87–88; White, William R., 39; Wilson, Ernest H., 88 USA 323rd Regiment: arrival at Peleliu, 165–66, 170, 187; arrival in Japan, 250–51; departure for New Caledonia, 242; feigned assault on Angaur, 36; Ngulu Atoll occupation, 83–85; Operation Stalemate II objective, 12–13; organization and equipment, 5–6; reassignment to Peleliu, 85, 123, 161, 163; reassignment to Ulithi Atoll, 73; Ulithi Atoll invasion, 32, 74–75, 87, 254–55; Ulithi Atoll occupation, 79–85. See also Umurbrogol Pocket USA 323rd Regiment personnel: Brown, Joey, 204; Browning, Carl, 225–26; Cash (soldier), 227–28; Ceballos (lieutenant), 174; Ceballos (‘‘Poncho,’’ lieutenant), 204, 225–26, 228; Colby, Lawrence E., 232; Dombrowski, Steve, 81, 170, 173–74, 185, 204, 225–27; Foerster, Leroy W., 227; Forsman, Hugh K., 209; Gates, Raymond S., 225–26; Green, James T., 170; Hall, Paul L., 225; Hirsch, John, 80, 231; Ijames, James, 174–75, 214; Ijames, James Robert, 222, 226–30; Johnson, ‘‘Cannonball’’ 228; Joyce, Robert, 222; Kunce, Lee, 183; Luttrell, Oscar D., 84– 85, 213; Mitchell, John, 194–95, 204; Mortimer, Joseph F., 203; Randolph, Thomas E., 204; Romero (soldier), 226; Saunders, Edward H., 183; Schoendienst, Eugene, 81, 203, 206–207, 210–11,

INDEX

215; Sell, Alfred C., 232; Voss, Robert, 30, 80, 198, 231; Wagner, Clarence E., 226; Watson, Arthur P., 75, 78–79, 81, 187, 199, 200, 210, 230, 236; Yetter, James, 7–8, 212, 221, 244 USA 483rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, 75, 85, 240–41 USA 710th Tank Battalion: actions at the Pocket, 169–70, 176, 182, 186, 196, 217; actions on Ngesebus, 166; actions on Peleliu, 134, 137–38, 145, 148, 152; Angaur Bowl actions, 87, 89–91; Angaur inland advances, 58; deactivation, 250; departure for New Caledonia, 242; Fox Day actions, 50; landing at Red Beach, 40; support of 7th Marines, 156 USA 710th Tank Battalion personnel: Cofone (lieutenant), 202; Dosier, Richard H., 87; Halsey (lieutenant), 202; Havlick (lieutenant), 202; Keller (lieutenant), 156; Lindloff, Gilbert, 62, 145, 156, 158, 170, 173, 180, 185–86, 202 USA 726th Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 75, 184, 200, 238, 240, 243 USA 776th Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 238, 240, 241 USA 781st Ordinance Company, 5 USA 819th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 243–44 USA 906th Artillery Battery: Fox Day firing positions, 45–46; organization and equipment, 5; support at the Pocket, 203, 211–12; at Ulithi Atoll, 61, 75, 80 USA Fifth Air Force, 13, 15 USA IX Corps, 248 USA Thirteenth Air Task Force, 13 USA XXIV Corps: as invasion force, 11–12; invasion of Yap, 15, 24, 123; reassignment to Manus, 25– 26, 29 USMC 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 271n27 USMC 1st Marine Division: at An-

309

gaur Island, 8; arrival at Palau Islands, 30–32; assignment of Peleliu invasion, 20–21; attitude toward 81st Division, 21, 125, 129–30, 136, 168, 253; departure from Peleliu, 184–85, 197; interservice rivalry, 183–84. See also Operation Stalemate II; Peleliu USMC 1st Marines (regiment), 57; casualties at Peleliu, 121–22; failure to advance, 123; relieved by 321st, 124–28 USMC 2nd Marine Air Wing, 163 USMC 3rd Armored Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 124, 162 USMC III Phib Corps, 9–12, 15, 25, 73–75, 79, 163, 165 USMC 5th Marines (regiment): assault on Ngesebus Island, 143; assault on the Pocket, 164; attitude toward 81st Division, 253; casualties at Peleliu, 122; Peleliu objectives, 127, 146 USMC 7th Marines (regiment): casualties at Peleliu, 122, 158; Peleliu objectives, 127; support of 321st, 134–35 USMC 8th Field Artillery Battalion, 201, 216 USN Third Amphibious Force, 12, 24 USN Third Fleet, 11, 15, 24–27, 258n22 USN Fifth Fleet, 258n22 USN Seventh Fleet, 24 USN LCI Flotilla 13 (‘‘Black Cat Flotilla’’), 160, 215–16, 223 USN Underwater Demolition Team 10, 13, 21, 77–80, 82 USN Western Gunfire Support Group, 21 USS Denver, 77–78, 80, 82 USS Ellet, 84 USS Fremont, 31, 75, 78 USS Gull, 85 USS Heywood L. Edwards, 124 USS Mount McKinley, 82, 164 USS New Jersey, 75

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INDEX

Valentino, Michael, 181 Venable, Benjamin W., 41, 44–45, 61, 64, 87–88 Voss, Robert, 30, 80, 198, 231 Wagner, Clarence E., 137, 226 Walker, John, 35 Watson, Arthur P., 75, 78–79, 81, 187, 199, 200, 210, 230, 236 Western Railroad, 17, 60, 63–65, 87– 88, 93, 107 White, William R., 39 Wick, John, 147, 232, 245 Wildcat Bowl, 207–208, 213, 215, 221–31, 234 Wildcat mascot (‘‘Tuffy’’), 7–8, 247, 251 Wildcat patch, origins, 4–5

Wildcat, The (newspaper), 247 ‘‘Wildcat March, The,’’ 249 Wilkinson, Theodore S., 12, 32, 74 Wilson, Ernest H., 88 Women: Japanese treatment of, 111; natives, 103, 105; Red Cross hostesses, 246; U.S. soldier contact with natives, 82 World War I: 81st Division formation for, 4–5; League of Nations mandates, 9 World War II: 81st Division reactivation, 5–6 Yannechiki Island, 85 Yap, as invasion objective, 11 Yetter, James, 7–8, 212, 221, 244