by Daniel Wrinn
The next afternoon, Colonel Raymond Davis of the 1/1 Marines moved his Company B to establish contact with Captain Hunt to help hold the desperately contested positions. Hunt’s company regained the platoon survivors that were pinned down on the beach fight during the day.
The newly reinforced company recovered their artillery and naval gunfire communications, which proved critical during the second night. That evening the enemy counterattacked the Marines at the Point. The Japanese were narrowly defeated. By midmorning, survivors of the two Marine companies had secured the Point and looked out on 500 dead Japanese soldiers.
On the right of Colonel “Chesty” Puller’s struggling 3rd Battalion, Colonel Russell Honsowetz, commanding the 2nd Battalion, took artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire from still effective enemy beach defenders during their landing.
The 5th Marines’ two assault battalions also took heavy enemy fire as they fought through the beach defenses toward the clearing’s edge, looking out eastward over the airfield.
On the right flank, the 3/7 Marines crossed in front of an imposing defensive fortification flanking the beach. Luckily, it wasn’t as close as the Point position and did not suffer heavy damage. But its enfilading fire, along with natural obstructions on the beach, caused Company K to veer off their planned landing and end up out of position and out of contact. After the confused and delayed battalion regrouped, they used a line of large anti-tank ditches to guide their eastward advance.
Any further delay would be a disaster to the division. Momentum was the key to success. The divisional plan on the right called for the 7th Marines to land two battalions in a column on Orange Beach 3. As the 3/7 advanced, it would be followed by the 1/7. These units would tie into the right flank and attack southeast on the beach.
After a bloody hour of fighting, all five battalions were ashore. The closer each battalion got to the Pocket, the more tenuous its hold was on the shallow beachhead. For another two hours, three more of the division’s four remaining battalions joined the attack and pressed the momentum that General Rupertus had ordered.
Colonel Puller landed his forward command group close behind the 3/1 Marines. He was ready to fight, even if his location would deny him the best position for supporting fire. With reduced communications and inadequate numbers of LVTs to follow in waves, he struggled to improve his regiment’s situation.
His left flank had two platoons desperately struggling to gain control of the Point. Puller landed the 1st Battalion behind the 3/1 to reinforce the fight for the left flank but was hindered by multiple losses in the LVTs. The 1st Battalion companies had to be landed singly and committed piecemeal into the action.
On the regiment’s right flank, the 2/1 Marines recaptured the west edges of the scrub, looking out to the airfield.
In the beachhead’s southern sector, the 1/7 Marines were delayed by the heavy LVT losses. This successful early opposition was felt throughout the rest of the day. Most of the 1/7 eventually landed on the correct beach, but many Marines were driven leftward from heavy enemy fire and landed in the 5th Marines’ zone.
This caused the 1/7 to join in with the 3/7 and advance east to assault prepared enemy positions.
The battle raged with heavy opposition from both east and south. In the midafternoon, Marines ran into a blockhouse (supposedly destroyed by pre-landing naval gunfire) but had not been touched and put up a strong resistance.
The cost in Marine lives and lost momentum by having to assault these heavily defended blockhouses was harsh and unnecessary.
The Japanese Defenders
General Sadae Inoue, a fifth-generation warrior with a robust military reputation, commanded the 14th Infantry Division. He’d just arrived from the Kwangtung Army in China. In March 1944, Inoue met Japanese Premier Tojo in Tokyo to discuss the war.
Tojo decided Japan could no longer hold the Palaus against the Allied naval dominance in the Western Pacific. Tojo gave General Inoue command of all Japanese forces in the Palaus. His orders: take the 14th Infantry and kill Americans while denying its use to the Allies for as long as possible. He ordered Inoue to sell the Palaus at the highest possible cost in blood and time.
As the enemy sailed for the Palaus, Inoue flew ahead and surveyed his new locale for two days before deciding Peleliu was the key to his defense. The earlier Task Force 58 strikes confirmed his decision. Peleliu had been under the administrative command of a rear admiral. The admiral used his forces to build blockhouses and reinforced concrete structures above ground while improving the existing caves and tunnels under Peleliu’s rich natural camouflage of jungle, scrub, and vines.
In these underground installations, the admiral and his troops survived the March attacks from Task Force 58. The above-ground structures and planes were demolished. when the Japanese emerged, they repaired what they could with a focus on the underground installations. Together with Korean labor troops, their numbers swelled to 7,000 (most lacking training and leadership for any infantry action).
Colonel Nakagawa arrived on Peleliu with his 2nd Infantry Regiment—a 6,500-man reinforced regiment. They were veterans from the war in China and had two dozen 75mm artillery pieces, a dozen tanks, fifteen 81mm heavy mortars, over a hundred .50-caliber machine guns, and thirty dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns. There were many heavy 141mm mortars and naval anti-aircraft guns already on the island.
Colonel Nakagawa had been awarded nine medals for his leadership against the Chinese. His regiment was regarded as elite veterans within the Japanese Army.
Immediately upon arriving, Nakagawa reconnoitered his battle position from the ground and air. He identified the western beaches (the White and Orange Beaches) as the most likely landing sites. Nakagawa ordered his troops to dig in and construct beach defenses. But a conflict arose when the senior naval officer, Admiral Itou, resented taking orders from a junior army officer.
From Koror, General Inoue sent General Murai to Peleliu. Murai assumed command and maintained a liaison with Nakagawa. Murai was a highly regarded, personal representative of General Inoue and considered senior to the admiral.
Murai left the mission firmly in Nakagawa’s hands. Throughout the campaign, Nakagawa exercised operational control and was assisted and counseled but not commanded by General Murai.
Nakagawa fully understood his objective and the situation and firepower the Allies possessed. He turned his attention to making the fullest use of his primary advantage—the terrain. Nakagawa deployed and installed his forces to inflict all possible damage and casualties at the landing. Then his troops would defend in-depth to the last man. Peleliu offered a vertical and a horizontal dimension to its defense.
Nakagawa registered artillery and mortars over the width and depth of the reef on both eastern and western beaches. With a planned heavy concentration along the fringe of the western reef, he expected the Allies need to transfer follow-on waves from landing craft to the reef crossing amphibian vehicles. He registered weapons from the water’s edge to subject landing troops to a hellish hail of fire. Offshore, he laid over 500 wire-controlled mines.
Nakagawa ordered the construction of beach obstacles using logs and rails and ordered multiple anti-tank ditches dug. He put troops in machine-gun and mortar pits along the inland from the beaches supported by all available barbed wire. He constructed concrete emplacements to shelter and conceal anti-tank and anti-boat artillery on the north and south beaches.
Inland, he used the already built blockhouses with adjacent reinforced buildings. He made them into mutually supporting defensive complexes and added communication lines in the trenches.
Nakagawa believed the western beaches were the most probable route of attack. But he did not leave the southern and eastern beaches undefended. He committed one battalion on each beach to organize defenses. The eastern beaches were thoroughly prepared with contingents of defenders to move into central Peleliu if the battle expanded from the west as he expected.
Colonel Nakagawa assigned 600 infantry
and artillery to defend Ngesebus and 1,100 Naval personnel to defend northern Peleliu. The only troops not under his command were the 1,500 defenders on Angaur.
The central part of his force and effort was committed to the 500 tunnels, caves, and firing embrasures in the coral ridges of central Peleliu. The naval units’ prior extensive tunneling into limestone ridges rendered the occupants mainly immune to any Allied bombardments. Only an occasional lucky hit in the cave’s mouth or a point-blank direct fire could damage the hidden defenses and the enemy troops.
Map of most elaborate tunnel system on Peleliu
Tunnels were designed for several purposes: command centers, hospitals, barracks, storage, ammunition dumps, and cooking areas with freshwater springs and basins—and of course, firing embrasures. He added elaborate concealment and protective devices including a few sliding steel doors.
Nakagawa expected an intense pre-landing bombardment. He believed his troops would endure it and carry out their mission of delaying and bleeding the Allies for as long as possible before Peleliu fell.
General Inoue was busy with his troops on Koror. He prepared for expected Allied attacks against Babelthuap. The Allied plan, Operation Stalemate, also called for the invasion of Babelthuap. As the expected invasion drew closer, Inoue made a statement to his troops, reflecting Tojo’s instructions to bleed and delay the American forces. He pointed out the necessity to expect and endure the naval bombardment and how to use terrain to inflict casualties on the attacking force.
General Inoue said: “Dying and losing the territory to the enemy would contribute to opening a new phase of the war. We are ready to die honorably.”
D-Day Center Assault
The 1st Marines fought to secure the left flank. The 7th Marines battled to isolate and reduce enemy defenses on the southern end of Peleliu. The 5th Marines were tasked with driving across the airfield to cut the island in half, reorient north, and secure the island’s eastern half.
The 2/5 Marines under Major Gordon Gayle landed on Orange Beach 2 and advanced east through scrub jungle and dunes. They moved in and out of the anti-tank barrier to the west edge of the clearing surrounding the airfield.
Gayle’s battalion passed through the lines of the 3/5 Marines and attacked scattered resistance through the scrub in dugouts and bomb shelters near the southern end of the airfield. The 3rd Battalion’s mission was to clear that scrub and maintain contact with the 3/7 Marines on the right flank, while the 2/5 Marines advanced across the open area to reach the far side of the island.
The 2/5 Marines advanced in the center and right, fighting entirely across the island by midafternoon. They kept contact with the 1/5 Marines and moved to reorient their attack northward.
The Japanese anti-tank ditch along the center and right of the Orange Beaches was notable because of the several command posts along its length.
The 1st Tank Battalion’s M-48A1 Shermans—a third of which were left behind at the last moment—finally crossed the reef. These tanks had developed special reef-crossing maneuvers in anticipation of terrain obstacles.
Moving the fire and logistical support onto the beach was challenging and under direct observation from Japanese observers. This was an inescapable risk because of Peleliu’s terrain. As long as the enemy had observation posts atop the Umurbrogol Point over the airfield and beach—there was no alternative but to advance rapidly and coordinate fire support.
The rapid beach advance caused heavy casualties. General Rupertus’ concern for early momentum seemed to be correct. Marines on the left flank assaulted the foot of the Pocket’s ridges and swiftly got to the crest. In the center, the 5th Marines advanced and secured all likely routes to outflank the Pocket. In the south, the 7th Marines destroyed the now cut-off forces before they could regroup and join the fight in central Peleliu.
The 5th Marines moved across the airfield to the western edge of the lagoon. They separated the airfield area from the eastern peninsula. They created a line of attacking Marines across the eastern and northern part of the island, believed to be the center of the enemy’s strength.
Colonel Hanneken’s 7th Marines pushed south and divided the Japanese forces. Hanneken’s troops were fully engaged and mostly concealed against enemy observation.
It was becoming clear that the D-Day line objectives would not be met in either the north or south. General Rupertus was alarmed by the loss of his momentum, and he ordered the 2/7 (his last uncommitted infantry battalion), under Colonel Spencer Berger, into the fight. No commander onshore felt a need for the 2/7 Marines. Colonel Hanneken cleared an assembly area for them where they wouldn’t be in the way.
General Rupertus was now fully committed. He told his staff that he’d “shot his bolt.” On the crowded beachhead, more troops were not needed—they needed more room to maneuver them and more artillery.
Rupertus decided to land himself and the key elements of his command group onshore. His chief of staff, Colonel John Selden, convinced the general to stay on the flagship because it was too dangerous. So Rupertus ordered Colonel Selden ashore.
The shortage of LVTs stalled the timely landing of the following waves. Neither Selden’s small command post group nor Berger’s 2/7 Marines could get past the transfer line. The landing craft had to return to the ships, despite their orders to land.
At 1700, Colonel Nakagawa launched his counterattack. Marine commanders had been alerted to the Japanese capability to make an armored attack on D-Day and were well prepared. The enemy assault came from north of the airfield and headed south across the 1st Marines’ line on the eastern edge of the airfield clearing.
This attack went directly into the 5th Marines’ sector, where the 1/5 was dug in across the southern area of the airfield. Marines opened up on the enemy attackers’ infantry and tanks. A bazooka gunner in front hit two tanks. The CO of the 1/5 Marines had his tanks in defilade behind the front lines. They fired on the enemy armor, running through the front lines as they advanced. The Marines’ lines held, and they fired on the enemy infantry and tanks with all available weapons.
Major John Gustafson of the 2/5 was in the forward command post halfway across the airfield and had his tank platoon close at hand. While the enemy had not yet come into his zone, he launched a platoon of tanks into the fight. In minutes it was over. The enemy tanks were destroyed, and the Japanese infantry was ripped apart.
While Colonel Nakagawa’s attack was bold, it was a failure. Even where the Japanese tanks broke through Allied lines, the Marines did not retreat. Instead, all anti-tank fire of every caliber concentrated on the enemy armor. Japanese light tanks were blown apart into pieces on the battlefield. Over one hundred were destroyed, although that figure may be exaggerated because of the amount of fire directed their way. Each Marine anti-tank gunner and grenadier thought they destroyed each tank they fired at and reported it that way.
With the Japanese counterattack repulsed and the enemy in shambles, Marines resumed their attack. They moved north along the eastern half of the airfield and advanced halfway up the length of the clearing before stopping to re-organize for the night. This was the farthest advance of the day over favorable terrain on the division’s front. This advance provided the needed space for logistics and artillery deployment to support the next day’s attack.
But this quick advance left a hole in the right flank. The 3/5 Marines were supposed to keep contact with the north-facing 2/5. But 3/5 command and control had been destroyed. The battalion’s XO, Major Robert Ash, was killed earlier in the day from a direct hit into his LVT.
When the Japanese attack started, a mortar barrage hit the 3/5 command post in the anti-tank ditch and killed several staff officers and caused the evacuation of the battalion commander. At 1700, the 3/5 Marine companies weren’t in contact with each other—nor their battalions.
The 5th Marines CO ordered his XO, Colonel Lewis Walt, to take command of the 3/5 and redeploy them in between the gap of the 5th and 7th Marines. Walt moved the 2nd Battalion�
�s reserve company to his right flank in a tie-in position to form a more continuous regimental line. By 2200, he came under several sharp counterattacks from central and southern defenders throughout the night.
Enemy attacks came from the north and south. None had any significant success but were persistent enough to require an ammunition resupply. At dawn, dozens of Japanese bodies laid ripped to pieces north of the Marine lines.
Elsewhere across the front, there were more menacing night counterattacks. None drove the Marines back or penetrated Allied lines in significant strength.
In the south, the 7th Marines expected substantial night attacks from the enemy battalion opposing them. Marines were dug in and in strength. They had communications to call in fire support, including naval gunfire and star shell illumination—they easily turned back the sporadic enemy attacks.
At the end of the first twelve hours ashore, the 1st Marine Division held its beachhead across their projected front. Marine positions were strong everywhere except on the extreme left flank. General Smith, from his forward command post had communication with all three regimental commanders. The report he received from Colonel Puller was not a realistic assessment of the 1st Marines’ weak hold on the Point. This was because of Colonel Puller’s own limited information.
Besides all three infantry regiments, the 1st Division had three battalions of light artillery emplaced onshore. All thirty tanks were also now onshore. The shore party was operating on the beach under sporatic enemy fire and full daylight observation. The division was preparing to press their advance on D +1. Their objective was to capture the commanding crests on the left, advance farther into the center, and destroy isolated enemy defenders in the south.