Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu. Gordon D. Gayle
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Gordon D. Gayle
Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664634719
Table of Contents
Bloody Beaches : The Marines at Peleliu
Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu
The Divisions and their Commanders
The Changing Nature of Japanese Tactics
Naval Gunfire Support for Peleliu
Special Reef-crossing Techniques
The Early Battle in the Division Center
The 7th Marines’ Complete Destruction of Enemy in the South
Encirclement of the Umurbrogol Pocket
Encirclement of Umurbrogol and Seizure of Northern Peleliu
The Umurbrogol Pocket: Peleliu’s Character Distilled
Post-assault Operations in the Palaus
Was the Seizure of Peleliu Necessary? Costs vs. Benefits
Bloody Beaches:
The Marines
at Peleliu
Marines in
World War II
Commemorative Series
By Brigadier General
Gordon D. Gayle
U.S. Marine Corps (Ret)
“Down from Bloody Ridge Too Late. He’s Finished—Washed Up—Gone As we passed sick bay, still in the shell hole, it was crowded with wounded, and somehow hushed in the evening light. I noticed a tattered Marine standing quietly by a corpsman, staring stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled in battle, his jaw hung, and his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head.” Caption by the artist, Tom Lea.
TABLE OF DISTANCES FROM PELELIU
In Nautical Miles
| Pearl Harbor | 3990 |
| Guadalcanal | 1589 |
| Espiritu Santo | 2067 |
| Admiralty Islands | 960 |
| Hollandia | 705 |
| Morotai | 430 |
| Saipan | 820 |
| Yap | 237 |
| Ulithi | 323 |
| Truk | 1030 |
| Davao | 540 |
| Manila | 920 |
| Tokyo | 1725 |
Bloody Beaches:
The Marines at Peleliu
by Brigadier General Gordon D. Gayle, USMC (Ret)
On D-Day 15 September 1944, five infantry battalions of the 1st Marine Division’s 1st, 5th, and 7th Marines, in amphibian tractors (LVTs) lumbered across 600–800 yards of coral reef fringing smoking, reportedly smashed Peleliu in the Palau Island group and toward five selected landing beaches. That westward anchor of the 1,000-mile-long Caroline archipelago was viewed by some U.S. planners as obstacles, or threats, to continued advances against Japan’s Pacific empire.
The Marines in the LVTs had been told that their commanding general, Major General William H. Rupertus, believed that the operation would be tough, but quick, in large part because of the devastating quantity and quality of naval gunfire and dive bombing scheduled to precede their assault landing. On some minds were the grim images of their sister 2d Marine Division’s bloody assault across the reefs at Tarawa, many months earlier. But 1st Division Marines, peering over the gunwales of their landing craft saw an awesome scene of blasting and churning earth along the shore. Smoke, dust, and the geysers caused by exploding bombs and large-caliber naval shells gave optimists some hope that the defenders would become casualties from such preparatory fires; at worst, they would be too stunned to respond quickly and