Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu. Gordon D. Gayle
enemy mortar and artillery fire. Behind them, smoking and abandoned, are amphibian tractors which were hit as they approached the beach.
The next afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. Davis’ 1/1 moved its Company B to establish contact with Hunt, to help hang onto the bitterly contested positions. Hunt’s company also regained the survivors of the platoon which had been pinned at the beach fight throughout D-Day. Of equal importance, the company regained artillery and naval gunfire communications, which proved critical during the second night. That night, the Japanese organized another and heavier—two companies—counterattack directed at the Marines at the Point. It was narrowly defeated. By mid-morning, D plus 2, Hunt’s survivors, together with Company B, 1/1, owned the Point, and could look out upon some 500 Japanese who had died defending or trying to re-take it.
To the right of Puller’s struggling 3d Battalion, his 2d Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Russell E. Honsowetz commanding, met artillery and mortar opposition in landing, as well as machine-gun fire from still effective beach defenders. The same was true for 5th Marines’ two assault battalions, Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Boyd’s ⅕ and Lieutenant Colonel Austin C. Shofner’s ⅗, which fought through the beach defenses and toward the edge of the clearing looking east over the airfield area.
Caption and photograph by Phillip D. Orr
Situated in a cave overlooking the airfield is this heavy caliber Japanese antiboat gun. It had a field of fire which included the invasion beaches and the airfield.
Damaged heavily in the D-Day bombardment, this Japanese pillbox survives on the southern promontory of White Beach. Now vacant, its gun lies on the beach.
Caption and photograph by Phillip D. Orr
On the division’s right flank, Orange 3, Major Edward H. Hurst’s 3/7 had to cross directly in front of a commanding defensive fortification flanking the beach as had Marines in the flanking position on the Point. Fortunately, it was not as close as the Point position, and did not inflict such heavy damage. Nevertheless, its enfilading fire, together with some natural obstructions on the beach caused Company K, 3/7, to land left of its planned landing beach, onto the right half of beach Orange 2,⅗’s beach. In addition to being out of position, and out of contact with the company to its right, Company K, 3/7, became intermingled with Company K,⅗, a condition fraught with confusion and delay. Major Hurst necessarily spent time regrouping his separated battalion, using as a coordinating line a large antitank ditch astride his line of advance. His eastward advance then resumed, somewhat delayed by his efforts to regroup.
Any delay was anathema to the division commander, who visualized momentum as key to his success. The division scheme of maneuver on the right called for the 7th Marines (Colonel Herman H. Hanneken) to land two battalions in column, both over Beach Orange 3. As Hurst’s leading battalion advanced, it was to be followed in trace by Lieutenant Colonel John J. Gormley’s 1/7. Gormley’s unit was to tie into Hurst’s right flank, and re-orient southeast and south as that area was uncovered. He was then to attack southeast and south, with his left on Hurst’s right, and his own right on the beach. After Hurst’s battalion reached the opposite shore, both were to attack south, defending Scarlet 1 and Scarlet 2, the southern landing beaches.
At the end of a bloody first hour, all five battalions were ashore. The closer each battalion was to Umurbrogol, the more tenuous was its hold on the shallow beachhead. During the next two hours, three of the division’s four remaining battalions would join the assault and press for the momentum General Rupertus deemed essential.
Following close behind Sabol’s 3/1, the 1st Marines’ Colonel Puller landed his forward command group. As always, he was eager to be close to the battle, even if that location deprived him of some capacity to develop full supporting fires. With limited communications, and now with inadequate numbers of LVTs for follow-on waves, he struggled to ascertain and improve his regiment’s situation. His left unit (Company K, 3/1) had two of its platoons desperately struggling to gain dominance at the Point. Puller’s plan to land Major Davis’ 1st Battalion behind Sabol’s 3/1, to reinforce the fight for the left flank, was thwarted by the H-hour losses in LVTs. Davis’ companies had to be landed singly and his battalion committed piecemeal to the action. On the regiment’s right, Honsowetz’ 2/1 was hotly engaged, but making progress toward capture of the west edges of the scrub which looked out onto the airfield area. He was tied on his right into Boyd’s ⅕, which was similarly engaged.
D-DAY
(After Rectifying ⅗)
In the beachhead’s southern sector, the landing of Gormley’s 1/7 was delayed somewhat by its earlier losses in LVTs. That telling effect of early opposition would be felt throughout the remainder of the day. Most of Gormley’s battalion landed on the correct (Orange 3) beach, but a few of his troops were driven leftward by the still enfilading fire from the south flank of the beach, and landed on Orange 2, in the 5th Marines’ zone of action. Gormley’s battalion was brought fully together behind 3/7 however, and as Hurst’s leading 3/7 was able to advance east, Gormley’s 1/7 attacked southeast and south, against prepared positions.
Hanneken’s battle against heavy opposition from both east and south developed approximately as planned. Suddenly, in mid-afternoon, the opposition grew much heavier. Hurst’s 3/7 ran into a blockhouse, long on the Marines’ map, which had been reported destroyed by pre-landing naval gunfire. As a similar situation later met on Puller’s inland advance, the blockhouse showed little evidence of ever having been visited by heavy fire. Preparations to attack and reduce this blockhouse further delayed the 7th Marines’ advance, and the commanding general fretted further about loss of momentum.
[Sidebar (page 2):]
The Divisions and their Commanders
The Peleliu operation was to be conducted by two divisions, one Marine and one Army. In the Pacific area since mid-1942, the 1st Marine Division was a veteran, combat-tested organization which launched the first offensive landing in the Pacific War when it attacked Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. After a period in Australia of rest, recuperation, and training of newly joined Marines, the division made its second amphibious assault on 26 December 1943 at Cape Gloucester on New Britain Island. When the division landed on Peleliu, its regiments (1st, 5th, and 7th Marines, all infantry, and 11th Marines, artillery) contained officers and enlisted Marine veterans of both landings as well as new troops. Before World War II ended, the 1st Division was to participate in one last battle, the landing on Okinawa.
MajGen William H. Rupertus
Major General William H. Rupertus, the 1st Division commander, had been with the division since early 1942. As a brigadier general, he was the assistant division commander to Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift during the Guadalcanal campaign. He took command of the division for the Cape Gloucester operation. General Rupertus was commissioned in 1913 and served as commander of a Marine ship’s detachment in World War I. During subsequent years, he was assigned duty in Haiti and China. Following the Peleliu campaign, he was named Commandant of the Marine Corps Schools in Quantico. General Rupertus died of a heart attack on 25 March 1945, while still on active duty.
The Army’s 81st Infantry Division—the Wildcats—was formed in August 1917 at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. It saw action in France at the Meuse-Argonne in World War I, and was deactivated following the end of the war. The division was reactivated in June 1942. It went to several Pacific training bases before its first combat assignment, the landing on Angaur.