Role of the Battle of Peleliu in the Pacific Theater/Overall War
Peleliu is not and was not thought of as being one of the preeminent battles of World War II. Despite having one of the highest casualty inflicting percentages of the war, the American public did not know nearly as much about the struggle as they did with the earlier invasion of Normandy or fighting in Okinawa. Marine Corps Major Henry Donigan argues that this might be related to the lack of press correspondents that went ashore on Peleliu. Donigan also acknowledges that the flawed/controversial decision to attack the island in the first place could have played into the Marine Corps/overall war effort on the homefront (via the United States Government) to downplay the battle that had such high costs.[1] It is also important to consider the timing of the Battle of Peleliu. The Allied Expeditionary Force had landed in Normandy on June 6 of 1944 and was experiencing a great amount of success. By the time the fighting on Peleliu had begun, the Allied Forces in Europe had already liberated Paris (August 25) and were on Germany’s doorstep my mid-October. Propaganda/news efforts (especially in this time period) focused overwhelmingly on good news and tended to not give as much (or any) attention to bad news.
The aftermath of Peleliu saw the United States ground forces in bad shape. Approximately 40% of the marines and soldiers who took part in the fighting on Peleliu were either killed or injured.[2] This makes the Battle of Peleliu one of the bloodiest fights in all of World War II. Despite the controversial stigma that is often associated with the battle due to the fact that the island did not necessarily need to be taken to win the war, there are lessons that can be taken away from the fighting (both immediately during the war and in American military history as a whole). There are also lessons that did not get taken away from the fighting on Peleliu that could have been helpful in conflicts that occurred later in the 20th century.
The aftermath of Peleliu saw the United States ground forces in bad shape. Approximately 40% of the marines and soldiers who took part in the fighting on Peleliu were either killed or injured.[2] This makes the Battle of Peleliu one of the bloodiest fights in all of World War II. Despite the controversial stigma that is often associated with the battle due to the fact that the island did not necessarily need to be taken to win the war, there are lessons that can be taken away from the fighting (both immediately during the war and in American military history as a whole). There are also lessons that did not get taken away from the fighting on Peleliu that could have been helpful in conflicts that occurred later in the 20th century.
Lessons Learned
The immediate lessons that the United States military took away from Peleliu was how to adapt to and fight the new Japanese strategy of “delay and bleed”. The fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, while fought on different but equally inhospitable terrain, was eerily reminiscent of the Battle of Peleliu. The Japanese were well dug in and utilized tunnel/cave defenses to hide themselves from the United States superior firepower and numbers. The United States was more cautious in the later conflicts and did not allow the overconfident decisions made by commanders like Major General Rupertus to lead to as high of casualty rates as those on Peleliu.[3]
Soldiers who experienced the conflict, like Eugene Sledge, also acknowledged that lessons learned about the new Japanese strategy of attrition on Peleliu would help the Marines achieve victory on Iwo Jimo and Okinawa.[4] The United States had fought in wars of attrition before, most recently World War I, however, this conflict was different due to the terrain and the willingness of the Japanese soldiers to fight until the death. This leads into understanding how a military force can be successful against an enemy utilizing attrition and exhaustion tactics. Discussed by Antulio Echevarria in his book Reconsidering the American Way of War, time and deciding when/where a battle takes place is crucial to success in a war of attrition.[5] The United States learned from Peleliu that time and their ability to control when the battles would be fought would allow the United States forces to eventually defeat the Japanese.
Soldiers who experienced the conflict, like Eugene Sledge, also acknowledged that lessons learned about the new Japanese strategy of attrition on Peleliu would help the Marines achieve victory on Iwo Jimo and Okinawa.[4] The United States had fought in wars of attrition before, most recently World War I, however, this conflict was different due to the terrain and the willingness of the Japanese soldiers to fight until the death. This leads into understanding how a military force can be successful against an enemy utilizing attrition and exhaustion tactics. Discussed by Antulio Echevarria in his book Reconsidering the American Way of War, time and deciding when/where a battle takes place is crucial to success in a war of attrition.[5] The United States learned from Peleliu that time and their ability to control when the battles would be fought would allow the United States forces to eventually defeat the Japanese.
Coordination
The importance of working together across branches of the military is something that the military of the United States had been improving upon since the Civil War. However, the fighting in the Pacific Theater of World War II saw this get taken to the next level. The forces of the United States in the Pacific Theater, primarily the Marines and the Navy, had to cover approximately 14,200 miles while “island hoping” to the Japanese mainland. General MacArthur’s force and Admiral Nimitz’s force combined to cover all of this territory while still maintaining the integrity of their supply lines and destroying 54.6% of Japanese tonnage.[6] The ability to coordinate with other military forces/branches would be important in the Korean War (example of the Battle of Inchon) and later in Vietnam.
Relations to Future Wars/Final Thoughts
In Echevarria’s Reconsidering the American Way of War, he discusses how in Vietnam the United States was still utilizing the “maneuver oriented concepts” from World War II and the Korean War.[7] Peleliu gave the United States a taste of what it was like to not know exactly where the enemy was located. While different in that Vietnam was fought in a jungle environment and Peleliu was fought on a coral, mountainous island, the Japanese used the strategy of attrition to make the United States forces pay for every inch they gained on the island. The Japanese forces may have been more successful if they had had more time and a larger area of land to occupy. Their strategy can be viewed as having connections to the strategy that the North Vietnamese used to effectively lead to the Vietnam War ending in a draw.
Eugene Sledge, Bill Leyden, and the thousands of other Marines from the 1st Marine Division who were involved in the fighting on Peleliu experienced some of the worst fighting that the Pacific Theater of World War II had to offer. These men had to comb the island to find the Japanese defenders who were prepared to lose their lives as long as they were able to kill as many Marines or soldiers as possible. Using the experience of a Eugene Sledge as a lens into the battle allows us to better understand how the Pacific Theater, and American Military history as a whole, is a never-ending learning experience on a grand scale that never ends. The ever-evolving nature of warfare requires that battles such as Peleliu be examined from every possible angle to glean all available lessons. The United States was able to effectively implement some short-term lessons from Peleliu the rest of the Pacific Theater of World War II and in the Korean War. However, the United States was not able to apply these lessons to later conflicts such as the Vietnam War very effectively.
Eugene Sledge, Bill Leyden, and the thousands of other Marines from the 1st Marine Division who were involved in the fighting on Peleliu experienced some of the worst fighting that the Pacific Theater of World War II had to offer. These men had to comb the island to find the Japanese defenders who were prepared to lose their lives as long as they were able to kill as many Marines or soldiers as possible. Using the experience of a Eugene Sledge as a lens into the battle allows us to better understand how the Pacific Theater, and American Military history as a whole, is a never-ending learning experience on a grand scale that never ends. The ever-evolving nature of warfare requires that battles such as Peleliu be examined from every possible angle to glean all available lessons. The United States was able to effectively implement some short-term lessons from Peleliu the rest of the Pacific Theater of World War II and in the Korean War. However, the United States was not able to apply these lessons to later conflicts such as the Vietnam War very effectively.
[1]Henry Donigan, “Peleliu: The Forgotten Battle,” Marine Corps Association, https://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/peleliu-forgotten-battle.
[2]History.com Staff, "Battle of Peleliu,” History.com, https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-peleliu.
[3]Richard D. Camp, Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu, September 15-21, 1944 (Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press, 2010) 289-290. [EBSCOhost]
[4]Gordon Gayle, “Bloody Beaches: The Marines at Peleliu,” https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-C-Peleliu/index.html.
[5]Antulio Joseph Echevarria, Reconsidering the American way of war: US military practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan (Washington, District of Columbia: Georgetown University Press, 2014), 53.
[6]Ibid, 124
[7] Ibid, 140