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Although the battle for Peleliu did not receive nearly the notoriety that other World War Il Pacific theater battles did-namely Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa-it was a vicious and costly fight. The author points out here that perhaps it should not have been fought at all.
It is no exaggeration to say that Peleliu was one of the toughest battles of the Pacific theater duirng World War II. In terms of length, the strength and nature of enemy defenses, the difficulties of terrain and weather, and the percentage of casualties, the fight for this island rivaled or surpassed that experienced in struggles such as Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. It has also been one of the most controversial Marine campaigns and one of the most ignored. The official history, published in early 1950, noted that just 6 years afterwards there was already "a widespread tendency to discount [Peleliu's] importance, even to question the necessity for staging it at all." These factors combine to make Peleliu an interesting case study of the amphibious an.
By mid-1944 the United States was rapidly advancing twin pincers against the Japanese Empire. During the summer, Adm Chester Nimitz' forces in the Central Pacific theater seized the Mariana Islands, which put the enemy's homeland within range of B-29 bombers. At the same time, Gen Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific theater completed the conquest of New Guinea. His next step was an invasion of the Philippines, which would cut off Japan's access to important sources of raw materials (such as oil, tin, and rubber) in Southeast Asia. The initial target was the large southern island of Mindanao. As his staff planned that operation, their attention turned toward the Palau Islands, the western-most outpost of the Caroline chain. Laying roughly 430 miles from the northern tip of New Guinea and the same distance east of Mindanao, the Palaus were believed to constitute a significant potential threat to MacArthur's flank. From airfields existing on those islands, Japanese planes could theoretically attack any American invasion force or supply convoy heading toward the Philippines. With those same strips in friendly hands, American landbased airpower could support the attack on Mindanao. The Joint Chiefs of Staff thus directed Nimitz to seize the Palaus beginning 15 September 1944....