What a charming phrase – To fix their minds so that they could go back. Grumpy
Category: Soldiering
IMAGE SOURCE,PRIVATE COLLECTIONThe remarkable evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk was a pivotal moment in World War Two. What is not well known is the story of nearly 300 Indian soldiers who were also part of the contingent.
Over the course of nine days in May 1940, more than 338,000 Allied forces were evacuated from the beach and harbour at the French port city of Dunkirk as the German military bore down on them.
In this sea of European servicemen was Major Mohammad Akbar Khan, an Indian soldier.
On 28 May, he led 300 Indian soldiers and 23 British troops in an orderly column along the bombed-out harbour to the East Mole, the nearly mile-long wooden jetty which featured in Christopher Nolan’s epic 2017 film, Dunkirk.
The imposing 183cm (6ft) tall soldier returned to India after the war and later became a senior officer in the new Pakistan army when British-ruled India was divided into India and Pakistan in August 1947. He was made a military aide to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man who founded Pakistan, wrote more than 40 books, and met Chairman Mao on a visit to China.
Indian soldiers like Major Akbar who were evacuated from Dunkirk have been completely forgotten, according to British historian Ghee Bowman. He spent five years in five countries, tracking down lost archives and photographs from family albums and talking to descendants of the soldiers.
The Indian soldiers belonged to the 25th Animal Transport Company, who had travelled 7,000 miles (11,265 km) with their mules to help the British army. All but four of them were Muslim.
IMAGE SOURCE,PRIVATE COLLECTION
They wore khaki, tin helmets, caps and pagris (turbans). They carried no weapons, because none had been issued when they left Punjab six months before they landed in France.
In the bitter winter in France, the British army needed mules to replace motorised vehicles to carry supplies. But as they lacked “animal-handling skills”, the Indian troops were deployed to help them.
Some five million Commonwealth servicemen joined the military services of the British Empire during the war. Almost half of them were from South Asia. What happened with the Indian soldiers in Dunkirk has been unclear.
“The story of these soldiers and their comrades is one of the great untold stories of the war,” said Mr Bowman, author, most recently of The Indian Contingent: The Forgotten Muslim Soldiers of the Battle of Dunkirk.
Take, for example, Chaudry Wali Mohammad, who later recounted that “German planes [were] like terrible birds flying overheard and firing on us… I did not sleep for 15 days”. He and his contingent reached Dunkirk on 23 May.
“We didn’t think we would come out of Dunkirk alive… Everything was on fire. The whole of Dunkirk was alight. There were so many fires it was like daylight…
“The ship we were supposed to board was sunk. We got down to the beach and found the ship had sunk, so then we had to run back to the woods,” he later recalled. Two days later, Mohammad and his troops were evacuated.
Then there was Jemadar Maula Dad Khan who was feted for showing “magnificent courage, coolness and decision” in protecting his men and animals when they were shelled from the ground and strafed from the air by the enemy.
“I don’t think the significance of Indian soldiers lies in their numbers. It’s in the simple fact that they were there, as Indians, as citizens of the Empire, with a maulvi [Muslim priest] and pagris, and a whole different way of looking at the world,” Mr Bowman said.
IMAGE SOURCE,PRIVATE COLLECTIONThese men had spent much of 1940 in a village in northern France, just north of the city of Lille. Braving a biting winter, they exercised and fed their mules. They met local villagers, charming packed audiences with their “weekly gymkhanas where they performed tricks on mule back and danced bhangra [an energetic folk dance from Punjab]”.
Things changed rapidly in May when the Germans attacked France, and “within a space of two weeks, from being part of a well-ordered, disciplined, multi-national army, the soldiers were part of a chaotic retreat to the coast”, says Mr Bowman.
On reaching Dover, the historian says, they played Punjabi folk music, upon which even “many British spectators joined in the dance”.
They were welcomed into British homes and hearts, and had a set of toy soldiers reproduced after them.
Their lives had changed as they travelled from India to villages and towns across Britain and France until they returned home after the end of the war. Some were captured by Germans and held in prisoner of war camps in France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
IMAGE SOURCE,HULTON DEUTSCH/GETTY IMAGESThen why were these soldiers forgotten in the books and films of what Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War Two, called a “miracle of deliverance” in a famed speech in 1940?
One reason, according to Mr Bowman, could be that they were “involved in the business of supply, not front-line fighting, and such support troops are rarely remembered”.
“Public memory and public forgetting are fascinating processes, it’s hard to put your finger on all the reasons,” Mr Bowman says.
“The post-war environment was a very different one, in Europe and in India. In Europe there was a need for physical reconstruction and for building new societies. The focus was on the future, and the elements of the war that lived on in popular memory were taken from a narrow field, usually involving those with white faces and posh backgrounds.
“In India, the process leading to independence and partition took precedence. History is always a moving and unfolding process.”
Sudha G Tilak is a journalist and author of Temple Tales: Secrets and Stories from India’s Sacred Places
He was in my Former national Guard Unit – The 40th Infantry Division. Grumpy
As you can guess, dust has ben the enemy of all Cav or Armor units since Al the Great. Because you can never really get away from it giving your position away and vice versa the Bad Guys movements. Grumpy
Remember
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| US Army Photo |
The old soldier leaned heavily on his cane. He grew slightly misty eyed as he looked down at the gravestone sitting in the sunshine just outside the nation’s capital. He had known the man buried there, had served with him in two wars. Had held him as he died on a snowy hilltop in Korea.
He knew his own time was coming, and soon. He was nearly a hundred years old, he carried shrapnel from a Chinese grenade in one hip and had been scarred badly on his right leg when a friendly aircraft had dropped its load of napalm an instant too soon. All of his friends were dead. Just that morning he had attended the funeral of his great-grandson, killed in action in yet another foreign war for which he could see no good reason.
Perhaps he had grown cynical over the years, who could blame him? He had killed, he had seen the men serving in his unit be killed, or worse, maimed so that the rest of their lives were dogged by pain and regret.
He had been lucky, neither German, North Korean, Chinese, nor North Vietnamese bullets and grenades had injured him to the point that he couldn’t function. Sure, he chuckled to himself, he could tell when it was going to rain well before most folks. Some of that was the damage his body had had inflicted upon it in three wars. Some of it was, he chuckled again, simply the irony of making it to old age.
Many of the men, and now women, that he knew hadn’t been so lucky. He’d also lost a son and a great-grandson to the wars which the politicians had said were “necessary.” Two of his grandsons, and one granddaughter, had seen the elephant. They didn’t talk about those things with their spouses or their friends. But they did talk with their Grandpa, usually after a bad day or after some new outrage on the news.
The old soldier was beginning to wonder what had happened to the country he had spent most of his adult life fighting for. Had the suffering and all the death been worth it? He was no longer sure.
But as his youngest great-grandson had said that morning at the funeral of his brother, “We can’t quit Grandpa, otherwise all this has been for nothing.”
Young Stephen had shaken his head, then wiped a tear from his cheek as he had said that, then he’d straightened his uniform, he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy of all things, and returned to rigid attention as Taps was played.
The old soldier sighed, saluted the grave of his oldest friend, then turned to limp down the hill to where his family awaited him. It all had to mean something, didn’t it?
He was no longer sure. But he and his family served and had always served, he still felt that they lived in the best country on Earth, regardless of which crop of politicians were in charge. Something had to change, he knew that, but he doubted that he would live to see that change.
As his grandson, father of the man they had just buried, held the car door for him, the old soldier looked back up the hillside one more time. He knew that his next visit to this place would be in a casket, drawn by horses, the mournful thump of the drums taking him to his final rest. He would be in fine company here.
He regretted nothing.
Taliban fighters mobilize to control a crowd during a rally for Afghanistan’s independence day in Kabul on Aug. 19. The Taliban seized control of the city this week, effectively capturing the country in a matter of weeks.
Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The quick collapse of the Afghan National Army stunned many, including the Pentagon’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley. He told reporters this week that the U.S. intelligence community estimated that if U.S. forces withdrew, it would be weeks, months, even years before the Afghan military fell to the Taliban.
Instead, it was just 11 days.
So what happened? How could U.S. officials be so wrong?
The answers lie in the chronic challenges that plagued the Afghan military from the outset, from illiteracy to corruption to incompetence to one of the key problems: a lack of faith in the Kabul government.
Carter Malkasian, a longtime Afghanistan observer and author of The American War in Afghanistan, seized on that last point in explaining the fall of the country to the Taliban.
The Taliban fought with an ideological fervor and to rid the country of the foreign invaders, values enshrined in Afghan identity.
“It animated the Taliban. It sapped the will of Afghan soldiers and police. When they clashed, Taliban were more willing to kill and be killed than soldiers and police, at least a good number of them,” he said.
We have both embedded many times with U.S. and Afghan forces. Some of what we witnessed, as well as the conversations we had, may help explain the challenges the Afghan army faced.
Lack of leadership
In 2016, we visited the Kandahar military training center. There we met 23-year-old 1st Lt. Hayatullah Frotan. He was just 14 when he joined the army, and he quickly rose through the ranks.
Even back then, he told us the government wouldn’t help the families of slain soldiers.
“They don’t have any policy, any good plan,” Frotan told us, “when they lose some personnel.”
If the government provided for the families with death benefits, he said, “the personnel morale will become high. And they will fight like lions.”
Then there was lack of leadership. The Afghan National Army struggled to find qualified commanders to lead the soldiers. Over the years, we met Afghan generals praised by the U.S. military, only to find out later the generals were replaced for incompetence or corruption.
Some generals pocketed pay meant for soldiers. Others were supposed to buy the best rice for their troops. Instead they bought the cheapest and lowest quality possible and pocketed the difference. Still others sold government-issued firewood meant to keep the troops warm.
Frotan said the system was marked by cronyism, with not enough loyalty to the troops. The leaders were not only corrupt. Some of them were illiterate.
“They don’t know how to write. They don’t know how to read,” Frotan said. “How to be professional soldiers and leadership is very, very important.”
Afghan National Army 1st Lt. Hayatullah Frotan poses for a photograph in 2016.
David Gilkey/NPR
The lack of education led to basic problems with tasks such as maintaining equipment, from rifles to vehicles, to ordering spare parts.
And not knowing how to write meant these leaders couldn’t even read the maps properly. NPR was with an Afghan army unit six years ago when it was shooting artillery rounds at the Taliban. It was off by a kilometer because it couldn’t figure out the proper grid coordinates.
Not only that, but Frotan says commanders often had trouble filing simple paperwork to give soldiers time off.
“They don’t have enough knowledge, so they cannot make a good schedule for their vacation,” Frotan said. So with no proper time off, that meant burnout among the troops, which led to high attrition rates.
Years ago, a U.S. general told us that not only couldn’t many of the Afghan officers read or write, but they couldn’t count. He said the Americans at times would draw a large rectangle in the dirt, telling the officers they needed enough soldiers to fill that space.
A heavy toll
Nearly 60,000 soldiers and police officers have lost their lives fighting since 2001, the majority just in the past six years, according to a report from the Brookings Institution.
The high death rate meant a constant flow of new recruits who needed basic training. Few could advance enough to learn the more complex skills. U.S. military trainers like Maj. Kevin McCormick told us that teaching advanced military skills is a time-consuming process.
“It takes a lot of time. It is not a short process,” McCormick said. “These skills are perishable. They require continuous training, continuous mastery.”
In our conversations with Afghan soldiers, we also heard other complaints. Commanders deprived troops of SIM cards, so they couldn’t call their families. Many soldiers either ended up deserting or not reenlisting.
U.S. Army trainer Maj. Kevin McCormick talks with Afghan National Army 1st Lt. Hayatullah Frotan during an artillery training exercise in 2016.
David Gilkey/NPR
Over the years, there were more basic challenges. In 2010, NPR was at a combat outpost before dawn with U.S. and Afghan troops. The Americans were all geared up, ready to go on patrol. Some of the Afghan forces were half-dressed, smelling of hashish and asking for food.
Two years later, NPR was with another U.S. unit. A sergeant was telling his soldiers what he expected of the Afghan soldiers — the Afghan National Army. “ANA is going to lead too. If they don’t want to lead, just stop and make them walk ahead of you,” he told his soldiers.
The Afghans could do little without U.S. support. The U.S. soldiers in the field knew the truth. But during this time, from the Defense Department to the White House to Congress, officials had the same thing to say: The Afghan army is getting better every day. They are fighting hard. They are leading.
Many of these problems were outlined in numerous reports by John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. But these reports never seemed to resonate with members of Congress or prompt oversight hearings, like the Fulbright hearings during the Vietnam War.
When the Taliban started their advancement this year, the Afghan National Army, held together by duct tape and glue, just couldn’t hold. Support from U.S. airstrikes against Taliban units dropped off. One soldier told us that the Taliban also gave payments to Afghan soldiers who refused to fight, providing the most money to the officers.
Even high-ranking Afghan military leaders gave up. In an NPR interview, an Afghan Air Force colonel who is now hiding in Kabul said that it was impossible to lead in such dire conditions and that this in turn affected the troops. “The willingness comes from the leadership,” he said. “The hope is given to the subordinates from the leadership.”
So when the military leaders give up, the unit quickly falls apart — a common occurrence among Afghan army units.
Afghan commandos
But there was another very powerful fighting force: the Afghan commandos. They were highly trained soldiers, some 22,000 of them among the 300,000 Afghan troops, and they were the backbone of Afghanistan’s fighting power. Over the years, they were stretched thin, flying all over the country to back up regular Afghan army units that couldn’t or wouldn’t fight. They often complained about this to NPR reporters. One told us they were meant for special missions, not to handle basic operations that were supposed to be the job of rank-and-file soldiers.
As the Taliban advanced throughout the country during those final weeks, the commandos faced a chilling reality. One commando from the south told us that no one in his unit wanted to surrender. They were there to fight the Taliban. But the Kabul government ordered them to lay down their arms.
“We were no longer safe,” the commando said. “We had to take refuge in our friends’ houses, and now we are hiding.”
Another commando from the Kabul unit shared a similar story. “Yes, everybody hide themselves, and I’m really scared and I have not been outside like three days, four days,” he said.
Once all the commando units throughout the country broke down, the Kabul unit was the last one standing. “We didn’t fight because the government didn’t say you have to fight it,” the Kabul commando said. “The Ministry of Defense didn’t say you have to fight.” It’s a political decision, he added — it’s not about the willingness to fight.
Now, the Afghan commandos have either left for other countries or are in hiding. They are ineligible for expedited visas and are without jobs, an income or any protection. “Last night I was really crying,” the commando said. “And also my wife, my kids were crying about this. And I’m presently — I’m jobless. We don’t trust the Taliban.”
The commandos tell us they feel betrayed. The Afghan authorities, they say, “are not valuable human beings. This is the misfortune of the Afghan people.”
—————————————————————————————-This from the NPR! Grumpy
In the aftermath of World War I, the Japanese Empire assumed administrative control of these islands through the League of Nations South Pacific Mandate established by the Versailles Treaty. Through the 1920s and 1930s, they improved infrastructure in Palau, developed commerce and eventually even militarized the islands by building seaplane bases, a submarine base and airfields.
Map of Peleliu by the author.
By 1944, those installations posed a threat to the contemplated U.S. landings on Mindanao in the Philippines scheduled for later that year, so a decision was made to preempt the threat. This would be done through amphibious assaults against two Palauan islands, Anguar and Peleliu.
The larger of the two, Peleliu, was home to an Imperial Army airfield equipped with aircraft revetments, taxiways, a large, concrete headquarters building and a pair of intersecting runways capable of accommodating twin-engine bombers. With Mindanao just 500 miles away to the west and Guam just 800 miles away to the northeast, long range aircraft from Peleliu’s airfield could reach both the Philippines and the Marianas.
The first wave of LVTs moves toward the invasion beaches of Peleliu , on Sept. 15, 1944, passing through the inshore bombardment line of LCI gunboats. Cruisers and battleships are bombarding from the distance. The landing area is almost totally hidden in dust and smoke. Photographed by a floatplane from USS HONOLULU (CL-48). U.S. Navy photograph # 80-G-283533.
In the end, U.S. leadership canceled the invasion of Mindanao but not the Palau operation, which kicked-off on Sept. 15, 1944, when the 1st Marine Division stormed ashore on the western beaches of Peleliu. In the weeks that followed, the fighting reached an appalling intensity that foreshadowed battles yet to come.
It would eventually claim the lives of almost the entire Japanese island garrison of more than 10,000 men in addition to 1,794 Americans. The fighting also left Peleliu strewn with the debris of war. Even today, despite an ongoing de-mining operation, live hand grenades, mortar rounds, artillery shells and small arms ammunition litter the jungle.
U.S. Marines taking cover behind a knocked out LVT (Landing Vehicle, Tracked) nicknamed “The Bloody Trail” during the first day of the Battle of Peleliu. Note the left-handed Marine firing his M1 rifle. (Marine Corps Photo 21-4).
The keen-eyed student of small arms will also find that guns are still there, too. A standard tourist visit to Peleliu today begins where the battle began on the invasion beaches of the island’s southwest coast, which is where the 1st Marine Division began the battle on Sept. 15 by landing three regiments abreast. The 1st Marines came ashore on “White Beach”, a 650-yd. concave strip of sand that represented the division’s far-left flank.
At the far northern end of the sector, a natural rock outcropping known as “The Point” juts out 15 yds. from the shoreline and the Japanese concealed a concrete bunker for a 25 mm Type 96 auto cannon there. The position was oriented to direct flanking fire against anything or anyone approaching the beach, and it was backed-up by machine guns and concealed mortar positions that provided additional supporting defensive firepower.
Marines of the 16th Marine Field Depot on Peleliu’s “White Beach” after just having landed on Sept. 15, 1944. They are armed with M1903A3 rifles. (National Archives and Records Administration – 532535/127-N-95279).
A 26-year-old Captain, George P. Hunt (USMCR), commanding K Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment lead the assault on “The Point” with three platoons adding up to 235 men. He later described the Japanese positions found there:
“Pillboxes, reinforced with steel and concrete, had been dug or blasted in the base of the perpendicular drop to the beach. Others, with coral and concrete piled six feet on top were constructed above, and spider holes were blasted around them for protecting infantry.”
A view of “White Beach 2” showing the spot where F Company, 1st Marines landed on Sept. 15, 1944. The smoke that can be seen at rising at center left is from a white phosphorous smoke grenade that was used against a Japanese bunker located there. Note the 37 mm M3 anti-tank gun at far right.
Capt. Hunt’s plan was to push inland and then take on the little fortress from the rear, but three days of preliminary naval bombardment had done nothing to the position and it unleashed a relentless volume of fire.
Nevertheless, Hunt’s 1st and 3rd platoons conducted an assault during which one of his squad leaders, a 20-year-old Corporal named Henry W. Hahn, tossed a white-phosphorus smoke grenade through the casemate’s firing port. Suffocating from the combination of penetrating heat and toxic fumes, the Japanese soldiers inside attempted to escape but the white phosphorous had set them ablaze.
1st Marine Division PFCs Gerald P. Thursby of Akron, Ohio, and Douglas D. Lightheart of Jackson, Mich., smoking cigarettes shortly after having landed on Peleliu’s “White Beach 2”. (National Archives 127-N-97628).
Hunt later reported that, as they spilled out of the position on fire, the rifle cartridges in their clip pouches were cooking-off in a particularly gruesome scene. Although the way the jungle has reclaimed the Japanese bunker over the decades since 1944 is stunning in its natural beauty, it is impossible to visit the site today without picturing that violent moment.
By 10:00 a.m., all of Hunt’s platoon leaders were casualties and his overall strength was 60 percent of what it had been when the landings began just after 8:30 a.m. Soon thereafter, as his men languished in the 115-degree equatorial heat, the Japanese counterattacked with supporting mortar fire in a move that severed K Company from the rest of the 3rd Battalion. Making matters even worse, Hunt’s men soon ran out of fresh water.
Peleliu under fire, probably during the pre-invasion bombardment, circa Sept. 12-15, 1944. Photographed from a floatplane from USS HONOLULU (CL-48). Photo looks North-East, with the airfield in the foreground and Umurbrogol Ridge in the distance, partly shrouded in smoke. (U.S. Navy photograph #80-G-283520).
Although they spent that first night on the island cut off from the rest of the 1st Marine Regiment, the Brooklyn-class light cruiser USS Honolulu (CL-48) and three destroyers provided star-shell illumination to help them turn back Japanese infiltrators. Twice during the night and then again shortly after dawn on Sept. 16, the Japanese launched bitter counterattacks against the K Company positions, but Capt. Hunt and his Marines held them off.
Marines of the 1st Marine Division firing an M1919A4 .30-caliber machine gun during the battle. From the Frederick R. Findtner Collection (COLL/3890), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH.
Throughout this phase of the action, Cpl. Hahn expertly directed the fire of his squad, and his leadership was instrumental in repulsing the opposing force. Once the sun was up, Capt. Hunt counted the bodies of more than 100 Japanese troops littering the area around “The Point.” In the afternoon Hunt’s Marines received resupply, but then the Japanese attacked again and the fighting reached a climax during which Henry Hahn received a fragmentation wound.
Despite the injury, he chose to lead his squad on a reconnaissance patrol that ultimately encountered a numerically superior Japanese force. Using just M1 rifles and hand grenades, Cpl. Hahn and the patrol drove the enemy back and then returned to friendly lines. Only then did he agree to being evacuated as a combat casualty.
Marines of the 1st Marine Division fighting from the cover of a coral knob. Note that the Marine in front is firing an M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun that is equipped with the simplified L-sight. OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH.
More fighting at “The Point” continued during the second night, but by then the 5th Marines had captured the airfield and begun the push toward Peleliu’s eastern shore. For more than 30 hours, K/3/1 had survived four major counterattacks despite being surrounded, low on supplies and out of water. It had suffered 32 killed and 125 wounded, leaving only Captain Hunt and 77 Marines still capable of fighting when it all came to an end.
The author holds up live cartridges and spent shell casings he found at “The Point” during a visit to Peleliu in March, 2014.
The bodies of more than 400 dead Japanese soldiers in the immediate area of the position provided a powerful indication of just how vicious an engagement it had been. Bravery, fighting spirit and the determined leadership of George Hunt as well as Henry W. Hahn had determined the outcome. Both men were ultimately recognized for their contributions when they were awarded the Navy Cross.
The M1917A1 Heavy Machine Gun receiver and top cover that the author found on White Beach about 50 ft. down from “The Point” on March 27, 2017.
You can tell just how fierce the battle at “The Point” was by the way that the debris of battle litters the area to this day, and makes it impossible not to imagine what happened there in Sept., 1944. Shell casings and live rounds of various calibers can be easily found, but so can more substantial artifacts. On March 27, 2017, the author walked about 50 ft. down “White Beach” from “The Point” and noticed what at first appeared to be an oddly shaped rock lying in the sand.
A comparison between the M1917A1 Heavy Machine Gun receiver and top cover that the author found on White Beach on March 27, 2017 and an example in slightly better condition.
On closer inspection, it turned out not to be a rock at all, but rather the receiver and top cover of a Browning M1917A1 .30-cal. heavy machine gun. How it ended-up on “White Beach” would be a matter of pure speculation at this point, but it was there, and the author felt it best to see to its preservation, so he took it to the island’s museum. It remains on display there now with a simple note describing where and when it was discovered.
Two 7.7 mm Type 97 aircraft machine guns in relic condition on display in Peleliu’s museum.
Peleliu’s museum is a collection of artifacts from the battle and it is housed in a concrete Japanese blockhouse located near the airfield. During the naval bombardment that preceded the Sept. 15 amphibious landings, battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) scored a direct hit on this structure. The evidence of which can still be seen today in the form of a gaping hole in the wall where a 14” shell passed through the concrete.
Five M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifles in relic condition on display in Peleliu’s museum.
The collection inside the blockhouse includes a number of relic-condition firearms recovered on the battlefield during the decades after the battle. There are examples of the BARs, Type 92 heavy machine guns and other weapons used during the 73-day clash of arms that forever changed the complexion of the island. In addition to artifacts on display inside the blockhouse, there are artifacts on display outside as well.
The author poses in front of an LVT(A)-4 AmTrac located near the end of one of the runways of Peleliu’s old airfield while holding the upper receiver of a relic condition M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun.
At several locations on Peleliu, World War II military vehicles can be seen. This includes an M1 Medium Tractor (the military designation for the Allis-Chalmers HD-7W) at the base of Hill 100, a Japanese Type 95 Ha-Gō light tank on the airfield and several examples of one of the most important vehicles of the Pacific war, the Amphibious Tractor or AmTrac. Because it was capable of transporting personnel from ships in deep water all the way to the beach and beyond, the AmTrac, also known as Landing Vehicle Tracked or “LVT”, played an indispensable part in every amphibious landing in the Pacific Theatre.
The upper receiver of a relic condition M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun found near Peleliu’s old airfield in March, 2014.
Examples of the standard configuration LVT can be found at several locations on the island today, but Peleliu also continues to be home to LVTs that were specially modified to provide supporting fire for the infantry during the first wave of an assault landing. One version is the LVT(A)-1, which mounts a turret armed with a 37 mm gun and the other version is the LVT(A)-4, an example of which is located near the end of one of the old runways, which mounts a turret armed with a 75 mm howitzer.
The upper receiver of a relic condition M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun sits on the left side track sponson of an LVT(A)-4 AmTrac located near the end of one of the runways of Peleliu’s old airfield.
During a visit to Peleliu in March 2014, the author stopped at the LVT(A)-4 for a few photographs and noticed an otherwise unremarkable piece of rusted metal on the vehicle’s left side track sponson. Under closer examination, the object turned out to be the receiver of an M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun.
There was no bolt, no actuator, the Cutts compensator was rusted away along with the rear sight, and the fire control group was missing. Otherwise it was unmistakably a Thompson. The Republic of Palau prohibits the removal of any military artifacts, so after a few photographs, the receiver went right back where it was found on the LVT(A)-4.
By the end of the first week of the battle of Peleliu, the 1st Marine Division had captured the entire southern end of the island. The fighting had been tough, and the casualties had been high with 70 percent in the 1st Marine Regiment. However, everything was about to take a turn for the worse because the terrain over which the Americans would now have to maneuver was about to become much more complicated.
A 1st Marine Division radioman with a Motorola SCR-300 “Walkie-Talkie” backpack radio rushes forward during the battle of Peleliu. (National Archives File #80-G-48359/WAR & CONFLICT #1181).
With the loss of the western beaches and the airfield, Japanese forces on Peleliu withdrew into defensive positions within the island’s central hill mass, a complex of jagged limestone ridges, knobs, gulches, sinkholes and caves known as the Umurbrogol. Within the setting of this broken and rubble-strewn terrain, the Americans would have to fight the kind of attritional warfare that the 1st Marines could no longer endure. Having sustained massive combat casualties during the opening phase of the battle, the regiment had ceased to be an effective fighting force.
Picking their way through the rocky terrain of the Umurbrogol, a column of Marines moves up to the front lines. From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH.
If the fight was to continue, it would be necessary to bring in reinforcements and that was done on Sept. 23 when the 321st Regimental Combat Team of the Army’s 81st Infantry Division landed on the island’s western coast. Fighting alongside the Marines, soldiers from the 321st pushed across a trail at the northern end of the Umurbrogol in a move that, by the afternoon of Sept. 26, had isolated a force of approximately 2,000 Japanese defenders in a pocket that it would take five U.S. regiments almost two months to reduce.
A Marine War Dog handler reads a note just delivered by his canine messenger during the battle. Note the Model 1897 Trench Shotgun at left. Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH.
It was roughly 900 yds. long and 400 yds. wide, and consisted of “some of the most unpleasantly exotic terrain on the face of creation,” as one veteran would later describe it. The Umurbrogol pocket’s coral formations were littered with jagged boulders and rubble that made it difficult to move, and its steep slopes meant that there was no place for the attacker to hide. By committing to a defensive fight-to-the-death in fixed positions in the hill mass, the Japanese abandoned all possibility of a maneuver battle on the island and, by extension, they had abandoned all possibility of repelling U.S. forces.
Two photographs showing a Marine of the 1st Marine Division fighting on Peleliu with an M1A1 Thompson submachine gun that is equipped with the simplified L-sight. OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH.
After the fall of Saipan nearly three months earlier, the Imperial armed forces realized that pointless “banzai” charges were unproductive and wasteful, and so they would not be used on Peleliu. Instead, the fighting there would take the character of an attritional slogging match intended to stretch the battle out as long as possible and tie-up U.S. troops for the greatest length of time possible.
Although other protracted defensive battles would follow on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Peleliu would be the proving ground where the strategy would be tested for the first time, and this is why September eventually gave way to October with no end in sight. For the troops engaged in ground combat operations, the adversities continued unabated because in southern Palau, even during autumn months, the daily high temperature rises to a sweltering 105 degrees.
Marines of the 1st Marine Division engaged in the type of fighting that typified the struggle for the Umurbrogol Pocket. Mk. 2 Fragmentation Hand Grenades are seen here alongside the M1 Rifle, one example of which is equipped with the M7 Rifle Grenade Launcher
By this point, it was two weeks since the initial landings, and despite the immense firepower brought to bear against the island, the struggle on it had produced 5,000 dead and wounded. When the 7th Marines took over the mission to reduce the pocket on Sept. 29, it began a two-week rotation during which the regiment would sustain 46-percent casualties. That high rate was produced mainly by a technique known as “corkscrew and blow torch” that employed the satchel charge and the flamethrower as the only means of making progress.
Sherman medium tanks from the 1st and 3rd platoons of A Company, 710th Tank Battalion moving into Peleliu’s Mortimer Valley past Grinlinton Pond on Oct. 7, 1944. (U.S. Marine Corps photograph #97433).
Even with artillery support, close air support and the extensive use of flamethrower tanks, the slogging match continued to wound and kill at an astonishing rate. Because of this, Marines and soldiers began referring to the Umurbrogol as “Bloody Nose Ridge” in acknowledgement of the brutal and unrelenting fight that was unfolding within the cracks and fissures of the pocket’s coral badlands. This phase of the battle produced one of Peleliu’s most striking landmarks: a knocked-out M4 Sherman tank nicknamed “Flyin’ Home.”
The wreck of “Flyin’ Home”, a Chrysler M4 “Large-Hatch” composite hull Sherman medium tank from A Company, 710th Tank Battalion that was knocked out on Oct. 18, 1944.
In Sept., 1944, it belonged to A Company of the U.S. Army’s 710th Tank Battalion and it participated in the Battle of Anguar for a week before being transported to Peleliu to support the 1st Marine Division. On Oct. 18, “Flyin’ Home” was directing fire at Japanese forces in cave positions in the vicinity of Hill 210 when it drove over an aerial bomb that had been buried to function as an improvised anti-tank mine. The explosion breached the bottom of the Sherman and started a fire in the hull that killed S4 Otto Hasselbarth, Cpl. Michael Valentino, PFC Georges Lopes, and PFC Howard Dahms.
An M1919A4 .30-caliber machine gun can still be found in the bow mount of “Flyin’ Home”.
Today they are remembered by a memorial plaque sitting just a few feet from the wreckage, and an M1919A4 .30-caliber machine gun is still in the bow mount for the tank’s assistant driver. Two days after “Flyin’ Home” met its fate, the 81st Infantry Division relieved the 1st Marine Division completely and began mopping-up operations despite the fact that organized groups of Japanese soldiers would continue to resist for another five weeks.
One of the highlights of a visit to the island is the Battle of Peleliu Jungle Trail. This prepared footpath leads visitors into the heart of the sharp precipices of the uplifted coral plateau where the Umurbrogol pocket took its final form. The trail is strewn with U.S. and Japanese field gear: entrenching tools, mess kits, canteens and gas masks are almost everywhere you look.
The author noticed this live Type 97 fragmentation hand grenade in a cave near Hill 300 during a visit to Peleliu in March, 2014.
Ominously, it is also strewn with unexploded mortar rounds, artillery shells and even the occasional hand grenade, which is unsurprising considering the unrelenting character of the fighting that took place there. It has been estimated that U.S. forces used over 118,000 hand grenades and over 150,000 mortar rounds during the battle. Even though de-mining and clearing has been going on for quite some time on the island, the Jungle Trail is a place where you can still see “Explosive Remnants of War” as they are now called.
An M1 Garand rifle that the author found on the Battle of Peleliu Jungle Trail during a visit there on March 28, 2017.
During a hike there on March 28, 2017, the author had not even gone 500 ft. down the length of a feature known as “China Wall” before he spotted the unmistakable profile of an M1 Garand rifle.
Although the wood was long gone and the receiver heel was missing, the barrel, operating rod and gas cylinder confirmed that this relic was indeed a Garand that had been carried onto Peleliu by some forgotten soldier or Marine in 1944. Nearby, a loaded 15-round magazine for the M1 Carbine blended in with the natural jungle foliage to such a degree that it almost went unnoticed. Another 1,000 ft. down the trail, an M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle was found leaning against a rock.
The front of the M1 Garand rifle that the author found on the Battle of Peleliu Jungle Trail during a visit there on March 28, 2017. Note that the gas cylinder is less corroded due to being made of stainless steel.
To be a student of firearms history on Peleliu’s Jungle Trail is to experience a hallowed ground like no other, because there just isn’t a battlefield anywhere else on earth quite like it. Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima are close, but they are places where the march of time has moved on. They are places where the modern era feels more present than it does on Peleliu.
A loaded M1 Carbine magazine that the author found on the Battle of Peleliu Jungle Trail during a visit there on March 28, 2017.
Even though it is now overgrown in a way that it was not during the battle, at every turn Peleliu reminds you how one of the most intense battles of the 20th Century was fought on it, especially on the Jungle Trail in the Umurbrogol pocket. By Nov. 8, there were only 300 Japanese Imperial Army soldiers left in the pocket, but still they fought on.
By Nov. 24, the Americans had captured every enemy position but one, the island’s “Last Command Post.” Col. Kunio Nakagawa, the 46-year-old commanding officer of the Imperial Army’s 2nd Infantry Regiment, had led Japanese forces throughout the vicious engagement.
A Marine on Peleliu after several days of fighting – Oct., 1944. (National Archives 80-G-48358 WAR & CONFLICT #1182).
After 70 days of combat, all that he had left was 120 men, more than half of which were so badly wounded that they could not fight. Col. Nakagawa understood that defeat was inevitable. Rather than surrendering or allowing himself to be captured, he burned his regimental colors and then committed ritual suicide. The Peleliu Jungle Trail will ultimately lead you to the site of his “Last Command Post,” but you have to do a little climbing to reach it.
While that place may feel more than a little haunted, for anyone interested in this chapter of World War II history there is no better place to contemplate the Battle of Peleliu, a battle that was supposed to last only three days. When the Army finally declared the island secure on Nov. 27 though, two months, one week and five days had passed.
That two months, one week and five days had been characterized by battle fatigue, heat exhaustion and disease in addition to staggering combat casualties. Peleliu was a place of blood and suffering that stood in sharp contrast to every battle that came before it and, in many ways, introduced the U.S. to the confronting reality that achieving victory in the Pacific through ground combat operations was going to be costly and time consuming.
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Maybe this would be a good idea!
Do you think there’s any chance of getting Taliban commanders to teach at West Point? It might be a nice change of pace for cadets to learn from someone who actually won a war.
Evacuations of Saigon in 1975 VS
Evacuations of Kabul in 2021.
By the way my Old Principal Bill Chun stars in this film. He is one of the nicest guys, That and he was one Hell of a Good Boss too! (He is the little Korean Kid in this fine film by the way)
Grumpy