Peleliu survivors recall horrors of battle

On April 8, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko will visit the island of Peleliu in the Republic of Palau, the scene of one of the most intense battles of World War II. The imperial visit nearly 71 years after the battle is intended to console the spirits of the Japanese soldiers who died fighting there, and perhaps bring closure to their surviving family members.

Shukan Jitsuwa (April 16) tracked down two members of the Japanese garrison that defended the island, two of a handful that survived the battle: former 2nd lieutenant Hisashi Yamaguchi and sergeant Takashi Nagai. Both men are 94 years old.

Unaware of the changes in defensive tactics by the Japanese, the overconfident U.S. expected the island to fall within four days. Instead, it found itself in bloody fight that lasted 73 days, and the horrendous casualties it took were a prelude to even more deadly battles to come on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The two former soldiers mentioned above arrived in Palau in April 1944, having been part of regiments from Mito, Takasaki and Utsunomiya that had been transferred from Manchuria to reinforce the garrison. Yamaguchi was shocked at the small navy garrison of 2,500 men already on the island, which was nearly defenseless. "They might as well have been naked," he recalls.

U.S. air raids had destroyed the island's air field, but the defenders had time left to dig in and make preparations for the assault they expected to come. The army carved out tunnels in caves and set up interlinked defenses with overlapping fields of fire.

After three days of bombing and bombardment of the island by naval guns, the U.S. Marines landed on the morning of Sept 15, 1944.

"At that time I was defending 'Momiji,'" said Yamaguchi, naming a defensive stronghold on the northwest part of the island. The spearhead of the U.S. attack came at two fortified strongholds, which the Japanese had code named Iwamatsu and Kuromatsu.

Nagai recalls that his brigade attempted night assaults against the Americans, but these proved ineffective.

"They would go to sleep in their tents at night, but had set up microphones that could pick up our movements, so if they picked up any noises, they would respond with shooting."

Finally on Nov 24, the island's commander Col Kunio Nakagawa sent a coded message, "Sakura, sakura, sakura" to notify Army headquarters that the island had fallen, and then committed suicide.

Rather than surrender or go out in a suicidal "gyokusui" ("broken jade") banzai charge, some survivors went into hiding and occasionally mounted forays for provisions. They were able to live well off items of food discarded by the American troops. And there was also entertainment in the evenings.

"We could see movies," recalls Yamaguchi. "On weekends they'd show movies in outdoor theaters and we'd sneak up and watch. Of course they were foreign films."

The island's natives eventually informed the Americans of the Japanese soldiers' presence and high-ranking officers were brought down from Guam to tell them the war had ended, persuading them to give up.

It was not until April 23, 1947, that a total of 34 Japanese soldiers from Peleliu, including Yamaguchi and Nagai, returned to Japan.

Of 40,000 American marines and army troops sent into the battle for "Operation Stalemate II," some 1,700 were killed and about 9,000 wounded. While nearly the entire Japanese garrison of 10,000 was wiped out, for the U.S., in many respects it was to prove a Pyrrhic victory.

Even before the battle, some U.S. commanders had argued that Peleliu was of limited strategic value. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it is believed that taking the island was probably unnecessary. That of course is little consolation to the men on both sides who died there.

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