Invasion of Peleliu, Pacific, 1944
The invasion of Peleliu was important to the competing strategies in the Pacific, but critical to Douglas MacArthur’s intentions to retake the Philippines (according to the general), as securing the island would allow an airfield to be built to protect Macarthur’s flank during his invasion. The battle for Peleliu was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific War, with more than 2,300 Americans killed, another 8,500 wounded, and of the Japanese garrison on the island of 10,900 men, only 202 survived, mostly foreign laborers in the Japanese service. Nineteen Japanese soldiers were the only survivors from their combat troops. As the battle for the island raged it was already the source of controversy in the United States.
The airfield on Peleliu was too distant from the Philippines to have been able to have interfered with operations in the archipelago, and the base was not used to support MacArthur’s operations there. Nor was the island used to support further naval operations in the island hopping campaign, the island of Yap and the Ulithi Atoll assumed the role of advance bases for the remaining operations in the Pacific. Although it was proven in hindsight to have been strategically unnecessary, the invasion of Peleliu and the high rate of casualties are widely considered a mistake mostly because of the leadership of Major General William Rupertus, who confidently predicted he would secure the island in three or four days. It took more than two months.