This film will take a look at the Battle of Peleliu which took place from September to November of 1944 during the Mariana and Palau Campaign of WW2. It had been produced by the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corp (:17). The amphibious assault was a joint effort consisting of the Army, Navy, Maine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard (:25). This island was a part of the western most of Japanese mandated islands and had an airstrip on it which was the target of the mission (:50) in order to prevent invasion of the Philippians. Softening up attacks began the campaign and 3,000 sorties would drop over 2 ½ million bombs (1:17). The Eastern Air Force’s heavy bombers are seen in the sky (1:52) and dropping their bomb loads below (2:06). Assault forces arrived from bases like Guadalcanal, Pearl Harbor and the Marshal Islands (2:27). In total 600 ships including battleships, cruisers, destroyers and transports participated (2:43). The 1st Marine Division is viewed from aboard another ship (3:02) and they were to take Peleliu. The ships pointed to on the horizon (3:10) are of the 81st Army Division and they were instructed to take Angaur as it had to be before considering Peleliu secure. Beach installments are hit the day prior to beach landings (3:27). On D-Day, the announcement to man stations is heard over the intercom aboard ship and soldiers begin loading in the 2,000 lb. projectiles into the gun turrets (4:06). Firing of the weapons begins (4:24) and during three days the Navy had fired 6,000 tons of ammunition onto the island. 40-millimeter guns are pointed to which released 10,000 shells (4:34). Troops from three regiments began to load into the Amtrak’s which would take them ashore (6:00). The 1st and 5th were to head to Bloody Nose Ridge (6:05) and the 7th was to secure the right flank (6:13). Troops are the beach were under heavy Japanese mortar and gun fire (6:27). In the landing effort, 20 landing vehicles were wrecked (6:41). On the beach a sign reading “Shore Party C-P” is seen (6:46). Carrier planes provided air support (6:58) and troops and tanks were able to make their way up the jungle (8:44). The air strip with Bloody Nose Ridge in the background is pointed to (9:22). Flame throwers were used to hit Japanese hiding in caves and dug out hidden locations (10:04). On Angaur island, the 15,000 troops of the 81st Army loaded into Amtrak’s for their landings (11:30). Landing crafts, tanks and assault waves hit the beach to establish a beach head (11:49). Afterwards they pushed inland (13:16) and it would require 16 days for the men to capture Angaur (13:38). The film cuts back to Peleliu where Japanese forces had tried to bring up reinforcements during the nighttime and the boats used by snipers who the US forces hit are shown (14:20). Marine pilots drop their bomb payloads and this would be one of their shortest bombing missions on record as they had only 1,000 miles to travel from the airstrip to Bloody Nose Ridge (14:27). At Bloody Nose Ridge, Marines are seen fighting (14:59) and blurry footage of KOA’s and wounded soldiers follow (15:22). The film informs viewers that 9 camera men had been killed while taking this footage (17:04). Coming from Angaur to help the Marines, was the 81st division (17:15). Japanese soldiers are then seen surrendering and coming out of hiding places (18:50) and about 300 were taken as POW’s (18:50). Bloody Nose Ridge as well as the Peleliu airstrip had both been captured (19:17). The film ends at (19:38).

The Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II by the United States military, was fought between the U.S. and Japan during the Mariana and Palau Campaign of World War II, from September to November 1944, on the island of Peleliu.

U.S. Marines of the 1st Marine Division, and later soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 81st Infantry Division, fought to capture an airstrip on the small coral island of Peleliu. This battle was part of a larger offensive campaign known as Operation Forager, which ran from June to November 1944, in the Pacific Theater.

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com