GI Diary: Peleliu - The Killing Ground - Part 2 of 3

"Peleliu - The Killing Ground" episode from "WWII: GI Diary"..... This old 1978 TV docu-drama was narrated by Lloyd Bridges and told the stories of real soldiers/sailors/pilots and their first-hand experiences in battle. Archival footage and good background music really made the stories come alive.....about 25 episodes were made. This is the story of the costly and vicious battle for the island of Peleliu in the Pacific.......part 2 of 3

Category:

Education

Tags:

• GI
• Diary
• WW2
• WWII
• war
• Pacific
• Peleliu
• US
• Marines
• Japan

[persico45]

love it!

[skyraider1404]

Part 3 is uploading now...please be sure to rate all 3 parts...thanks for watching!

[curtismes]

The Japanese considered it great shame to surrender and great glory to die for the emperor...that is a historical fact leading to very few POWs....further complicated by the fact they tortured Allied POWs to death in many many cases which led to Marines not taking any prisoners. An Ugly Ugly conflict of which the Japanese code and attitude is mainly to blame....almost 40% of allied POWs died in japanese camps...compared to less than 3% in German POW camps (if you dont include russians).

[centurion180ad]

@Oscarme2 20th Century version of Bushido, caused this No Quarter style of fighting.

Many Americans died of bad intelligence, because almost no Imperial Japanese were captured to be questioned in the early campaigns. By late '44 a new apporach to taking Imperial Japanese prisoners was yeilding up a goldmine of tactical value.

[centurion180ad]

The Imperial Japanese did not "hide" in caves.

Those were fighting positions, being primary strongpoints in a systemized deathtrap including gun-bunkers, improved rifle pits, trenches, antitank obstacles or AT ditches, boobytraps, mines, preregistered artillery concentrations, the works.

[Burco1]

I read an article about Peleliu today. It is virtually untouched from the time of the battle. It would be a very dangerous plce to walk around with unexploded ordinance all over the place.

[tlwmsu]

@Lachausis : That may have contributed somewhat, but if you know anything about how the Japanese stragegy changed by the Peleliu campaign, you know that they did not believe in surrender. They planned to die in battle; quite a few did so at their own hands rather than be taken prisoner.

[Lachausis]

The reason Japanese had so many KIA is because they couldn't evacuate their wounded, which meant that their wounded died without medical attention or were simply killed by advancing US troops, since they were not so eager to take prisoners. Imagine if the US wounded on Peleliu didn't get a proper medical attention? How many would survive? I'm not pro-Japanese or ant-American. I just wanted to look on the matter from other side.

[Oscarme2]

There is war then there is Atrocity. The Japs were less of a human. They were shocked those that surrendered they weren't shot dead or tortured. I knew men from WWII did not like Japs in the 21st century because of what they witnessed. The Marines fought the Pacific with the 3 B's -- Burn,Bomb & Bury em.. For the most part intell was poor and it got many Marines killed. Tarawa & Iwo had bad intell landing crafts hanging up on reefs bullseyes & Iwo with it's black sand 1 step forward 2 back.

[Thermokipio]

Great documentary!I'm from Greece but i am really interested in the pacific war.