Against.the.Odds.S02E02.The.Death.Ridges.of.Peleliu
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00:00We landed there with 50 in the second platoon, and that afternoon at five o'clock the same
00:13day there were only nine of us.
00:15They were not killed or wounded.
00:18War in the Pacific on Peleliu was of a primordial nature.
00:26The Japanese were a brutal, take-no-prisoners kind of enemy.
00:31They knew going in, the only way to beat them was to descend to that level.
00:38They popped both arms out, two grenades would fly off the bottom of their armpits and blow
00:41both of you up.
00:43To be under heavy shell fire out in the open was terror compounded beyond the imagination.
00:55And you're losing man after man after man.
01:00Who's left?
01:02It's the PFC with guts who says, screw it, I'm going forward.
01:12I can remember my father talking about how they might wound me, they might kill me, they
01:17might disfigure me for life, but I am not going to let the Japanese drive me crazy.
01:26I can't say enough for them.
01:35They're the best fighting bunch in the world as far as I'm concerned.
01:52In July of 1944, President Roosevelt summons his top commanders to a private meeting in
01:58Hawaii to determine the next phase in America's island-hopping campaign against Japan.
02:07The debate, often contentious and discordant, was won by General Douglas MacArthur, who
02:13convinces Roosevelt that the Philippine Islands must be retaken.
02:19He has one controversial caveat.
02:22General MacArthur was about ready to go into the Philippines.
02:26To support his movement into the Philippines, it was thought to be essential that we took
02:31Peleliu Island.
02:34Peleliu sits just 500 miles east of MacArthur's planned invasion of the Philippines.
02:42He fears that Japanese aircraft launched from Peleliu's airfield could menace his approaching
02:48invasion.
02:49The airfield, MacArthur's main objective, is protected by 10,000 troops of the Japanese
02:5614th Division, battle-hardened by years of fighting in China.
03:02The island's horrific defenses are buried deep inside the coral rock in a nightmarish
03:08network of tunnels and cave systems, all of it cloaked and hidden under a thick canopy
03:14of dense green jungle that prevents any detection by aerial reconnaissance.
03:22The oncoming marines have no idea what is waiting for them.
03:44In early September 1944, Operation Stalemate heads toward the island of Peleliu.
04:01On board are the elite 1st Marine Division, coming off bitter, draining campaigns at Guadalcanal
04:08in Cape Gloucester.
04:10A solid corps of veterans augments a kid army hardly out of its teens.
04:18They will hit the Peleliu beaches on September 15th.
04:25Major General William Rupertus was a division commander, had indicated at meetings and actually
04:31had published a letter saying that while this was going to be a tough campaign, it was going
04:36to be a quickie.
04:38Three days, four at the most.
04:48Among the young marines is 20-year-old Eugene Sledge.
04:52They call him Sledgehammer.
04:55His meticulously kept battle diary will, in the years to come, serve as the voice for
05:00every enlisted man in this war when it is later published as With the Old Breed.
05:08The Old Breed was another name for the 1st Marine Division.
05:13The 1st Marine Division had a long and storied history, and he was immensely proud to have
05:21been assigned to that division.
05:28The Japanese fought to win.
05:30It was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting, and dirty business.
05:38Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically
05:43for it, whether we liked it or not.
05:47The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun, and high explosive shells
05:53has turned war into prolonged subhuman slaughter.
06:00Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking mentally
06:05and physically.
06:30On the morning of September 15th, under a massive naval bombardment, three marine regiments
06:58head toward the beaches.
07:00Ahead wait 10,000 dug-in Japanese who have sworn to fight to the death.
07:13Broke out in a cold sweat as the tension mounted with the intensity of the bombardment.
07:21My stomach was tied in knots.
07:24I had a lump in my throat and swallowed only with difficulty.
07:30My knees nearly buckled, so I clung weakly to the side of the amphibian tractor.
07:36Huge geysers of water rose around the Amtraks ahead of us as they approached the reef.
07:42The beach was now marked along its length by a continuous sheet of flame, backed by
07:47a thick wall of smoke.
07:50It seemed as though a huge volcano had erupted from the sea, rather than heading for an island.
07:58We were being drawn into the vortex of a flaming abyss.
08:02For many, it was to be oblivion.
08:19My goal was to follow my fireteam leader, Bill Thompson.
08:25The entire squad of 13 was supposed to stay together.
08:32We hit the beach running.
08:36He said, follow me.
09:02People were getting hit all around us.
09:06But they said we had to keep going.
09:10We went on up about 30 or 40 more yards in a ditch.
09:15We were by ourselves, just two of us.
09:17We didn't know what happened to the other 11.
09:22The Japanese were on a coral ridge with caves dug out.
09:27They came out of those caves, the artillery that we had shot in there hadn't done anything
09:32to them.
09:33And they were firing down at us.
09:40We landed there with 50 in the second platoon, K-3-1.
09:47And that afternoon at five o'clock the same day, there were only nine of us.
09:51They were not killed or wounded.
10:00The unfathomable savagery of Peleliu is just beginning to reveal itself.
10:08It will force the young, untested Marines to go beyond courage, beyond what is deemed
10:15human.
10:17They will adapt and overcome unimaginable horrors against an enemy fortified in a fortress
10:22carved into hell itself.
10:31Incoming!
10:36Incoming!
10:48All platoon leaders assemble on foredeck for combat briefing in 14 minutes.
10:53All platoon leaders assemble on foredeck for combat briefing.
10:57General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, has tasked the 1st
11:03Marine Division with capturing the island of Peleliu and its critical airfield.
11:08He believes the island poses an imminent threat to his coming invasion of the Philippines.
11:13His force commander speculates the assault will be fierce but brief.
11:17He is only half right.
11:31The first day we were ambushed, the death trap behind where I was, it looked like a
11:40morgue.
11:41Our commander had been killed, our basic was dead, your dead friends lying around.
11:49Joe Gatto, slept in the same tent I was in, had been shot through the eyes.
11:58When you see your buddies that you've become friends with lying around dead, it was maybe
12:05the most horrifying part of the battle.
12:10But even then, it got worse.
12:20Also attempting to land on the fire-swept beach is Captain Hunt and his 228 men of K
12:27Company.
12:28As their Amtrak closes, they come under merciless gunfire from a terrifying feature of terrain
12:35known simply as The Point.
12:40Japanese engineers have selected a point of land speed that juts out into the sea as an
12:52overlook bringing the entire 2,500 meters of landing beach white under unbearable defensive
12:58fire.
12:59From thick concrete bunkers, mortars, machine guns and high-velocity anti-boat artillery
13:06unleash a point-blank massacre on the Marines.
13:14As the Amtraks come in, the Japanese open up.
13:19At one point, an aerial observer says, my God, there are at least 26 Amtraks burning
13:40in the water.
13:4226 Amtraks, there are at least 20 troops on each one of those.
13:46Do the math.
13:50Move it, let's go.
14:01Go, go, go.
14:05Straight out, I got to go straight out.
14:07Let's go, go, go, go.
14:09We got to go.
14:20Right now, I'm going to open up on the air.
14:39So as they get in there, they take immediate casualties.
14:44He loses all his machine guns right off the bat.
14:50His lead platoon literally gets shot to pieces.
15:03The second platoon starts going ahead and they get caught in an anti-tank ditch.
15:08It looks like cover because they got this fire coming in, so they jump in this anti-tank
15:13ditch.
15:14The Japanese have a machine gun nest that covers the length of the ditch.
15:19And so they gun them down.
15:24By this time of the 235 men, he's probably down to about 90.
15:30So he's had all those casualties.
15:32And a lot of them are your unit leaders, your corporals, your sergeants, your lieutenants.
15:38And so who's leading these men ashore?
15:42It's the guy with the guts.
15:44It's the PFC that says, I'm going to do it.
16:01Here's King Company that is in the attack and they're slowly making progress.
16:08But now Captain Hunt is down to about 30 men.
16:12Out of 235 men, he's got 30 or so with him right now.
16:17I can't imagine as a unit leader myself, all of a sudden going from 200 men to 30 men
16:25with all these casualties.
16:26What do you do with casualties?
16:28I mean, do you leave them?
16:30Well, you have to.
16:32To me, it was a case of survival.
16:35Mainly survival.
16:37Help as many other guys as I could get out of there.
16:40That was the main thing.
16:43In a place like that where you're under shelling, you couldn't do much for them there.
16:49I can't say enough for them.
16:51They're the best fighting bunch in the world as far as I'm concerned.
16:55I can't say enough for them.
16:56They're the best fighting bunch in the world as far as I'm concerned.
17:01But Peleliu, to me, meant when I survived Peleliu, I was living on borrowed time.
17:08After nearly six hours of non-stop fighting, K Company has taken the point.
17:15They have sustained over 80% casualties.
17:19At the top, Captain Hunt counts some 400 enemy dead.
17:23A sign on both sides of the high price to be paid for the critical point.
17:29At the top, Captain Hunt counts some 400 enemy dead.
17:33A sign on both sides of the high price to be paid for the critical point.
17:40But with daylight giving away to night, Hunt knows the ordeal is just beginning.
17:50The Japanese were a brutal, take-no-prisoners kind of enemy.
17:55And I can remember my father saying to me that they knew going in,
18:00the only way to beat them was to descend to that level.
18:08Captain Hunt knows the Japanese will spare no ferocity
18:12in counterattacking to retake their vital position.
18:17And now, with darkness falling, there will be little chance of reinforcements.
18:25Surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of enemy soldiers,
18:30the exhausted, bleeding band of Marine brothers brace themselves for the fight to come.
18:37All 30 of them.
18:56Fire!
19:14The Japanese night counterattack has failed to take back their critical point
19:19from the exhausted and dogged 30 Marines of K Company.
19:25Their incredible effort has taken out the horrific enemy gunfire
19:29that was shredding their fellow Marines still coming ashore.
19:35Now, they must hold it to provide precious time for even more Marines to land.
19:46I'd always been a church kind of guy.
19:49Put God, family and country in that order.
19:53But you know, when you're getting ready to kill or be killed,
19:57your family and your God and your country may be put on the table.
20:04You're only thinking about the guy in front of you is the enemy.
20:10You're thinking about you and your buddy.
20:15You're thinking about killing and trying not to get killed
20:20and to help your fellow Marines.
20:29After 30 hours of relentless, brutal fighting,
20:34the expected walkover invasion of Peleliu has turned into a meat grinder.
20:50Get out of the way!
21:03We have victims!
21:20We have victims!
21:41Despite the savage losses on the beachhead,
21:44with K Company holding the point,
21:46hundreds of Marines move off the beaches
21:49and advance toward their main target, the airfield.
22:07We gotta move! We gotta move!
22:17As Marines close in on the critical airfield,
22:20the Japanese unleash a speeding horde of 18 tanks,
22:24leading infantry to meet the Marines head-on.
22:32They've had a bunch of tanks.
22:34I think somebody told me there was 18 of them.
22:37And what they did, they lined them up up there on the airfield
22:40and they massed their troops behind them
22:42and they were going to shove us right back in the ocean.
22:45And they came at us.
22:47Well, boy, they couldn't have picked a worse time.
22:53Here they come, this counterattack, coming right for us.
22:56I'm proud to say that every Marine who could possibly shoot, shot.
23:08They just knocked the crap out of these Japanese tanks.
23:12Our medium tanks were firing.
23:15Rockets were firing. Machine guns.
23:21And just stopped it in its tracks.
23:43They couldn't tell how many tanks were in assault
23:46because they blew them to pieces.
23:49They just blew everything to pieces out there.
24:13The Marines, having stopped the initial thrust of the Japanese
24:17to protect their airfield, must now take it and hold it.
24:26Just ahead of the Marines sits the Umer Brüggel,
24:30a dark, forbidding fortress of ridges,
24:33including a nightmare the Marines call
24:37It is a ghastly jumble of up-thrust coral and limestone ridges,
24:41box canyons, natural caves and sheer cliffs.
24:46Every inch of it painstakingly fortified by their enemy.
24:52His unit started across,
24:55up ahead of us is the Umer Brüggel,
24:58a dark, forbidden fortress of ridges,
25:01a nightmare the Marines call
25:03It is a ghastly jumble of up-thrusts of limestone ridges,
25:07box canyons, natural caves and sheer cliffs.
25:12Every inch of it painstakingly fortified by their enemy.
25:21And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
25:32in the open.
25:33And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
25:46in the open.
25:47And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
25:54in the open.
25:55And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
25:56in the open.
25:57And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
25:58in the open.
25:59And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
26:00in the open.
26:01And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
26:02in the open.
26:03And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
26:04in the open.
26:05And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
26:06in the open.
26:07And I remember him describing to me the white hot Carl and just the terror of being out
26:08in the open.
26:09Attention.
26:18To be an enemy, fire was terrifying thing.
26:20Get on the ground.
26:27But, to be under heavy shell fire out in the open and without the ability to either get
26:35get below ground or get under cover was terror compounded beyond the imagination.
27:05Five days after the attack began, the exhausted, dehydrated Marines secure Peleliu's airfield,
27:30made for in Marine blood.
27:45Despite the horrendous casualties, the division commander, Major General William Rupertis,
27:51refuses the offer of his commanding officer, General Roy Geiger, to bring in Army reinforcements.
27:59Peleliu will be a Marine victory not to be shared.
28:11General Rupertis, determined to have his Marines secure the island, orders his exhausted men,
28:18resume attack with maximum effort in all sectors.
28:23But the ridged defenses and nightmare landscape quickly bog the Marines down.
28:53With the news of the bloody attacks making its way to Germany,
29:22making its way to General Roy Geiger, he is shocked at the horrendous casualties.
29:27He immediately overrides Rupertis' initial refusal of reinforcements and rushes in Army units.
29:45These units, too, are blunted by the same storms of metal on Bloody Nose Ridge, day after horrid day.
29:54The effort to secure the island is again bogged down as death drenches the battlefield.
30:05For those who entered the meat grinder itself, the war was another world of horror,
30:12from which escape seemed less and less likely, as casualties mounted and the fighting dragged on and on.
30:27Time had no meaning.
30:32Life had no meaning.
30:40The fierce struggle for survival in the abyss of Peleliu had eroded the veneer of civilization
30:50and made savages of us all.
31:01With the critical airfield in American hands, there remains the bloody job of securing the rest of the island.
31:10The horrific task of digging out an adversary buried deep inside a treacherous maze of caves and tunnels
31:17is left to the ingenuity of the individual Marine.
31:22That goal, and survival itself, depends entirely on their ability to find new ways to kill an enemy
31:30protected within a subterranean fortress chiseled into hell.
31:42As the designer of HGTV Dream Home 2024, I...
31:51Despite the chaos of slaughter surrounding the young Marines, they have captured MacArthur's main objective, the critical airfield.
31:59Now, along with their armory counterparts, they must secure the island.
32:04The dirty, near-impossible task of routing out thousands of enemy troops buried in caves and canyons,
32:12determined to fight to the death, will not be done by the mighty fleet sitting offshore,
32:18but by the individual ingenuity and fierceness of the young Marines and soldiers.
33:19I see four people on the ground. Can you make a stop and take six, over?
33:35You're attacking into the teeth of the enemy defenses.
33:41And you're losing man after man after man.
33:46Your unit leaders are gone. Who's left?
33:50It's the PFC with guts who says, screw it, I'm going forward.
33:57War in the Pacific and on Peleliu was of a primordial nature.
34:04I don't think most present-day Americans can even comprehend the level of hatred and anger
34:10that was felt by the people of Peleliu at that time.
34:14It was a war of the heart.
34:17It was a war of the heart.
34:20It was a war of the heart.
34:23It was a war of the heart.
34:26It was a war of the heart.
34:29You can't even comprehend the level of hatred and anger
34:33that you have to have to survive and win a conflict like that.
34:48As I looked at the stains on the coral,
34:51I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen
34:55about how gallant it is for a man to shed his blood for his country
35:01and to give his life's blood as sacrifice,
35:05and so on, and so on.
35:09The words seemed ridiculous.
35:16Only the flies benefited.
35:20I can remember my father talking about how one thing that he feared
35:26as much as being maimed physically was to lose his sanity.
35:35He came to this visceral decision that they might wound me,
35:39they might kill me, they might disfigure me for life,
35:42but I'm not going to let the Japanese drive me crazy.
35:50War is brutish,
35:53inglorious,
35:55and a terrible waste.
35:59The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery
36:05and their devotion to each other.
36:09Marine Corps training taught us to kill efficiently
36:12and to try to survive,
36:15but it also taught us loyalty to each other
36:19and love.
36:23That esprit de corps sustained us.
36:29I remember my father saying,
36:33That esprit de corps sustained us.
36:47After months of vicious non-stop fighting,
36:50the battle for Peleliu is far from over.
36:54While the relentless push and sacrifice of the young marines and soldiers
36:59have cleared large sections of the island,
37:04the long northern edge of Peleliu,
37:07thick with deeply dug-in enemy forces,
37:10remains a nightmare.
37:13To the withering, exhausted men who must dig them out,
37:17and the Japanese soldiers unwilling to surrender,
37:21there are but two ways off the island,
37:24death or victory.
37:29Peleliu
37:53By mid-October, the bloodbath on Peleliu
37:56has evolved into a cruel marathon of horrors
37:59along the island's mountainous northern edge.
38:05Dug-in, concentrated groups of Japanese soldiers
38:08are determined to hold the island.
38:12Exhausted marines and soldiers slugging it out
38:15in daily death matches against an enemy sworn to fight to the bitter end
38:20must break their enemy's resolve
38:23and MacArthur's flank can be secured.
38:34The Japanese at times would purposely shoot a marine
38:38so as not to kill him, but just to wound him,
38:42knowing that four more guys would come out as a stretcher team.
38:53The Japanese opened up on stretcher bearers
38:56with everything they had.
39:00Peleliu
39:20They would come out to surrender with a white flag,
39:23nothing on but shorts,
39:25and they'd come out, surrender, surrender, give up, give up,
39:28right up to you.
39:29They'd pop both arms out, two grenades would fly off
39:31above their armpits and blow both of you up.
39:36So all you could do was shoot them when they'd come out like that.
39:39You just couldn't trust it.
39:43The defiant Japanese defenders have kept their oath
39:46to protect the island to the death.
39:50As the battle draws down,
39:52only a handful will be taken alive.
39:59Colonel Kunio Nakagawa,
40:01commander of the division's 2nd Regiment, proclaimed,
40:04Our sword is broken and we have run out of spears.
40:13He then burns his regimental colors
40:16and performs ritual suicide.
40:19Peleliu
40:27On November 27th, after 73 days of nonstop fighting,
40:32the worn-out Marines and soldiers accomplished their mission.
40:37In a campaign originally thought to be a cakewalk,
40:40America's sons had endured, adapted,
40:44and overcome blistering heat,
40:46nightmarish fortifications,
40:48and an enemy fighting to the death.
40:51Forever a band of brothers.
41:03We depended on each other as a brother
41:06and we looked after each other
41:09and we shared a lot of stories together.
41:12We were frightened together,
41:14but we fought together.
41:17Oh my God, what did I get into?
41:20If I had to do over again, I'd do the same thing.
41:23You get a real bond with them
41:25and I've still got that bond.
41:27I've still got it right now.
41:31One of us got on the ship and went back.
41:33They said,
41:34Marine, did you bring any souvenirs?
41:38And one of them said,
41:40Yes, we brought our A-double-S back.
41:43He said, that's our souvenir.
41:53For 73 days,
41:55Eugene Sledge wrote about his experiences at Peleliu
41:58in the margins of a small Bible he kept at his side.
42:05Marines were not allowed to keep diaries in World War II.
42:10So he had this Bible with him, as most of them did.
42:14But this Bible is so significant to people that know the story
42:17because he also kept notes in it
42:21and on the pages here.
42:25As the years went by on nights
42:27after when my brother and I were small kids
42:29and we had gone to bed,
42:30he would sit up at night by the fireplace
42:32and he wrote more and more detailed notes
42:37as he could remember things.
42:39It grew from there to eventually become
42:42With the Old Breed.
42:44John Keegan referred to it as the most arresting document
42:47of wartime literature to come out of World War II.
42:57Now I can write this story,
43:00painful though it is to do so.
43:03In writing, I am fulfilling an obligation
43:06that I have long left to my comrades
43:08in the 1st Marine Division,
43:10all of whom suffered so much for our country.
43:14None came out unscathed.
43:17Many gave their lives,
43:19many their health,
43:21and some their sanity.
43:26All who survived will long remember the horror
43:29they would rather forget.
43:37But they suffered and they did their duty
43:40so a sheltered homeland can enjoy the peace
43:43that was purchased at such high cost.
43:48We owe those Marines a profound debt of gratitude.
44:07We owe those Marines a profound debt of gratitude.
44:21We owe those Marines a profound debt of gratitude.
44:25.