Perhaps MacArthur had the capital of pride, because at this time he not only had a large army and navy in his hands, but he even called in the 1st Marine Division, which had been resting on Guadalcanal......

After the 1st Marine Division took Guadalcanal, it returned home to recuperate for a few months, and then has been training on a desolate island called Pavuvu Island near Kuah Island, and it can now be said that it is full of morale. www.biquge.info In addition, because of the good performance of the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal, the equipment of the 1st Marine Division has also been updated and supplemented in a timely manner: a new amphibious landing vehicle regiment has been built, the word "light" tank has been removed from the number of the tank battalion, and the original M3A1 tanks have all been replaced with 75mm caliber "Sherman" tanks. Then there are Spitfire tanks, "Donald Ducks", "ducks" and other equipment that did not appear at the time of the Guadalcanal battle.

There is nothing wrong with such a practice, and it is impossible for the 1st Marine Division to go to the battlefield with its previous tactics and equipment to fight the Japanese army!

Originally, MacArthur felt that it was enough to attack Pelelius Island with the 1st Marine Division, but there were a lot of troops at his disposal, and for the reason of going to the battlefield to study, MacArthur used the 81st Infantry Division as a reserve for the 1st Marine Division.

The commander of the 1st Marine Division, Rupertes, did not think that he needed the 81st Infantry Division as a reserve at all.

One reason is that Rupertus has a somewhat eccentric personality...... It is said that this character was not always the same, but when he was on an overseas mission, his wife and children died in an epidemic, and the loss of his family took a big toll on him, becoming very emotional and often depressed.

One of Rupertes' outstanding traits was his distrust of the Army...... Although the performance of the US Marines in the Pacific War was not very good, it was much better than the dilemma of the Army being beaten by the Japanese when it had a numerical advantage, so the Marines naturally looked down on the Army.

As Rupertus said, "The Army is our reserve? If we want to count on them, we might as well fight with the Japanese! ”

So the battle began in this mistrust and ill-preparedness that Rupertus did not even inform the commander of the 81st Division of his battle plan.

Worse still...... Rupertes stubbornly believed that the Japanese would defend the same style as the Marshall Islands and the Mariana Islands, so he and MacArthur thought that they could take Peleliuu in a week.

The idea was originally fine, because an army always has its own style, and Rupertes seemed reasonable to learn from the Japanese army's style and make judgments based on it by studying the Japanese army's past combat examples.

But Rupertus wishfully ignores two aspects:

First of all, it was very difficult for the Japanese army to supply and transport troops in the Marshall Islands and the Mariana Islands, especially in the Mariana Islands, where the Japanese troops were seriously short of troops and materials due to the blockade of their transportation lines by American submarines, and in this case, they had to build airfields instead of fortifications with few building materials according to orders.

These problems do not exist on the islands in the direction of the Philippines, and this area is still the node of the "absolute defense circle" of the Japanese army, and the supply and preparation of the Japanese army is incomparable to that of the Japanese army in the Marshall Islands and the Mariana Islands.

Second, and more importantly, when the Japanese army was fighting in the Marshall Islands and the Mariana Islands, its navy and aviation were still quite strong, and the focus of the Japanese army's defense was still in the sky rather than on land, for example, the "Plan Z" in the Marshall Islands and the "Operation Plan A" in the Mariana Islands were all combat plans formulated on the basis of aviation.

In other words, the Japanese army pinned its hopes on the air force, and even in the Mariana Islands, the Japanese army even hoped to regain air supremacy and inflict heavy losses on the US Navy, so it naturally did not care about the defense of the islands on land.

However, at the time of the Battle of Peleliu, the Japanese army had clearly known that neither the navy nor the air force could win, and from the very beginning it was clear that it could not be defended, and its strategic purpose was to "drag" and use the army to "drag", so there would be a great change in tactical style.

This change was completely unexpected by the US military, and as a result, both MacArthur and Rupertus made a big strategic miscalculation.

The battle still began with the bombing, which lasted only three days, but the intensity was unprecedented.

The reason is that Peleliuu Island is only 730 miles (1,168 kilometers) from Guam, which is within the combat radius of the U.S. B17 bomber...... As a result, the B17 bombers that took off from Guam strongly supported the US Navy in the bombing of Peleliu.

These bombing campaigns and support for MacArthur's landing operations were under the unified command of Halsey.

Halsey, because of his previous "awakening", knew that the truth might not be as stated in the previous meeting, so he carried out the bombing to carry out targeted "attention" to the war situation.

The results seemed to confirm the correctness of Zhang Chi's statement, and the Japanese troops in the Philippine direction basically had no strength to resist in terms of sea and air, and the port and airfield of Peleliu Island were completely destroyed in three days of bombing.

Halsey then immediately ordered his chief of staff to send an urgent telegram to Nimitz:

1. Cancel the plan of attack to capture the islands of Morotai, Peleliu, and Yap.

2. Deploy the ground forces used for the above plan to the Philippines to support MacArthur.

3. Attack Leyte Island in advance.

The telegram does not state why, but a little analysis shows that Halsey suggested skipping the islands of Morotai and Peleliu, for a simple reason...... Although the strategic location of these islands was very important and would pose a threat to MacArthur's flank of the attack on the Philippine forces, the Japanese army no longer had naval and aviation units here, so should the Japanese army swim to attack MacArthur's attacking forces?

Therefore, attacking these islands is not necessary at all.

However, Nimitz firmly believed in Roosevelt's words, that is, he believed that the Japanese air force was still quite strong in the Philippines, so it was necessary to take these islands.

Nimitz's response to Halsey was: "The attacking force has departed, the deployment has been completed, everything is ready to be canceled." Execute as planned! ”

U.S. casualties on Peleliuu Island were inevitable, arguably the price of Roosevelt's lie. (To be continued.) )