Coral Comes High

Review contains spoilers.

A short but excellent book by the U.S. officer leading the Marines tasked with taking The Point on Peleliu island in September 1944. Captain George Hunt was the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Regiment, 3rd Battalion, K Company who landed on the extreme left of the invasion beach. The Point - as it was known - held the key to the operation. In Japanese hands the Point’s fortifications enfiladed the Marine’s western landing zone. Captain Hunt was under no illusions about the task ahead of his men:

“On the immediate left of our landing beach, designated as Beach White, there was a point of land which, by measuring on the map, jutted into the water about twenty-five yards… Pillboxes, reinforced with steel and concrete, had been dug or blasted in the base of the perpendicular drop to the beach. Others, with coral and concrete piled six feet on top were constructed above, and spider holes were blasted around them for protecting infantry. It surpassed by far anything we had conceived of when we studied the aerial photographs.”

Figure 1 - The first wave approaches Beach White. The Point is visible below the white smoke in the center of the photo.

Despite the three-day preparatory bombardment by the accompanying USN vessels and aircraft, which included five battleships and three aircraft carriers, the approaching landing craft came under heavy fire from the well dug-in defenders. Accurate Japanese mortar and artillery fire saturated the approaches and K company lost most of its heavy support platoon on the beach. Captain Hunt collected his surviving men and made for the primary objective.

I told the radioman to follow me, rolled out of the hole and, running from tree to tree, headed toward the Point…As I ran up the beach I saw them lying nearly shoulder to shoulder; some of them mine; others from outfits which landed immediately behind us. I saw a ghastly mixture of bandages, bloody and mutilated skin; men gritting their teeth, resigned to their wounds; men groaning and writhing in their agonies…

After a short fight the Point was taken, but K company were effectively surrounded on three sides after the unit on their right failed to reach the beach. The Marines dug in as best they could in the coral formations and waited for the adjoining forces to close up the gap on their right and the inevitable Japanese counter-attack. Contact with Battalion headquarters was maintained by moving through Japanese lines or by swimming out beyond the reef.

In front of Beach White, the Marine attack stalled in some areas when the forward units were trapped in a deep anti-tank ditch hundreds of yards long and running parallel to the shore. Any Marines emerging from the tank trap came under sustained machine gun fire from Japanese positions dug into a coral ridge to their front. It wasn’t until the arrival of the Marine tanks that the situation improved, which allowed some of wounded among the forward troops to pull back to the beach to be evacuated. On the Point, the Marines received some limited supplies and tried to get some rest. Efforts to close up the gap on the right continued through the night, supported by the accompanying ships which dropped naval flares over the lines.

At first light, skirmishes with Japanese snipers and infiltrators steadily escalated into a pitched battle with both sides exchanging barrages of grenades and mortar fire. It marked a critical time for the marines:

“Thank God for the baseball we had played once! …our grenades were smashing into the gully — long, high heaves in quick succession with every ounce of a man’s strength behind them. Our machine guns raked across the draw riddling any Jap that stuck up his head…The fight became a vicious melee of countless explosions, whining bullets, shrapnel whirring overhead or clinking off the rocks, hoarse shouts, shrill-screaming Japanese.”

K company held the line and were able to bring up some limited reinforcements to the Point. Artillery, mortars and machine guns came ashore to provide support but K company remained isolated for 26 hours until friendly troops finally made contact with the men on the Point. It had been a precarious situation for Capt. Hunt, whose force had at one time been reduced to 18 men. For his leadership Capt. Hunt received the Navy Cross, the Marine Corps’ second highest award. His medal citation records the following (tracesofwar.com, 2020):

“Isolated from the rest of his Battalion for a period of twenty-six hours with only thirty-four men remaining, Captain Hunt expertly organized a defensive perimeter and, successfully defending his position against three hostile counterattacks, repulsed all three of them and annihilated four hundred and twenty-two Japanese. By his outstanding leadership and cool judgment in the face of grave danger, Captain Hunt contributed materially to the success of our forces during this critical period, and his gallant conduct throughout was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Capt. Hunt collected the stories from the surviving marines in the weeks and months directly after the invasion, so their descriptions are filled with immediacy and are highly detailed. The opening chapter also contains some good details of the marines on-board the troop ships prior to the invasion. Whilst short, the book is finely written and conveys the tension of combat and the professionalism of the marines under fire. The author also included some sketches from his time on Peleliu, which was a nice touch. 8/10.

One small quibble about the quality of the text in the edition I read. There are many typos where the OCR has worked poorly and I frequently had to re-read bits. A competent English speaker could have proofread the book in a few hours. It broke the immersion and for a book this short its a surprising omission.

Finally, check out my interactive map of the location in the book. All dates, events and locations are best-effort based on the author’s original text and any errors or omissions are my own. The full-screen version can be found here. Considering the narrow scope of the book, you may find the maps in some of my other reviews a bit more interesting, so give these a try.