Although in overall command of Stalemate II, the naval commanders of Third Amphibious Force had little input in the planning of the invasion of the Palaus and released control of the tactical situation once the ground troops had landed.
Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson had, in August 1943, succeeded Admiral Richard Kelly Turner as commander of the Third Amphibious Force. He was considered an intellectual and advocate of the “hit them where they ain’t,” island-hopping, school of thought. His subordinate flag officers, Admirals Fort, Oldendorf, Blandy, Ainsworth, Kingman, and Ofstie, all had past Pacific combat experience involving close liaison with Marine and Army units and, although there is evidence of friction previously between the Navy, Marine, and Army bodies, there does not appear to be any evidence that such friction existed between the units involved in Stalemate II.
Major General Julian C. Smith, USMC – Commanding General, Third Fleet Expeditionary Troops (TF 36). Probably most associated with the Tarawa operation, where he commanded the 2nd Marine Division. A recognized expert in amphibious warfare, Julian Smith found his new position very difficult. He felt he had little authority, being under the watchful eyes of senior officers from both the Navy and Marine Corps. Clearly, he considered his role to be overseeing administrative, logistical, and tactical units – as he put it, “I filed papers.” He was given responsibility for planning Stalemate II, while General Roy S. Geiger, commanding IIIAC, was still battling away on Guam. Smith had joined the Corps in 1909 to serve in Latin America, commanded the 1st Marine Brigade, and held numerous senior instructor assignments. He commanded the 2d Mar. Div. at Tarawa and was given the assignment of planning Stalemate II along with command of the Third Fleet Expeditionary Troops for the operation.
Prior to the landing of the Regimental Combat teams on beaches White and Orange, LCIs equipped with multiple rocket launchers saturate the beaches with salvos of high explosive. They then retired to join the other fire support vessels further offshore.
LVT(A)4 armored amtracs, which preceded the troop-carrying LVTs in the assault waves, leave the safety of their mother ships heading for the “line of departure” on D-Day.
Although temporarily in charge of the planning for Stalemate II, Julian Smith still had all his regular duties to perform as Commander, Expeditionary Troops, Third Fleet, and as such did not always have the time to monitor the progress of the planning for the forthcoming assault in as much detail as he would have liked. One such detail was that the Commanding General of the 1st Mar. Div., MajGen Rupertus, had broken his ankle during landing practice on Guadalcanal. Had he known this earlier, Julian Smith would have relieved Rupertus of his command of the 1st Mar. Div., but it was too late to implement such an order by the time Julian Smith found out.
Major General Roy S. Geiger, USMC – Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps. MajGen Roy Geiger was almost 60 years old and his Marine Corps career had been mainly in aviation since joining the Corps in 1909. He had commanded aviation units in both World Wars, including the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing on Guadalcanal. In 1943, Geiger was appointed Director of Marine Corps Aviation, but then returned to the Pacific as Commanding General, I Marine Amphibious Corps. Considered by some to be an unusual move, placing an aviator in command of an amphibious corps, Geiger was a good choice being an expert in fire support and logistics. The I Marine Amphibious Corps was redesignated IIIAC on 15 April 1944.
Major General William H. Rupertus, USMC – Commanding General, 1st Marine Division. In command of the assault troops on Peleliu, at 55 years old Rupertus was not a flamboyant officer but was a good friend of Generals Holland Smith and Julian Smith and of General Vandegrift, former Commanding General, 1st Mar. Div. When Vandegrift was promoted to Commandant of the Marine Corps, Rupertus was the obvious choice to succeed him as commander of the 1st Marine Division. Rupertus, like his fellow 1st Mar. Div. officers, had seen his share of overseas duty before World War II including Latin America and China. It was during this tour of duty in China that Rupertus lost his wife, daughter, and son to an epidemic. This had a profound effect on him personally and left him very moody and with bouts of depression, which had a serious effect on his relationships with subordinates, this would become apparent during the battle for Peleliu. He was the assistant commander of the 1st Mar. Div. on Guadalcanal.
One other major characteristic of MajGen Rupertus was his obvious mistrust of the Army, not uncommon in the Marine Corps. This was mainly as a result of the differences between the Marines’ and the Army’s approaches to conducting battles. Rupertus did not consider it necessary to have the 81st Inf. Div. as reserve to his 1st Mar. Div. and had no intention whatsoever of calling upon their assistance in the forthcoming campaign on Peleliu.
Brigadier General Oliver P. Smith, USMC was the Assistant Division Commander. He had served as a battalion commander on Guadalcanal and was a regimental commander on New Britain. The Division Chief of Staff was Colonel John T. Selden.
At regimental level, it is probably difficult to find a more distinguished group of commanders in the US Marine Corps.
Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC – Commander, 1st Marines. Puller was a Virginian who had entered the Corps in his teens and had served with great distinction in most of the Marine Corps’ “Banana Wars” of pre-World War II, serving in the Caribbean, Haiti, and Nicaragua. He had also served in China before the war and had commanded the “Horse Marines” in Shanghai in 1933, where he gained a reputation as a no-nonsense commander and brought to the fore his great dislike of the Japanese.
Chesty Puller’s idea of a commander was one who leads from the front and by 1944 his leadership had become legendary. His command of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, as a Lieutenant Colonel, on Guadalcanal, won him his third Navy Cross. His leadership and versatility in a number of different roles on New Britain earned him promotion to the command of the 1st Marines in February 1944.
Colonel Herman H. “Hard Headed” Hanneken, USMC,Commander, 7th Marines, was like Puller a veteran of the pre-World War II Haitian and Nicaraguan campaigns. In October of 1919, as an enlisted Marine with the temporary rank of captain in the Haitian Gendarmerie, Hanneken (along with one other Marine) had infiltrated the rebel Caco headquarters and killed the rebel leader Charlemagne Peratte. This action earned him the Medal of Honor. Hanneken was to repeat, almost identically, this feat in Nicaragua ten years later by capturing Manuel Jiron, one of Cesar Sandino’s top lieutenants.
Hanneken had commanded a battalion on Guadalcanal and was Chief of Staff to the Assistant Divisional Commander before being given command of the 7th Marines in February 1944. Oldest of the three regimental commanders, Hanneken was one of the “Old Corps” Marines. He never smiled, but his dedication to duty, loyalty and personal courage earned him great respect both from his men and from his fellow officers, and a well-earned reputation as a tough and fearless commander.
Colonel Harold “Bucky” D. Harris, USMC – Commander, 5th Marines. Youngest of the three regimental commanders Harris, unlike Puller and Hanneken, had not been an enlisted Marine, but was a career officer. Commissioned after graduating from Annapolis in 1925, Harris attended Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, then becoming one of the few Americans to attend the École Supérieure de Guerre in Paris, France. Harris served in various posts in the United States and saw overseas duty in China and Nicaragua. At the outbreak of World War II, Harris was stationed in Washington, DC in the Marine Intelligence Section. In 1942 he was transferred as Intelligence Officer on the staff of Commander, Amphibious Forces, South Pacific. In 1943 Harris was briefly Chief of Staff, Marine Forces Solomons, before assignment to the 1st Mar. Div. as Executive Officer, 1st Marines.
Harris served with the 1st Marines through the New Britain campaign before being appointed Division Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence in 1944. He was given command of the 5th Marines just prior to the invasion of Peleliu. Although Harris was new to the 5th Marines and to commanding troops in combat, the regiment would perform extremely well under his command.
Colonel William H. Harrison, USMC,commanded the 11th Marines along with attached artillery units.
Major General Paul J. Mueller, US Army – Commanding General, 81st Infantry Division. General Mueller was a very able commander who had seen his division through many months of training, both in the States and at the Jungle Warfare Center on Hawaii. He had fought as a battalion commander in World War I and held numerous staff assignments between the wars. Mueller was confident that although lacking in combat experience, his 81st “Wildcats” were just as ready for the forthcoming assault on Peleliu as the 1st Marine Division.
The Assistant Division Commander was Brigadier General Marcus B. Bell, the Commander, 81st Division Artillery was Brigadier General Rex W. Beasley, and the Chief of Staff was Colonel James C. Short.
Under MajGen Mueller for the assault on Angaur and Ulithi were three RCTs: the 321st RCT under the command of Colonel Robert F. Dark, 322nd under the command of Colonel Benjamin W. Venable, and 323rd RCT under the command of Colonel Arthur P. Watson. Like most of the men of the 81st Inf. Div., they had seen little in the way of combat, but all were professional soldiers, dedicated officers, and well trained. All would perform well in the forthcoming campaign, both in combat and in liaising with Navy and Marine units.
Lieutenant-General Inoue Sadao, Imperial Japanese Army, Commander, 14th Division (usually listed as Sadao Inoue or Sadai Inoue), was Prime Minister Tojo’s instant choice to command the 12,000 reinforcements headed for the Palaus and to take command of all the Japanese forces, both Navy and Army, on the islands and he doubled as Commander, Palau District Group.
LVT(A)4s plough towards the Peleliu landing beaches on D-day. The massive naval and aerial bombardment continues. Admiral Oldendorf claimed to have run out of targets for his pre-invasion bombardment and sent numerous vessels on to the Philippines. His opinion of the effects of his bombardment proved sadly exaggerated.
Sadao looked like the typical Hollywood version of a Japanese officer. At the time of the battle, he was in his mid-fifties, of medium build, balding, myopic; a stern-voiced and strict disciplinarian. He was fiercely dedicated to his heritage of five generations of ancestors, all of whom had been military officers.
During the Russo-Japanese War, Sadao, as a 20-year-old sub-lieutenant, had been decorated for valor and had risen steadily through the ranks to his present position of commander of the 14th Division. Premier Tojo considered Sadao to be thoroughly competent and most suited to command such a mixed array of troops as was the Palaus garrison. What Sadao lacked in flair, he made up for with tenacity, a leader who would not crumble under adverse circumstances.
Sadao would be the only one of the senior Japanese commanders involved with the battle of Peleliu to survive the war, being tried on Guam for war crimes in China. He was found guilty and served 10 years in a US Navy prison on Guam, where he was interviewed extensively by the US military about the battle for Peleliu.
Prior to Sadao’s arrival in the Palaus, the defense of the Palaus had been under the command of Vice-Admiral Ito Yoshioka. Upon his arrival on Koror, where he established his headquarters, General Sadao appointed Colonel Nakagawa Kunio as Peleliu’s new commander, with his 2nd Infantry (Reinforced).
Colonel Nakagawa Kunio, Imperial Japanese Army, Commander, 2nd Infantry and Peleliu Sector Unit, was a most able commander, possibly one of Japan’s finest defensive tacticians, in the same league as Kuribiashi on Iwo Jima. Nakagawa would make full use of all his defenses and troops on Peleliu, making the Americans pay dearly for every inch, as he had been ordered to do.
Most references state that Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itou (his correct name is Ito Seiichi) was the naval commander on Peleliu and/or the Palaus and that MajGen Murai Kenjiro of the 14th Division was sent to the island to act as liaison with the naval commander, who outranked Col Nakagawa Kunio commanding Peleliu’s defense. It is reported that there was conflict between the IJA and IJN on Peleliu. Ito Seiichi’s photo is provided in many of these references. In reality Vice-Admiral Ito Seiichi (“Seiichi Itou”) was the Vice Naval Chief of Staff and was in Japan. He took command of the 2nd Fleet in November 1944. In command of the battleship Yamato’s suicide mission to beach itself on Okinawa in April 1945, he went down with the ship. Vice-Admiral Ito Yoshioka (sometimes spelled “Itou” resulting in confusion; he is also listed as Ito Kenzo) commanded the 30th Base Force headquartered at Koror. It is not known if he was actually on Peleliu at any time during the battle. His headquarters was on Koror and he survived the war to surrender IJN forces in the Palaus to the Marines in 1945. No source can be found naming the senior IJN commander on Peleliu other than a single reference to a “Colonel” Oya, of the “West Carolines Air Force;” there were no “colonels” in the IJN air service although he may have been an IJN captain equivalent to a colonel. A detachment of the 45th Guard Force was on Peleliu. The force was commanded by Captain Mori Kanahisa, but his headquarters was also on Koror.
This then raises again the old question as to why MajGen Murai was on Peleliu when Col Nakagawa was in command of the defense. Lieutenant-General Sadao, when interviewed in captivity after the war, stated he was the tactical advisor and that while trusting Nakagawa, he assigned Murai there for “insurance,” and to cope with the IJN under Vice-Admiral Ito, however, an IJN vice-admiral outranks an IJA major-general – a rank equivalent to a US brigadier general. In all probability Vice-Admiral Ito was not on Peleliu, but on Koror at his headquarters.
Although a very capable commander, the appointment of an Army colonel over a Navy vice-admiral caused a great rift between the Army and Navy on Peleliu, which deteriorated into farce. To resolve matters and calm the Navy down somewhat, General Sadao sent Major-General Murai Kenjiro from his headquarters on Koror Island to Peleliu to provide the Army with sufficient rank to satisfy the vice-admiral’s honor, although the defense of Peleliu seems, to practical purposes, to have remained in the hands of Col Nakagawa. Unfortunately, both Nakagawa and Murai died in the defense of Peleliu so we will never be 100 per cent certain just who was in command of the Japanese forces.
Sent from Koror to Peleliu by General Sadao, it appears that Murai, after inspecting Nakagawa’s defensive works and battle plans for the defense of Peleliu, was content to let Nakagawa continue without interference from himself, lending only the weight of his rank to acquire the required cooperation of the Navy elements on Peleliu. MajGen Murai would remain on Peleliu for the duration of the battle, fighting alongside Col Nakagawa to the bitter end, and would commit suicide along with Nakagawa in the final days of the fighting for the Umurbrogol Pocket.
As for the remainder of the Japanese officers, under the command of Col Nakagawa and MajGen Murai during the defense of Peleliu and Angaur, little is known of them other than their names and ranks, although it must be said that all of them conducted a very skilful defense obeying orders and following the new defense concept well, even though by the closing stages of the battle food, water, and ammunition were all but gone and the only communications were with Nakagawa’s headquarters and General Sadao on Koror. Nakagawa’s last message to Sadao summed up the position of the defenders of Peleliu, stating:
“It would be difficult to hold any position more than a day.” His military forces had been reduced “to 50 unwounded and 70 wounded soldiers. They have only rifles and 20 rounds of ammunition per man and a few hand grenades.”
There is evidence suggesting a rift between MajGen Murai and Col Nakagawa towards the end of the battle for Peleliu. Major-General Murai wanted to gather all remaining forces for a final glorious charge on the airfield whilst Nakagawa would have none of it, insisting upon sticking to the defense plan of remaining in defensive positions and resisting for as long as possible. These two conflicting views were reported to General Sadao on Koror. Sadao agreed with Nakagawa, communicating to Murai “it is easy to die but difficult to live on. We must select the difficult course and continue to fight because of the influence on the morale of the Japanese people. Saipan was lost in a very short time because of vain banzai attacks with the result that the people at home suffered a drop in morale.” Major-General Murai accepted Sadao’s counsel, no banzai charge occurred; instead he continued the defensive fight to the end, alongside Nakagawa.