The Bloody Beaches

THE MARINES' WAR (456 pp.) --Fletcher Pratf--Sloane ($5).

On that September morning, a Japanese lieutenant of machine cannon on the island of Peleliu looked out over the Pacific Ocean and noted in his diary that what he saw made him "so furious I could feel the blood pounding in my veins throughout my body." The U.S. Marines had come, and with them a naval escort that stretched as far as the eye could see. After ten days of pounding, the warships and carrier planes ceased fire, and a transport commander said complacently to a Marine colonel: "Everything's done over there. You'll walk in." Replied the colonel: "If you think it's that easy why don't you come on the beach at five o'clock, have supper with me, and pick up a few souvenirs?"

At 5 o'clock the ist Marine Division on Peleliu had made only 200 yards. The Japanese lieutenant had noted in his diary that although the bombardment had altered the island's scenery, only one man in his company was hurt. Snug in their caves, the Japanese waited until the first wave hit the beach, then, "the guns on point and island opened, many of those back in the ridge, and a mortar barrage so heavy that those who lived through it said it was the worst they had ever seen." By nightfall there were 1,298 dead & wounded Marines, the beachhead was secure and the diary of the Japanese lieutenant, now dead, was being read at Marine headquarters. But almost two months later, a U.S. colonel was killed by a sniper on Peleliu as he stepped from a plane.

The Shock of Battle. According to Fletcher Pratt, Peleliu was the Marines' hardest battle. None of them was easy, though he calls the assault on Tinian "perfection." Pratt, one of the best of the civilian war analysts, wrote The Marines' War at the Marine Corps' request, but on three conditions, all granted: that he have full access to official Marine files and captured Japanese records; permission to interview eyewitnesses; complete freedom of opinion. The result is a fine service history written with clarity and intelligence, one that many Marines will welcome as an authoritative corrective to their own unit histories.

Author Pratt has told the Marines' story so simply and graphically that civilian readers will share the feel of battle, and so soundly that the book could serve as a text on amphibious warfare.

Pratt has made good use of captured Japanese documents. The Marines' War is, to a lesser extent, also the Japanese defenders' war. If ever Japan's military schools re-open for business, their instructors will find here a succinct catalogue of Japanese army and navy mistakes. Says Pratt: "One is struck by the fact that the Japanese leaders, naval and military', were always waiting for somebody else to do something. ... In actual contacts, of course, much of the Japanese failure can be traced to the mystical belief that a man with Bushido and a knife is better than a man with a Tommy gun and a bellyful of beans. This piece of irrationalism is fundamental. . . . The true failure lies rather in that tenacity of which the Japanese were so very proud--their persistence in error, their unwillingness to alter a plan once it had been set in operation."

Suicide Is a Bad Habit. Both sides learned as the war went on, but the Marines learned faster and seldom repeated their mistakes. By June 1944 the Japanese Chief of Staff was calling for an end to the Japanese habit of suicide in the field. (Wrote one lieutenant who heard the speech: "We shall crush the enemy by living.") It was also becoming clear that Bushido was not enough. Included in General Ushijima's battle plan for the defense of Okinawa was this advice; "You cannot regard the enemy as on a par with you. You must realize that material power usually overcomes spiritual power in the present war. The enemy is clearly our superior in machines. Do not depend on your spirits overcoming this enemy. Devise combat method based on mathematical precision; then think about displaying your spiritual power."

By that time, of course, it was too late. Too many Japanese, like the commandant of isolated Truk, were sunk in defeatism. Said he: "The seasons do not change. I try to look like a proud vice admiral, but it is hard with a potato hook in my hands. It rains every day, the flowers bloom every day, the enemy bombs us every day, so why remember?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.