A Battle That Shouldn’t Have Happened : Peleliu: After 50 years, a salute to U.S. troops slaughtered while storming a Japanese-held island for no good reason.

Fifty years ago this month, the 1st Marine Division assaulted Peleliu, a tiny Pacific island. Marines were supposed to overrun the 2-by-6-mile fortress in four days, mop up in a week. Instead, Japanese troops were still fighting years later. For Col. Lewis (Chesty) Puller’s 1st Marines, Peleliu became the costliest battle of the Pacific War: Seven out of 10 were killed or wounded in eight days.

Few Americans knew then or have ever heard of Peleliu (pronounced PEH-leh-loo). In early autumn, 1944, America’s attention was focused on the liberation of Europe. Through the decades, far-distant Peleliu seemed to be best forgotten. In contrast to Europe and other Pacific locations, there were no memorial services or dedication of monuments on Peleliu. The few Peleliu survivors ever to return found only a crumbling Army monument. But all that changed last week when 80 Marine officers and men returned to Peleliu to mark the Sept. 14 landing.

Southernmost of the Palau group, Peleliu is about 500 miles east of the Philippines. The strategy behind the invasion of the island was to protect Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s flank when he invaded Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Adm. William F. (Bull) Halsey’s successful carrier strikes convinced him that Leyte, in the central Philippines, had fewer defenders than had been thought. He radioed Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, urging all other operations be called off and Leyte seized. But in a decision still difficult to understand, Nimitz ordered the convoy of Marines to take Peleliu anyway. Awaiting them were elite Japanese troops that could have been bypassed.

Aerial photographs suggested Peleliu was flat. Not seen were formidable limestone ridges turned into underground fortresses, all connected by tunnels impervious to aerial and naval bombardment. Studded with steel and concrete, the Japanese positions covered every square yard of Peleliu from the beach to the inner recesses of the ridges.

Off Peleliu’s smoke-shrouded coast, the early morning pre-invasion bombardment appeared impressive. Could any defender still be alive? But as the first waves of Americans moved toward shore, Peleliu erupted into a living hell.

Eugene Sledge, a mortar man, barely 20, later wrote “With the Old Breed,” providing a classic account of the unforgettable reality of battle for enlisted Marines: The Peleliu beach was “a continuous sheet of flames. Defenders emerged from cover and increased their fire. Shells screamed and exploded everywhere. Huge geysers erupted around landing craft forced into single file through reef obstacles only partially destroyed. Direct hits engulfed dozens of craft in black dirty smoke sending debris and bodies into the air. Survivors staggered and crawled ashore through heavy fire. Hundreds of dead young Marines sprawled on the surf and in the deep tank traps a few yards from the water’s edge.”

Each enemy shell brought mutilation and death to the congested beaches. Inland, it was impossible to dig in. Jagged coral slashed shoes and clothing and tore bodies. Peleliu coral soaked up and retained 115-degree temperatures. Enemy artillery and mortar harassed all night. Odious blowflies from bloated dead bodies alit the moment a C-ration can opened. Acute dysentery struck.

The slaughter continued as Marines fought inland through the ridges.

Six days, and the 1st Marines ceased to exist as an assault unit. The 321st Army Infantry took over their positions on the eighth day. In a few weeks, enemy fire whittled down the 5th and 7th regiments. On Oct. 16, the 81st Army Division relieved the entire 1st Marine Division.

Historian William Manchester, himself a Marine gravely wounded on Okinawa, visited Peleliu in 1978, where he observed well-kept Japanese memorials. Disappointed not to find a suitable memorial to American veterans of Peleliu, he wrote, “To consign brave men to oblivion is profane.”

As of last week, the 1,794 heroic Americans who died on Peleliu will be thanked and remembered.