"In the predawn hours of September 15, 1944, a powerful fleet of U.S. Navy warships trained its guns on Peleliu, a small coral island in the Palau chain. The ships included the battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Idaho, supported by a host of heavy and light cruisers. When H-hour arrived the guns opened fire, their muzzles spouting great sheets of smoke and flame, and the thunderous noise was so great a man had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard.
The men of the 1st Marine Division were already in their landing craft, waiting for this preliminary bombardment to further soften up the island's Japanese defenders. Most of the men were veterans and had earlier breakfasted on helpings of steak and eggs. Even so, the sour smell of diesel oil, combined with the acrid stench of expended cordite from the naval bombardment, must have nauseated the most battle-hardened leatherneck.
Some of the men had daubed their faces for jungle camouflage, and war correspondent Tom Lea recalled that he saw one painted warrior looking over a gunwale with grim determination, "his big hands … in the last moments before the tough tendons drew up to kill."…"
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