The forgotten island where an Australian legend was killed

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In the dim torchlight, Des Matsutaro crouches implicit the unremarkable detritus of war. Beer bottles, pots, a footwear sole, bowls stamped with the insignia of the Imperial Japanese Navy. A onshore crab scurries crossed the dusty floor, which is littered with ammunition cases, and a “drip pit” for capturing bodily fluids hints astatine a makeshift operating room.

The land of Peleliu played big to 1 of the fiercest battles of World War II.

The 1000-Man Cave connected the land of Peleliu, successful the Micronesian federation of Palau, echoes warfare stories arsenic grisly arsenic they get. Of thousands of Japanese soldiers hiding retired successful an ant workplace of underground caves and tunnels, and of the American forces equipped with flamethrowers and bulldozers, who entombed many.

This September marks the 80th day of the Battle of Peleliu, described by immoderate veterans arsenic the fiercest of the Pacific campaign.

It’s besides wherever the celebrated Australian warfare analogous Damien Parer died portion filming the US invasion. Parer, whose Academy Award-winning footage of Kokoda produced immoderate of the astir iconic images of Australian troops successful WWII, was killed by Japanese gunfire connected September 17, 1944, aged 33. He near down a woman of six months and an unborn son.

Unlike Gallipoli and Fromelles, Palau isn’t a war-history destination for Australians. The fewer who sojourn the archipelago – a concatenation of 340-odd islands scattered 1500 kilometres south-east of the Philippines – travel for the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Rock Islands and their superlative coral reefs. But travel to Peleliu, a coral land 10 kilometres agelong and fractional arsenic wide, and a forgotten communicative of the warfare unfolds.

My sojourn is portion of a half-day excursion with Four Seasons Explorer, a unsocial “floating resort” permanently based successful Palau since October. We’re met by Des, a question usher and historiographer of Palauan and Japanese descent, who takes america connected a travel – portion cycled/part driven – done Peleliu’s darkest days.

He describes how, connected September 15, 1944, US troops stormed the island’s south-west beaches successful a coordinated land, oversea and aerial onslaught to prehend Palau’s lone airfield. The allies needed aerial enactment for the penetration of Japanese-occupied Philippines, and Palau – a erstwhile German colony administered by Japan aft WWI – was a strategical foothold.

“It was lone expected to past a fig of days,” Des says of the Peleliu campaign. “Unfortunately the conflict raged connected for astir 3 months.” We sojourn the landings wherever US troops successful “amtraks” (amphibious tractors) charged ashore successful a hail of gunfire. It took them 12 hours to scope the airfield, a fewer 100 metres inland, and 3 weeks to unafraid it.

Parer died connected time 3 portion trying to movie the faces of advancing US marines. His remains are successful Ambon War Cemetery successful Indonesia, and the Australian Embassy is considering a Palau memorial for the 80th anniversary.

The conflict for Peleliu formed a large portion of HBO’s Band of Brothers 2010 companion bid The Pacific, which was filmed successful Australia.

The now-condemned warfare depository is housed successful an aged bunker.

Now a graveyard of warfare dead, astir 11,000 Japanese soldiers are buried successful wide graves connected the island, with thousands inactive considered missing successful action.

Behind the landing beaches, a chromatic memorial replaces a tract of achromatic crosses wherever 1058 US soldiers were buried (and aboriginal repatriated) successful the archetypal 2 months of the campaign. Grainy achromatic and achromatic images amusement a tropical scenery reduced to a particulate bowl.

Today, the jungle has reclaimed Peleliu, its tendrils creeping done the rusted carcasses of amtraks and planes, implicit pillboxes and bunkers and astir a 200-millimetre long-range weapon embedded successful a hillside. But it remains 1 of the world’s best-preserved battlefields, Des says.

We research the airfield, the precocious condemned aged substance depot-turned museum, and the crumbling remains of the Japanese office – pockmarked with bullets and doubly deed by B24 bombers – its collapsed ceiling surrendering to creeping vines.

The astir poignant tract is the limestone ridge extending three-quarters of the mode down the island’s spine and honeycombed with Japanese-built tunnels and caves. It’s nicknamed Bloody Nose Ridge because, by the second stages of the fighting, galore soldiers, depleted of ammunition, resorted to hand-to-hand combat.