"2000 YARD STARE"
"Down from Bloody Ridge Too Late. He's Finished - Washed Up - Gone"
"As we passed sick bay, still in the shell hole, it was crowded with wounded, and somehow hushed in the evening light. I noticed a tattered Marine standing quietly by a corpsman, staring stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled in battle, his jaw hung, and his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head. Down by the beach again, we walked silently as we passed the long line of dead Marines under the tarpaulins."
"ARTILLERY SUPPORT"
"At the southern end on our side of the field opposite the hill, our artilleryman had dug holes and carried 75-mm field howitzers to the sites. As we came down to them these batteries were firing continuously, throwing shells into the Jap hangars and buildings at the foot of the hill, and at caves in the hill where Jap mortar and artillery and machine-gun fire was dealing out misery to marines."
"THE BLOCKHOUSE"
"There were dead Japs on the ground were they had been hit. We walked carefully up the side of this trail littered with Jap pushcarts, smashed ammunition boxes, rusty wire, old clothes and tattered gear. Booby traps kept us from handling any of it. Looking up at the head of the trail I could see the big Jap blockhouse that commanded the height. The thing was now a great, jagged lump of concrete, smoking."
"GOING IN - FIRST WAVE"
"For an hour we plowed toward the beach, the sun above us coming down through the overcast like a silver burning ball....Over the gunwale of the craft abreast of us I saw a Marine, his face painted for the jungle, his eyes set for the beach, his mouth set for murder, his big hands quiet now in the last moments before the tough tendons drew up to kill."
"THE PRICE"
"Lying in terror looking longingly up the slope to better cover, I saw a wounded man near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs. His face was half bloody pulp and the mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down like a stick, as he bent over in the stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patiences I have ever seen. He fell behind me, in a  red puddle on the white sand."
"THIS IS SAD SACK CALLING CHARLIE BLUE"
"We found the battalion commander [Lt Col Edward H. Hurst, CO, 3/7]. By him sat his radioman, trying to make contact with company commands. There was an infinately tired and plaintive patience in the radioman's voice as he called code names, repeating time and time again, 'This is Sad Sack calling Charlie Blue. This is Sad Sack calling Charlie Blue.' "
"COUNTER-ATTACK"
" I do not know what time it was when the counterattack came. I heard, in pauses between bursts of fire, the high-pitched, screaming yells of the Japs as they charged, somewhere out ahead. The firing would grow to crescendo, drowning out the yells, then the sound would fall dying like the recession of a wave. Looking up, I saw the earth, the splintered trees, the men on their bellies all edged against the sky by the light of the star shells like moonlight from a moon dying of jaundice.The phone rang. A battalion CO reported the Jap's infiltration and the beginning of the counter attack. He asked what reserves were available and was told there were none. Small arms fire ahead of us became a continuous rattle. Abruptly three star shells burst in the sky. As soon as they died floating down, others flared to take their place. Then the howitzers just behind us opened up, hurling their charges over our heads, shaking the ground with their blasts."
"THE BEACH"
"My First View as I Came Around From the Ramp of our LVT"
"We ground to a stop, after a thousand years, on the coarse coral....And we ran down the ramp and came around the end of the LVT, splashing ankle-deep up the surf to the white beach. Suddenly I was completely alone. Each man drew into himself when we ran down that ramp, into that flame. Those Marines flattened in the sand on that beach were dark and huddled like wet rats in death as I threw my body down among them."
"SUNDOWN AT PELELIU"
"Sick Bay in a Shellhole. The Padre Read, 'I am the resurrection and the Light' "
"The padre stood by with two canteens and a Bible, helping. He was deeply moved by the patient suffering and death. He looked very lonely, very close to God, as he bent over the shattered men so far from home. Corpsmen put a poncho, a shirt, a rag, anything handy, over the grey faces of the dead and carried them to a line on the beach to await the digging of graves."
Peleliu Art by Tom Lea was provided courtesy of "US Army Center of Military History"
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During World War II, Life Magazine hired Tom Lea as a combination war correspondent and artist to cover the war in the Pacific.


"We saw a Jap running along an inner ring of the reef, from the stony eastern point of the peninsula below us. Our patrol cut down on him and shot very badly, for he did not fall until he had run 100 yards along the coral. Another Jap popped out running and the marines had sharpened their sites. The Jap ran less than 20 steps when a volley cut him in two and his disjointed body splattered into the surf."
From Guadalcanal to Peleliu
Tribute to PFC Joseph L. South
My Great Uncle, One of the Old Breed

PELELIU ART by TOM LEA
PELELIU, 7TH MARINES, WWII, 1ST MARINE DIVISION, AFTER ACTION REPORTS, BATTLE REPORTS,  TOM LEA, MARINES, WWII, GUADALCANAL