The Early Battle in the Division Center
On D plus 1, when the 1st Marines had launched their costly Umurbrogol assault, the 5th Marines on its right also faced an assault situation, but one of substantially less opposition and easier terrain. Lieutenant Colonel Boyd’s 1/5 had to fight across the airfield, from southwest to northeast, and through the built-up area similar to that which faced Honsowetz’s 2/1. The battalion was subjected to observed fire from the Umurbrogol and to small arms fire from Japanese defenders in the rubble-filled built-up area. Boyd’s coordinated tank-infantry attack quickly carried the day. He soon had control of that area, and the east-west, cross-island road, which could lead the 5th toward its next objective, the eastern peninsula of Peleliu.
On the 5th Marines’ right, 2/5 had a more difficult time. Its progress was stubbornly opposed by infantry from the woods on its right, and by artillery from Umurbrogol, which took a particular interest in the tanks 2/5 was using to support its attack along the edge of the woods. Whether the Japanese infantry in those woods had been posted to defend that position, or whether they were just surviving Japanese infantry from the D-Day counterattack, was never established. The fight took all day and inflicted heavier casualties on Gayle’s battalion than had D-Day. By dusk, 2/5 had battled beyond the north end of the airfield, and halted for the night near the woods concealing the approaches to the eastern peninsula.
As the two-battalion attack of the 5th Marines (D plus 1) was heavily engaged on its front and right, the regimental headquarters near the beach was hit by an artillery barrage which, coupled with D-Day’s loss of 3/5’s commanding officer and executive officer, engendered a significant rearrangement in command assignments. The early D plus 1 barrage hit the regimental CP, took out numbers of the staff, and buried the regimental commander in the crumbling Japanese antitank trench in which the CP was “sheltered.” Fortunately, the burial was temporary, and Colonel Harris emerged with a twisted and battered leg, but still able to hobble. Two of his principal staff officers were casualties, and his sergeant major killed. Harris elected not to be evacuated, but he needed help in the regimental CP. Ordering Lieutenant Colonel Walt back from the 3d Battalion to the regimental CP, Harris directed the commanding officer of 2/5 to send his executive officer, Major John H. Gustafson, to take command of 3/5. Then Harris directed Boyd to send his 1/5 operations officer, Major Hierome Opie, to join 3/5 as Gustafson’s executive officer.
Fortunately, 3/5 was having a relatively quiet day, unlike its hair-raising regrouping on the night of D-Day. After daylight, as 2/5 attacked north, 3/5 stretched along the east edge of the mangrove lagoon which separated Peleliu from the eastern peninsula. In that position, 3/5 also tied into 3/7 as that battalion attacked south. Thus 3/5 protected each regiment’s flank against any Japanese movement across the intervening water, and into the rear of the attacking battalions. No such threat developed, and as the afternoon grew on, there emerged a more pressing employment for 3/5.
As Walt returned to his post beside the now only semi-mobile Harris, Major Gustafson was told to get 3/5 into position to bolster and then relieve 1/5, as it closed in on its O-2 objectives.
Throughout the next day (D plus 2), the 5th Marines kept tied in with the 1st Marines on its left and captured some control of the foot of the East Road. On the right, 2/5 hacked and combed its way through the jungle and mangrove north of the airfield, alongside the road leading toward the eastern peninsula. The thick scrub, nearly impenetrable, reduced progress to a crawl. It compensated by concealing most of the advancing Marines from enemy observation from high ground to 2/5’s north and northwest.
That 5th Marines’ forward position generally coincided with the northeast sector of the airfield earlier mentioned. Possession of that visual boundary meant that in most places on the regimental right, frontline Marines were spared the hostile observation and directed fire from Umurbrogol. As with the 7th Marines, largely hidden in the jungle of the south, this lessened the need for headlong assault. There would now be freedom to maneuver more deliberately and to coordinate supporting fire more carefully.