Today, Ken Burns will and PBS will air FUBAR on The War. It will discuss Peleliu. My Dad was on Peleliu. He always pronounced it Pel-Lee-You.
It was always glossed over in the history books about the war in the Pacific. I would read about Midway. Or Iwo Jima which he missed. Or Tarawa which he also missed, but Peleliu was always kind of a footnote.
As a kid, I had figured that the reason he survived was because not much fighting went on. The War to me was in Europe.
I thought his great accomplishment in the war was guarding a Catholic Cemetery in China after the War. Or meeting a 12 foot cobra on the path on Pavuvu.
But I was wrong.
Peleliu was the scene of the 1000 mile stare. The picture of the young soldier with the hollowed eyes of an old man. You’ve seen it.
My mother told me that that picture was from Peleliu. I’ve seen it in ads for this session. Even Ken Burns said he had nightmares about Peleliu after working on this episode.
I am glad this is finally coming out. Statements like 6 out of 10 men died for a battle that didn’t need to happen had no impact on my 14 year old mind. I couldn’t corroborate them anywhere. The number of injured or dead were rarely posted about Peleliu and were often underreported as I found out later.
Tonite, I can see what my Dad actually did in the War. He told me that he was photographed often and in color….but I only ever saw one picture of him and one picture I thought was of him in Peleliu. In one picture, from an old paperback series about the war, my dad is standing near som wounded soldiers lying on the ground. He is skinny, because they all were and because he was only 17 or 18. He said that that was him and that he had lots of pictures taken of him.
The other I saw at the D-Day Museum but someone else’s name was on the photo. It did look exactly like him and his buddy sitting in their foxhole. He was even holding his BAR. It really stopped me when I saw it and brought back all the memories of his stories which numbered only a few. They were not pleasant….but it took me until an adult to hear them.
On the landing, he was in an LCVP which was powered by an aircraft engine. However, the fumes made the troops sick and many were throwing up. my dad was hunkered near the top so he could breathe and not vomit. The sea seemed bumpy and the Sergeant told him, “Al, look over the side to see what is bumping into us.” So he did and he saw bodies floating everywhere.
It took him a few seconds to realize that those bodies were marines and they were dead.
Another story he told was of he and his buddy in a foxhole toward the rear. There were cans of water everywhere so they gathered them in and put them in the bottom of their foxhole. The water was rusty but it was hot on Peleliu. Being a volcanic, flat island there were no streams or fresh water source as they thought they were lucky because they didn’t have to go in to the base to refill their canteens. One time he did and he remembered standing looking at all the dead and wounded when the picture was taken. An officer called to him and offered him some water. Explaining that there was none on the island and he could only offer him a cup. Embarrassed, my Dad said he refused. When he got back to his foxhole, he and his buddy covered up the cans. He said he was afraid what might be done when it was discovered they had all those cans under them.
He never liked to talk about the war. My Mom would tell me some of the stories when I was a kid. He only spoke about it when he was much older. About the time he was badly burned, about the time he shot a Lieutenant, about the time he almost got blown up by the Army Corps of Engineers, about Okinawa and China.
But now I get to see the famous pictures that were in color. Stuff I knew was out there but never before seen. Too damning because it was so bloody and so wasteful. It was a mistake to fight it and it was covered up. The Government didn’t want people to know about the real cost…but now it will be out. And I will be looking for my Daddy who has been dead for 8 years. He loved the old war movies, but he may not have loved this one.
If anyone is interested in more, read the Devil’s Anvil; the Assault on Peleliu by James H. Hallas. My Dad is in there 4 times.
Thanks for reading. Watch FUBAR tonight on PBS.
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I’ve watched the whole series so far, with my Mom, getting her perspective since she lived through it all. There were many scenarios that she said she never knew, that the government and press had suppressed the stories at the time.
My Dad fought in Europe, landing in France just after Dday as a 19 yr old and made his way into Germany with the 12th Armored Tank Division, also known as the Hellcats, in the 56th Armored Infantry Battalion.
Like your father, my Dad rarely spoke of his experiences during the war. He couldn’t watch movies about it without shaking violently, his PTSD was so bad, decades later. He was one of the few survivors of the efforts to take the town of Herrlisheim, an Alsatian town on the Rhine. One thousand and three men were sent in from the 56th and only 100 left the town alive. Out of the 256 men from my Dad’s unit only nine lived. It was another absolute and total fucked up FUBAR from hell situation, with terrible decision making by the American commanders.
I was hoping that Burns would cover the story of Herrlisheim, but he didn’t get to it.
So instead I will watch the FUBAR of Peleliu in solidarity with you, another kid of a WWII vet, who knows how awful the aftermath of war is, who knows what the 1000 mile stare looks like and that it lasts a life time.
This is a fine personal tribute as well as a great story about your father.
My best to you.
How did we do it? Post stories about our fathers back to back?