Chapter 91 how many people are left

The easy times are easy, and the difficult times are even more difficult. The "Guadalcanal Butcher" who once won the cards and won soft hands has also embarked on a journey to purgatory. In the 6 days of brutal fighting, the first regiment and the first battalion lost 71% of their troops. When the C company of the battalion boarded the No. 100 highland, there were only 90 people left in this company. After a bloody battle, the company commander, Captain Pope, thought that his meritorious deeds had been fulfilled, but instead he was besieged by the nearby Japanese army. Company C was attacked fiercely by the Japanese army all night.Pope and his men used all available weapons to resist the Japanese charge. When grenades were not enough, they even "adulterated" with stones-first threw three or four stones at the enemy, and then threw a grenade, so that the Japanese do not know which is real.

Until dawn, Pope was still alive, but counting him, the 90 people in the whole company became 9 people. The situation of the other two battalions is similar. The regiment with the strongest combat effectiveness in the first marine division originally had more than 3,000 people. During the attack on "Blood Nose Ridge", 1,749 people were killed or injured, and the casualty rate was as high as 60%. The extremely cruel combat environment made most of the survivors tortured to the point of losing their minds.A Marine picked up his dead comrade's rifle and crawled frantically forward.According to his later recollection, what he thought of at the time was to fire at any moving object that appeared in front of him, no matter friend or foe, because "I have no friends anymore, I just want to kill."

One regiment collapsed and could only switch defenses, and the remnants of the regiment were allowed to leave Peleliu Island.When they passed the Fifth Regiment Zone, Sledge was shocked to find that many of the people he knew before were gone, the company was like a platoon, the platoon was like a squad, and there were very few officers left. Sledge asked one of the regiment's Marines, "How many men are left in your company?" The person being asked was an old friend of Sledge from the boot camp. He stared at Sledge with bloodshot eyes and said with a sob: "Sledgehammer, there are only 20 people left in the whole company. We're all wiped out."

The one that replaced one regiment was the 321st Regiment of the Army's 81st Infantry Division. The 81st Step Division belongs to the reinforced division. This is an older army unit that participated in World War I. The division's badge armband is a black wild cat, so it is also called "Wild Cat Division". Although the "Wildcat Division" has a distinguished military history, before participating in the Battle of Peleliu Island, they had not fought in the Pacific battlefield, so they were used as a reserve team.Geiger, the commander of the Third Amphibious Army, originally thought that with the strength of the first land division, it was more than enough to occupy Peleliu Island, so he sent the 81st Infantry Division to attack the other two islands.

The "Wildcat Masters" themselves possessed impressive strength, and they were also very lucky to be in charge of the two islands, one with a weak defense and the other with no defenses, and they did not encounter much difficulty after landing.This allowed Geiger to draw out the 321st of them to reinforce Peleliu. On September 23, the 321st Regiment completely took over the defense of the First Marine Regiment and began to enter the mountainous areas to fight in large numbers.According to actual combat needs, the U.S. military improved the original flamethrower so that it could shoot at least 15 meters away, so that the Japanese soldiers deep in the tunnel could be burned to death. The 321 regiment used this long-range flamethrower, plus rocket launchers, and explosives to attack hole by hole. After a few days, they finally completely blocked the cave defense system centered on "Blood Nose Ridge", making the Japanese troops on the mountain both No reinforcements could be received from the north, and no retreat could be made in this direction.

On September 29, the 321st Regiment and the 7th Marine Regiment exchanged defenses. At this time, the fighting on other aspects of the island was basically over. The Japanese army was compressed into the Umburogo Mountain Canyon, a long and narrow area more than 1,000 meters long and 300 meters wide. . As far as the actual tactical goal is concerned, the battle of Peleliu Island has been settled, and it can be said that it is meaningless for the Japanese army in the canyon to continue fighting, but according to the bad behavior of the Japanese, things are not so simple. In order to reduce casualties in the process of the US military's attack, Geiger, Rupters and other senior Marines first thought of using the island's airport.As of October 1, a total of three squadrons of the Marine Air Force flew to Peleliu Island and assembled at the airport that had been repaired by the Naval Engineering Battalion.

It is really unprecedented that the Marine Corps' own air force will support operations, and the bombing range of the aircraft is also record-breaking: only more than 900 meters, less than a thousand meters! The air force bombed the canyon violently, but no matter what weapons were used, whether it was heavy bombs, rockets, or machine guns, the effect was still not obvious.They also designed the "petrol bomb", that is, first drop the fuel tank filled with gelatin, and then let the artillery on the ground use mortar shells to ignite it. The "petrol bomb" can indeed scare some witnesses, but when the Seventh Marine Regiment moved towards "Blood Nose Ridge", they found that Zhong Chuan and his brigade were still guarding in the large and small caves.

While carrying out the air strikes, the air team dropped a large number of leaflets into the canyon, earnestly preaching the truth that "war is useless and you should surrender as soon as possible". Seeing that there was no response to the leaflet, the U.S. military simply used a loudspeaker and placed the loudspeaker where the Japanese army could hear or even see it, allowing Japanese translators or Japanese prisoners to shout. Until this time, there were still not many Japanese soldiers who were willing to surrender voluntarily. Once they surrendered or were captured, they often performed amazing behaviors: a very young Japanese prisoner voluntarily entered the cave to persuade him to surrender.

The U.S. military's intelligence department sent a combat team to cover the young prisoner of war, and told him that if he was attacked by the Japanese army, he should lie on the ground quickly so that the combat team could cover him and retreat safely. The little prisoner of war went to two caves in a row, and the responses were either grenades or machine guns, but he didn't want to stop there, so he approached the third cave entrance. This time, no one shot at him, and the Japanese soldiers guarding the cave had a chat with him, and then he disappeared into the cave.