In late 1944, as a precursor to the invasion of the Philippines, U.S. military analysts decided to seize the small island of Peleliu to ensure that the Japanese airfield could not threaten the invasion forces.
It was estimated that the island would fall in a week or so. In fact, the fighting on Peleliu would go on for 74 days. The US would pay a heavy price for capturing the island with a higher casualty rate than the fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
In this episode, I'm joined by Pacific War historian Joseph Wheelan, author of Bitter Peleliu: The Forgotten Struggle on the Pacific War's Worst Battlefield.
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68 Go Betweens for Hitler
67 - Luftwaffe Night Fighter ‘Ace’, Wolfgang Thimmig
66 - Northrop P-61 Black Widow
65 Lt Col William Edwin Dyess
64 - The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign 1942
Strafbattalion: Hitler's Penal Battalions
Betrayed: The Buchenwald Airmen
61 - RAF Liberators Over Burma
60 Alarmstart: German Fighter Pilots in Europe
59 - Case Red: The Collapse of France
58 Lost Warriors: Seagrim and Pagani of Burma
57 - The 110th Holds In The Ardennes, 1944
56 - Haile Selassie’s Mongrel Foreign Legion.
Darkest Hour
55 - The Flemish Waffen SS
54 - The Bataan Death March
53 - Her Finest Hour: Diana Rowden, SOE Agent
52 Shadow Over the Atlantic
51 The German Airborne Threat to Britain & the Psychological Impact
50 - Operation Tonga
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