A Marines best friend from dusk till dawn, for the next 8 weeks in 1944 was his 1911 and Kabar. The coral was to hard to dig into and you couldn’t dig a proper foxhole. You were alone at night with your buddy and on your own. Nothing better than a 45 for stopping those"Pacific Rim infiltrators" (is that PC?) in the middle of the night. Personally I have the utmost respect for those Grandpa’s. A lot of boys my age don’t have granddads because of Peleliu. Semper Fidelis
For sure it was fukkaku “endurance engagements”, many, many Marines died on that little Island.