>> Hello.

I'm Angela Roberts, C.E.O.

of U.S. Money Reserve, a precious-metals distributor.

On behalf of our employees and clients, we are honored to be a sponsor of "First to Fight," a marine story in World War II narrated by actor Jon Seda.

We make hiring U.S. military veterans a priority, and our philanthropic efforts are focused on organizations serving veterans and their families.

From all of us at U.S. Money Reserve, we hope you enjoy and learn from this important film about America at war.

>> Additional support provided by... ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ >> Support for this program was also made possible by... ♪♪♪ >> My name is Jon Seda.

Portraying World War II Medal of Honor recipient Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone in HBO's series "The Pacific" was an honor.

Basilone was attached to the 7th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal.

John was awarded the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary actions on October 24th and 25th of 1942.

His role in helping to fight off some 3,000 Japanese on their way to recapture Henderson Airfield is legendary.

This is thought to be John Basilone's foxhole position on Guadalcanal today, still here in this dense Pacific tangle of tropical trees, vines, and green jungle canopy that swallowed up so many marines.

The haunting scenery remains a testament to the cold-blooded fight that lasted months on this island.

>> So a little -- The mud and the rain and stuff like that never bothered us.

This is all our casualties.

>> Oliver Marcelli knows Guadalcanal well.

Marcelli landed on the island exactly 1 month after John Basilone's heroic actions.

Oliver's home in Naples, Florida, reflects his pride in having served with the 1st Marine Division in World War II.

The division's hard-fought reputation was well-earned because many times, on faraway islands in the Pacific, Oliver and his fellow marines were the first to fight.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ On August 7th, 1942, 11,000 men of the 1st Marine Division were just minutes away from taking the fight directly to the Japanese.

Their first objective was an airfield on an island nobody knew existed, or could barely pronounce.

>> Nobody had heard of it, and they called it everything, including "got an old gal."

>> It's 9 months after Pearl Harbor -- not even a full year -- and we're now taking the first offensive actions against the Japanese.

And it will be a bitter, hard-fought battle.

>> Following an extensive pre-invasion naval bombardment, Private First Class Bill Finnegan and Corporal Lou Imfeld left their transport ship, the George F. Elliott, to board smaller Higgins boats for the landing on Guadalcanal.

Both were in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division.

>> When we landed on Guadalcanal on August the 7th, the thoughts going through our mind was uncertainty.

We had no idea what was about to happen, but we knew we were going into combat.

>> Finnegan and Imfeld were buddies.

>> Bill Finnegan was a light-hearted individual who was very friendly.

And I took a liking to him, yes.

>> Guadalcanal, 90 miles long and 25 miles wide, is the largest island in the Solomon Island chain.

It became important to the United States in 1942 due to its proximity to Australia.

An almost-operational Japanese airfield on the island threatened to control this huge part of the Southwestern Pacific.

>> The Japanese were building the airport when we... when we landed there.

>> General Alexander Vandegrift led the 1st Marine Division ashore.

Guadalcanal would be America's first ground offensive in World War II.

The Solomon Islands, the marines found, were outwardly beautiful.

But behind these sandy beaches and swaying palm trees, Americans would find a fanatical enemy, rampant disease, and death.

>> It was a big, mountainous, jungle-covered island.

And it looked -- From the sea, it looked somewhat foreboding, but we had no idea what was in store for us there.

>> Chaos reigned just after 9:00 in the morning on August 7th, 1942, as the 1st Marine Division headed towards their landing area on Guadalcanal, code-named "Red Beach."

The young marines expected the Japanese to be waiting for them at the shoreline.

>> Our planes were attacking, strafing the shore.

>> We expected to get shot at immediately.

>> We were not really looking forward to meeting Japanese -- live Japanese -- on the beach.

>> Instead, as they came ashore on Red Beach, Finnegan and Imfeld found the Japanese were nowhere to be found.

They had moved back, deep into the jungle, once the pre-invasion gunfire began.

>> Well, as I said, we were content for a short time that no Japanese were shooting at us.

>> We moved, and ran into the jungle, got off the beach as rapidly as possible.

>> We hit the ridges and the jungle.

Most of the ridges were jungle-covered.

>> Henderson Field and its 3,600-foot runway was taken on August 8th by the Marines.

Holding onto the airfield would be the storyline on Guadalcanal over the next several months.

♪♪♪ The battle for control of the island began with a fierce nighttime naval battle off nearby Savo Island on August 8th and 9th.

It ended in a Japanese victory, as their navy sank four ships and killed more than 1,000 sailors.

The one-sided defeat spooked the Allied navy into a full withdrawal.

Their retreat left the 1st Marine Division all alone on Guadalcanal just 2 days into the fight.

>> We heard naval gunfire, but we never knew until we got back to the beach that our ship had been sunk.

>> It's hard to tell on a naval battle if just -- you know, a naval battle going on at sea who is winning or who is losing.

>> One of the ships sunk was the George F. Elliott, the large transport that brought many of the marines to Guadalcanal.

>> And most of our navy withdrew.

>> It's a disappointment, that abandonment by the Navy.

>> The George F. Elliott just happened to have most of the marines' supplies on board.

The men of the 1st Division now had no naval support and very little in the way of necessities, from food to ammunition.

>> We did feel a little bit hung out to dry.

>> Yeah, we were short of supplies.

>> Everything -- food, clothes.

>> Allied naval support was gone, and their supplies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The 1st Marine Division was now alone, and surrounded on Guadalcanal.

Henderson Field became the early epicenter of the battle.

>> When we took the island, we went ahead to complete the airfield.

>> When our engineers picked up with the Japanese tools, tractors, everything they'd been using, and kept working on the airfield.

>> No Allied ships meant the Japanese navy roamed up and down Guadalcanal's coast with impunity.

They pounded the marines dug in around a now fully operational Henderson Field.

>> Oh, yes, the Japanese killed at night, and mostly from the sea.

>> And they bombed us regularly every day.

>> Frank Pomroy from Massachusetts and Company H, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, had been aboard the George F. Elliott when it got hit.

His friends thought the teenager was dead, until he showed up on Guadalcanal on August 19th.

Pomroy had been rescued, and taken to another island, then back to Guadalcanal.

He returned just in time for the marines' first land battle on the island.

His sergeant couldn't believe Pomroy was still alive.

>> He saw me, and it was almost like a state of shock, because I was missing in action, having gone down with the Elliott.

>> The Japanese on Guadalcanal wanted their airfield back.

On August 21st, 1942, they made their first all-out bid to retake it.

It was here at the misidentified Tenaru River where the fight unfolded at a place called Alligator Creek.

The Marine maps were wrong.

It was actually the Ilu River, and there were no alligators on Guadalcanal, just crocodiles.

Ambiguities aside, the lagoon was between the Japanese and their goal of retaking nearby Henderson Field.

♪♪♪ >> That was the first Japanese reaction to our landing.

>> The marines at Alligator Creek prepared for the coming attack the best they could.

>> We had just set up machine guns and firing lines where you felt that they were best suited.

>> Nearly 900 Japanese of the 28th infantry under Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki were massing on the far side of the lagoon, two battalions of the 1st Marine Regiment on the Henderson Field side.

>> Everybody was afraid.

>> Lou Imfeld was assigned to a special weapons platoon just upstream from Alligator Creek.

>> Of course we were apprehensive.

You know you're going into combat.

You know you're going to be shot at.

>> Local native Jacob Vouza, who had been tortured by the Japanese, was the first to sound the alarm that the enemy was pushing on Henderson Field.

>> It was dark.

Vouza, our native scout, came back in.

He had been tied up by the Japanese, and left for dead, actually.

And he got away, and he came down, and he told them that the Japs were on the way.

So, we knew we were going to get attacked that night.

>> On August 20th, the day before the attack, barbed wire was strewn all along the sandspit at Alligator Creek, right down to the water line, to slow the Japanese assault.

>> We only had enough barbed wire to put one single strand of wire up.

And they were going to do that after dark, so that the Japanese wouldn't know that it was there.

>> We were always alert, and anticipated possible attacks by the Japanese at night, because, generally, when they fought, it was at night.

>> Just after 1:30 in the morning on August 21st, 1942, the Japanese on the far side of Alligator Creek launched their first banzai charge against the 1st Marine Division in World War II.

During the early moments of the battle on the north shore of Guadalcanal, the Japanese yelled insults at the Americans.

>> The Japanese, when they came across, they came across almost, you might say, in a group of just crazy banzai charge, screaming and yelling.

And we fired it, and all the machine guns, what have you, opened up on the Tenaru River.

And it was pretty lively action.

>> We knew they were fanatical, but we appreciated it when they charged right into our machine guns.

>> They were good fighters.

They were excellent fighters.

>> Frank Pomroy manned a 37-millimeter gun which shot out hot shrapnel in all directions.

He watched as the Japanese ran directly into the barbed wire on the beach, and straight into American machine guns set up along the lagoon.

>> They were coming across the sandpit because that was the easiest thing, rather than cross through the deeper water.

Probably they were going through water not much deeper than above their knees, or something, through that pit.

So, it was easier to run across the sand, and that's where they concentrated their initial efforts real heavy.

So, we had a lot of firepower crisscrossing, and the Japanese, very few of them even broke through, and near our gun.

Some of them got as close as 15 or 20 feet away, but the riflemen and the machine gunners finished them off.

>> We had several machine guns on that sandbar.

>> Hundreds of Japanese soldiers came at the marines in three separate banzai charges over 17 hours.

Some of the fighting became hand-to-hand.

The Americans fought them off time after time.

Rifles, machine guns, mortars, and eventually tanks cut down the enemy by the dozen.

♪♪♪ >> There were bodies laying all over the beach.

>> The Japanese willingness to die for their emperor in wave after wave of suicidal attacks was mesmerizing to the men of the 1st Marine Division.

By the time the exhausting fight at Alligator Creek ended on the afternoon of August 21st, 35 American marines were dead, and 75 wounded.

But it was on the beach where the real story of this battle was most shocking.

Roughly 790 of the original 875 Japanese who had taken part in the assault lay dead, many partly buried by the incoming tide.

Following the failed attack, the 28th's commander, Colonel Ichiki, committed suicide in disgrace.

The marines could not believe what they had just witnessed.

The Japanese had no fear of death.

They just kept charging and dying.

♪♪♪ >> The next day, the palm groves that we were in were covered with Japanese dead.

>> And there was no cheering, or anything like that, following the battle.

People felt pretty happy that we'd won it, but you could look out there, and see all these bodies.

And that makes you think a little bit how, you know, how short life can be.

We looked at the beach in the morning, and where our gun was pointed, you could see Japanese bodies had been half-buried by the ocean current in the sand, but their upper bodies were sticking out.

And you couldn't see any blood on them.

>> Following Alligator Creek, many 1st Division marines wondered if they would ever leave Guadalcanal alive.

>> We always considered the possibility that we might not get off of there, but... >> There was a question whether we would make it off the island alive, yes.

>> Oliver Marcelli landed on Guadalcanal on November 25th as part of Headquarters company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

Japanese bombers gave him a thunderous welcome.

>> Well, again, the majority of them would come over at night, and bomb the hell out of us at night.

And we'd just run for the nearest foxhole.

That's about it.

Again, you never forget it, and it's something that...

It lives with you the rest of your life.

And I will never forget it as long as I live.

>> There would be many other famous battles on Guadalcanal before the fight here would eventually end.

More frontal attacks by the Japanese were beaten back by marines here on Bloody Ridge, within eyesight of Henderson Field.

There were also several clashes along the island's Matanikau River.

But Alligator Creek was the marines' baptism of fire, the Japanese strategy of kill or be killed both eye-opening and unnerving.

♪♪♪ Thanks to early victories by the 1st Marine Division, Americans on the home front now knew the name "Guadalcanal."

It was the nation's first ground win of World War II against the Japanese -- a little payback for Pearl Harbor.

The 1st Marine Division's time on Guadalcanal ended in early December of 1942.

That's when the Army's 25th Infantry Division began to relieve the worn-out marines on the island.

>> Well, we were extremely enthusiastic for the Army, and we had higher thoughts of the Army at that time than we ever did before.

>> We were most happy to see them.

We left Guadalcanal in December.

>> In addition to the Army, the Navy had returned, and once again, controlled the waters off Guadalcanal.

Getting aboard the naval transports to finally leave the island proved difficult for the exhausted marines of the 1st Division.

>> And so, guys were very weak.

You didn't realize it, that you were getting that sick.

>> The savagery of the battle, and their opponent, who would go to extraordinary means to make sure that they did their duty in killing you would be something that was unprecedented.

♪♪♪ >> Many reminders of the fight on Guadalcanal are still visible today -- relics from a battle that helped turn the tide of the war in the Pacific.

♪♪♪ The expansive Guadalcanal American Memorial sits high atop the island.

It's located on the first hill taken by American forces in this fight, and has commanding views of the battlefields.

The monument recognizes those Americans who died, and also other allies who were killed.

By the end of the fighting here in early February of 1943, more than 60,000 American troops had come ashore to fight on Guadalcanal.

More than 1,600 would die on the island.

Triple that number were killed at sea.

4,200 Americans had been wounded.

Several thousand Allied troops also died due to tropical diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever, and beriberi.

The Japanese called Guadalcanal "the island of death."

25,000 of their soldiers never left here alive.

The American 1st Marine Division had earned a much-deserved rest.

They got it down under.

>> We wound up in Melbourne, Australia, and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

>> And it was just a stunning vacation that we really enjoyed.

I'll never forget Australia.

I had a young lady there, and she thought we were gonna get married, but I said, "No.

I'm gonna wait until I get home."

And we used to go out to bars every night, and dancing every night.

And every night we went out, we used to have to fight mostly the Navy guys.

And we loved the Navy.

You know, the Marines, The Navy were the same.

>> But the food in Australia, you know, it's amazing.

You hear guys talk.

They want to talk tough, and they drank a lot of beer, and all this.

I'll tell you, we used to drink as many milkshakes as they did beer.

Really, really, people just loved the ice cream, you know?

And that helped to put body weight on.

It was a type of food.

>> Melbourne was a beautiful city with a lot of friendly people.

>> There was also intense training in Australia because, in late 1943, the 1st Marine Division was headed back into the fight.

The island of New Britain in the territory of New Guinea was next as the Allies' march up the Solomon Island chain continued.

There were two Japanese airfields near Cape Gloucester on the tip of New Britain.

They had to be taken.

>> The main landing was made on the east coast of Cape Gloucester.

The beaches had been thoroughly softened up by pre-invasion bombardments, and enemy opposition was light.

>> Four regiments of the 1st Marine Division were told to capture and defend the airstrips.

Cape Gloucester was an area dominated by swamps, biting insects, and dense jungle cover.

Monsoon rains kept everything wet and muddy.

Foxholes filled with water.

Malaria and other tropical diseases were again rampant.

The Japanese strategy of shrieking frontal banzai attacks continued.

It was a miserable time.

Once again, there would be no beach opposition to the Marine landings.

>> On Christmas Day, 1943, we landed on New Britain.

>> Oliver Marcelli had been transferred to C Company, 1st Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment prior to the Cape Gloucester landing.

>> The rain and the mosquitoes were terrible.

And it rained all the time, and we lived in mud, and we lived in tents -- whenever we had a tent.

And other than that, we just cover ourself up with palm trees, palm fronds, like you'd see a monkey doing, or whatever.

And that's the way we survived.

But we took Atabrine every day for malaria, and the majority of guys fell down sick as hell with malaria.

I was one of them.

>> The fighting on Cape Gloucester wrapped up by March of 1944.

The battle cost the 1st Marine Division 310 killed and over 1,000 wounded.

The Japanese suffered 2,000 dead.

Following their second amphibious landing in the Pacific War, the 1st Marine Division needed another rest.

>> Oh, boy.

We thought we were going back to Melbourne.

No, we weren't.

They took us to a place where coconuts and rats were the main populous.

>> Not heading back to Australia was discouraging.

What was even worse was that the island of Pavuvu, 60 miles from Guadalcanal, was truly the rest area from hell.

The marines referred to the word Pavuvu as a "six-letter obscenity."

The island had not been prepared in any way for the arrival of the 1st Marine Division.

>> You know, these things look beautiful if you're going by in a ship, or you're flying over them.

"Oh, what beautiful islands."

Well, it was not.

It rained a lot there.

Pavuvu was rather a small island to put our division of marines on.

It wasn't big enough to do maneuvers, and it was just a hellhole.

>> Training for their next island assault was broken up by a visit from Bob Hope on his USO tour.

>> They had no landing field, so they had to land in the road.

And I can remember when Jerry Colonna was sitting with his feet outside, and the plane dipped.

It was probably saying, "Hello," or something.

He almost got thrown out of the plane.

And when he was down, he was joking about it.

He said, "From now on, I'm just going to sit inside."

And we laughed.

>> Hope found out the marines were on Pavuvu and flew over from a nearby island with his entertainment troupe.

Their performance was the only positive memory marines took from their many depressing months on the island.

>> You're a nice girl, too.

>> That's a lie, and I can prove it.

Well, it was here yesterday.

I've been robbed!

[ Laughter ] >> ♪ I'll be seeing you In all the old familiar places ♪ >> How about Mr. Jerry Colonna, right here?

[ Cheers and applause ] >> [ Sings indistinctly ] ♪ You may think that I am a bit wacky ♪ >> "November 27th, 1944.

Dear Bob Hope, I know you get plenty of fan mail, but this may be a little different.

In August, I received a letter from my son, Private Edward Andrew Stumpf -- Andy -- a marine van at the little island of Pavuvu in the Russell Islands in the Solomons group.

It said, 'This morning, we saw Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, Frances Langford, and Patty Thomas.

They flew right over us in these little Cub airplanes, and landed.

They really put on a show.'

Soon after this letter was written, this boy was killed in his first battle at Peleliu.

He was only 19.

And I can never thank you enough for having brought him those 2 hours of fun.

Gratefully yours, his mother, Mrs. A.

A.

Stumpf."

>> That name -- Peleliu -- would come to haunt every marine who left Pavuvu for their next Pacific battle.

>> Then, they told us, "Oh, this is gonna be very short, quick, over with, and it won't be that bad."

>> Guadalcanal was a walk in the park compared to Peleliu.

>> The 1st Marine Division's new commander, General William Rupertus, said it would be a rough but fast battle, maybe lasting 3 to 4 days.

His prediction would go down as one of the worst in military history.

>> Well, they give you a pep talk, naturally, before you get in the landing boat, and go in.

But that doesn't do much good.

>> Peleliu Island would be an entirely different fight for the 1st Marine Division and later for soldiers of the United States Army.

>> Peleliu was, to my mind, more difficult than Guadalcanal.

>> Once again, a Japanese airfield would be the main objective.

The island was needed to protect General Douglas MacArthur's right flank as he prepared to invade the Philippines in October.

That's what MacArthur said.

President Roosevelt agreed.

So did Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Admiral William Halsey did not.

Halsey felt the 2-mile-wide- by-6-mile-long coral island of Peleliu, 500 miles east of the Philippines, should be bypassed.

He reasoned that, since Japanese planes on the island and their airfield would be neutralized by pre-invasion bombardment, MacArthur's flank would be safe from attack.

Halsey was overruled.

The aptly named Operation Stalemate was a go.

On September 12th, the United States Navy began a planned 3-day bombardment of Peleliu.

The prelanding naval and aerial barrage damaged the airfield, leaving the Japanese with just a handful of flyable planes, but that was about it.

11,000 Japanese soldiers were still alive on Peleliu.

Rather, they were alive in Peleliu, safe in some 500 caves, bunkers, blockhouses, buildings, and fixed fortifications.

What the marines did not know was that the Japanese had a new game plan.

They would make the Americans come and find them in their fortified defensive positions.

The days of mass suicidal banzai charges were over.

♪♪♪ Peleliu is one of 350 islands in the island chain of the Republic of Palau.

The island is a maze of sawtooth ridges, sheer cliffs, valleys, gulches, and jagged rocks situated among the Umurbrogol mountain range.

Hundreds of natural and man-made caves made it a defender's dream and an invasion force's worst nightmare.

Even the coral itself was hard and sharp, so digging foxholes for cover was nearly impossible.

It was an island that normally would be covered in dense jungle like it is today.

But that had been blasted away by the Navy in 1944, exposing a naked devil's playground of serrated coral ridges and valleys.

There seemed to be no level surface on the island.

The Japanese had control of Peleliu since the Pacific War began.

They had time to construct a fortress.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ The area around Peleliu is stunningly beautiful, a paradise of warm and crystal-clear greenish-blue water.

The rock islands mark the line of travel to Peleliu, which is roughly a 2-hour boat trip from the Palau capital of Koror.

The approach to Peleliu could not be any more breathtaking.

This was not the same view, however, that Frank Pomroy had below deck on his Landing Ship Tank on September 15th, 1944.

Pomroy and 4,500 fellow marines were boarding their amphibious tanks and amtraks for the slow trip into their two assigned landing areas, code-named White and Orange Beach.

>> We went down below deck, and they started those, testing the engines, and, oh, half the guys were sick from the fumes and everything.

Well, finally, they opened up the ramp in front, you know, and you could see the island.

>> H-hour for landing the 1st Marine Division at low tide on White and Orange Beach was set for 8:30 a.m. on September 15th.

>> And then, we drove the amphibious tanks out, and you get down, and they pop right up, even though they were metal, But a lot of it was aluminum, of course.

>> The 1st Marine Regiment was assigned White Beach, the 5th and 7th Marine Regiment Orange Beach.

Just minutes into the attack, amtraks and amphibious tanks full of marines were already burning off the beaches, hit by artillery and mortars firing from positions nobody could see.

Many marines would die before ever setting foot on Peleliu.

Much of the destruction rained down from this area of the Umurbrogol mountain range, which had commanding views of the landing beaches.

>> We'd come in on landing craft, and at that time, naturally, they were the ones that the front of the landing craft fell forward, and you had to get off, and get on the beach, and duck as soon as possible.

>> Frank Pomroy came ashore on White Beach.

>> We came out of the tank.

We immediately jumped off the side.

You don't go down the ramp.

That's too many steps.

So, we jump off to the side.

>> Oliver Marcelli also landed on White Beach.

>> Got a lot of Japanese on Peleliu.

>> Bill Finnegan and buddy Lou Imfeld also landed on heavily defended White Beach with the 1st Marines.

>> I think we were all in a state of shock because we were breaking one of the first rules of amphibious landings, which is "get off the beach."

>> And then, it was just pure hell.

That's all.

You think you're going to get killed in the next minute, next bullet.

The next one is aimed for you, and you have that...

It's not an adversity, but you don't want to die, but again, you see so many people, so many dead, so many young kids dead lying on the beaches and stuff like that, It's a memory you never lose.

>> Nobody was moving on the beach, and all of a sudden, the biggest Jap I ever saw jumped out of this trench, and he had fixed bayonets, and he was looking right at me.

I was going to jump up, and try to stop him, but I don't know how many people fired over my head, and that bayonet slid in the sand about 4 feet from my nose.

>> You don't know what the hell is going to happen to you in the next moment.

>> The 1st Marine Division was getting massacred at the White Beach waterline.

It was the same on Orange Beach, too.

>> It was an experience on the beach, and it didn't get any better from there.

>> Early on, however, there were no thoughts about moving inland from the beaches.

>> But we couldn't move 'cause the whole beach was being covered.

>> The Japanese had pre-sided and zeroed in on every inch of the landing zones.

>> Sergeant says, "Come on.

We got to get up out of here."

He said, "This artillery will kill us all if we don't get up out of here."

>> Artillery, mortars, machine guns, and snipers were right on target.

>> They killed hundreds of people on the beach.

>> For hours, the marines simply could not move an inch.

>> There was a lot of disorder -- no order, no, not at all.

>> Dead and wounded men of the 1st Marine Division piled up on the landing beaches.

Firing came from everywhere, but the marines rarely saw any Japanese.

>> So, when we finally got our act together, and got off the beach, we advanced towards the ridges, where they were really holed up.

They were picking us off from the ridges with everything they had.

I had a couple of rifle grenades, and I used them on the pillboxes.

And they worked.

>> It was just a turmoil, and the ringing in your ears from the cannon fire, and the this and the that.

You just go on and on.

>> We didn't see many, but they saw us.

>> In other words, you figure you're gonna get killed in, you know, the next shot, and that's the way it is, and that's the way you live after that.

>> The Japanese commander on Peleliu's strategic defensive locations, called "The Point," did much of the initial killing on the left flank of White Beach on the morning of September 15th.

30 marines finally captured and held this 30-foot-high ragged mass of sharp coral.

Over 400 Japanese died trying to retake it over the next 17 hours.

A plaque honoring the marine commander there, Captain George Hunt, rests on The Point today.

In just the first few days of the fight on Peleliu, Oliver Marcelli's Company C, 1st Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, had been decimated.

Marcelli's company commander, Everett Pope, would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his leadership on Peleliu, on this ridge called Hill 100, later renamed "Pope's Ridge."

>> And the Japanese had used their years on that island to get ready for this attack, to fortify it very skillfully.

I handled a rifle company of about 235 men.

By the time, 4 days later, we got to the foot of that hill, there were about 90 of us left.

So, we had taken some very serious casualties.

>> 1st Marine Division General William Rupertus and 1st Marine Regimental Commander Colonel Chesty Puller continued to controversially feed their troops into what had become a marine meat grinder.

1,500 1st Marines were already killed and wounded.

As bad as the combat was on the landing beaches, the marines hadn't seen the worst of it yet.

>> Fire!

>> Fire!

>> Ahead of them was the airfield and the ridges and mountains of Peleliu.

Foreboding names such as "the Five Sisters," "Death Valley," and "Bloody Nose Ridge" lay inland.

>> We advanced towards the ridges.

It was rocky, scrubby terrain.

And we had so many casualties, I kept finding myself alone, most of my squad or fire team's casualties killed or wounded.

The Japanese on Peleliu were as fanatic as every place else we fought them, and they would pop out at night, mostly, because, during the day, we could see them.

>> The Japanese were waiting in caves and fortified ridges behind the landing beaches.

>> They used a little napalm to pull them out of their caves, and they were all burned to death.

But other than that, they were absolutely great.

They were good soldiers because of the fact that they just fought to the death.

They were nuts.

I'll know that much.

They're crazy.

>> Ferocious fighters, and, you know, good ground to fight on.

>> The marines would have to root the Japanese out of their elaborate system of 500 limestone caves on Peleliu's ridges and cliffs, each its own fortress.

>> When we had to fight the Japanese in caves, you fought them like you'd fight anybody that are in caves, you know, try to blast them out.

>> We'd use explosives, and make sure the cave was sealed up.

They could roll their artillery out on tracks, and fire down on us and then, roll it back, close the door.

and they're sealed up.

And they took a heavy toll on us that first night before we took the ridge, 'cause they were looking right down our throats.

>> The fighting was extremely ferocious on Peleliu.

>> One of the caves on Peleliu could hold over 1,000 Japanese soldiers.

It looks the same today as it did in 1944, the tools of war still scattered everywhere.

In addition to a determined enemy on Peleliu, the men of the 1st Marine Division also had to deal with 115-degree temperatures and a blinding, bright sun that reflected off white coral.

The only water available to the marines was contaminated from being stored in poorly cleaned oil drums prior to the landing.

>> Couldn't drink the stuff.

He said, "I took a taste."

He says, "Like a gasoline taste."

>> No fresh water was one hardship.

Another was the order from above that Frank Pomroy would be part of an attack across Peleliu's huge airfield on September 16th.

1,500 yards away was the finish line -- the Japanese air administration building.

The charge would cover 8/10ths of a mile of open, flat ground, all under the watch of Japanese guns on the ridges.

On September 15th, Pomroy dug in at the edge of the airfield, just in time for a Japanese tank and infantry attack.

>> There were about a dozen tanks running across the airfield, hell-bent for election.

So, we were firing it.

There was one coming right at us.

A tank came right at the machine gun, and crushed it.

And then, it gets stuck down in the gully behind us, and a Jap opened up the cover of the tank, and I guess they were going to try to get out.

This one marine had dashed up on the side, and tossed in a hand grenade.

And so, it killed any occupants that were inside.

We thought it might blow.

I didn't see them, but there were a lot of Jap infantry going to follow, started following them from the other side of the airfield.

And then, they retreated back when the tanks were knocked out.

>> In the huge Japanese airfield complex, the marines were also running up against massive concrete block houses, some a couple of stories high and 4 feet thick.

The Navy shelling had only chipped their exteriors.

Japanese, in these defensive fortresses, were killing a lot of Americans on September 15th, especially from the 1st Marine Regiment.

After the failed Japanese tank attack on September 15th, Frank Pomroy waited for darkness and what lay ahead.

The next morning would be the airfield crossing.

>> First thing in the morning, they told us we had to cross the airfield, and that we wouldn't be able to run, because you wouldn't make it.

You'd be out of gas if you tried to run the whole distance.

So, we ran at sort of a fast walk, or a trot, and you could see all the marines, you know, approaching the other side.

And as we got close, then we all did jump into a -- 'cause a lot of guys were being killed.

The Japanese were firing artillery, and everything else, as we crossed.

We finally got to the other side.

It sort of cleared up.

I think we were fairly close to the Japanese anyway.

I did see a marine carrying a flamethrower, and they used to tell you those things wouldn't burst into flame.

And all of a sudden, this guy went... up in a ball of flame.

Something had hit him.

>> It was just a couple of days into the fight that Oliver Marcelli's time on Peleliu came to an end.

He still isn't sure what hit him.

>> Yeah, there was a lot of blood.

But I had a corpsman there, I guess, if I remember correctly.

And he stopped the blood, and they put me on the ship, and away we went.

They said it was mortar.

I thought I was gonna die, for sure.

I didn't know what the hell it was, first time ever.

>> Private First Class Frank Pomroy was now up in the razor-sharp ridges of Peleliu, having problems of his own.

It hadn't gotten any easier after the airfield assault.

Pomroy was moving up to Bloody Nose Ridge in the rocky Umurbrogol mountain range.

>> So, it was getting dark, and I had picked this spot because it had a big piece of coral that I could hide behind.

It just got daylight, and I could hear some chattering, or talking.

And I woke up.

I was in a little bit of a sleep, I guess.

And I could tell it was Japanese.

I couldn't even see them yet.

And I shot him in the head, and he dropped dead.

>> In the right on the ridge, Pomroy had suffered three bullet wounds in his leg and a bayonet wound in his knee.

He was losing lots of blood.

>> And I took my T-shirt that I had wrapped my legs up.

I had three machine-gun bullets in my right leg, and a bayonet through my left knee.

So, they come over there, and they said, "Do you need any ammunition?"

I said, "No.

I don't have any water or any food."

So, two of them jumped down.

They said, "We've got to get you out of here."

He said, "You're all is gone."

About that time, I went like this, and someone snapped a picture.

And he said, "That's the best picture I've ever taken."

>> This photo of Frank Pomroy became one of the most symbolic and iconic images of the fight on Peleliu.

He wasn't thinking about that while almost bleeding to death.

>> I was on Guadalcanal for 5 months, I was on Peleliu for 6 days, and as far as I'm concerned, 5 months of Guadalcanal was compressed into 6 days on Peleliu.

♪♪♪ >> The fighting on Peleliu had also taken its toll on Bill Finnegan and Lou Imfeld's Company G, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment.

>> We got relieved.

They took us out of action.

And I didn't have anybody left in my fire team, so... >> By day six of the battle, the 1st Marine Regiment had suffered over 1,600 casualties.

>> My recollections of Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Cape Gloucester are still fairly vivid.

>> Begrudgingly, and only because of a direct order, General William Rupertus allowed his decimated 1st Marine Division to be relieved by the United States Army's 81st Division on October 15th.

In roughly 1 month, his marines had suffered over 6,200 casualties, 1,200 of those killed in action.

The 81st Infantry would suffer an additional 3,200 killed and wounded before the Japanese were finally overcome on Peleliu on November 27th.

A battle that was supposed to last a rough 3 to 4 days had instead lasted 73 days.

Almost 10,000 Americans had been killed or wounded.

11,000 Japanese were dead.

General Douglas MacArthur made his triumphant return to the Philippines on October 20th, 1944.

His right flank never needed protection.

Peleliu would one day be labeled a tragic mistake by historians.

Today, Peleliu is considered the most well-preserved battlefield in the world.

Artifacts from the fight are everywhere -- eye-opening examples of the violence that occurred here.

On Peleliu, one steps back in time to September of 1944.

Sherman tanks lie on their side where they were hit.

It's against the law to remove any war relic from this island, even the smallest of spent bullets.

That means the artifacts of war have not been moved or touched since the battle ended in the fall of 1944.

Steve Ballinger knows that, among the helmets, guns and personal items belonging to both Americans and Japanese, there is something else still on Peleliu -- tens of thousands of pieces of live ammunition, both large and small.

Ballinger is director of an international nonprofit organization called Cleared Ground Demining.

Removing live ordnance from Peleliu is his job.

>> In the decade of being here now, we've removed in excess of 66,000 items of ordnance.

And when I say "Items of ordnance," we're counting things from a hand grenade Mk 2, American or anything from a Type 97 Japanese hand grenade right up to 2,000-pound aircraft bombs, as well.

♪♪♪ >> Japanese researcher Tomomi Takemoto is also searching for something on Peleliu still here from the battle -- her great-uncle.

Kotara Okada, the brother of Tomomi's grandfather, is one of over 2,600 Japanese soldiers still missing in action from the fight on this small island.

He was 24 years old when he was killed.

♪♪♪ >> Can we all just have a moment of silence for her great-uncle that is missing in action, here?

>> When I visit my grandpa's place, he always talk about him.

>> There's some other gun pits around here, and so forth.

So this was a very active battle site, right here, that you're standing in.

>> I also feel something connected to my great-uncle.

That's how I got interested in searching about him.

>> And it's possible that maybe her uncle's remains are right in this very area here because this is where he was stationed, and they uncovered, you know, lots of Japanese relics.

This is a Japanese helmet, Japanese canteen.

>> Every time I come here, I'm always hoping that I find something.

♪♪♪ >> I don't know if you've ever been back here before.

>> When I come here, I feel connection to my great-uncle and my grandfather because he is already passed away.

I always see Japanese things.

I really look for if the items have name on it.

I couldn't find any.

When I go walking on the beach that they defended, I feel something like he's looking at me, or he's walking with me.

So, what he saw or he experienced on this island was terrible so... >> And it's all so peaceful and quiet.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Just the birds and the wind today.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> I hope not forgotten by Japanese people.

That's my hope.

I'm not thinking this happened only to him, that all the family are feeling the same way, even though it's from American side.

So, I hope they're not gonna be forgotten, and I hope they could go back to home, as well.

>> Here on Peleliu, the 1st Marine Division Memorial is cared for by another generation of the American military.

It's located not far from the ridges where so many marines and soldiers died.

Just feet away is an expansive Shinto shrine honoring those soldiers from Japan who also fought and were killed here.

Down the road a bit is a Japanese cemetery.

The old American 81st Infantry Division cemetery, now a memorial, is also on Peleliu.

All the monuments on this small coral island recognize thousands on both sides who perished here in 1944.

Most of the world didn't know the name "Peleliu," and today that still holds true.

This largely forgotten battle remains lost to history, except for those who were here and the thousands who never left this place alive.

It is the same story on many remote tropical islands in World War II... especially for those marines who were the first to fight, and oftentimes, the first to die in the Pacific.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ >> I'm Angela Roberts, C.E.O.

of U.S. Money Reserve, a precious-metals distributor.

On behalf of our employees and clients, we are honored to be a sponsor of "First to Fight," a marine story of World War II narrated by actor Jon Seda.

We make hiring U.S. military veterans a priority, and our philanthropic efforts are focused on organizations serving veterans and their families.

From all of us at U.S. Money Reserve, we hope you enjoyed this important film on America at war.

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