Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

Marines who had fought on multiple Pacific island battlefields agreed that Peleliu was the worst. The pitiless equatorial sun beat down on a lifeless moonscape of ivory-colored coral rock, and temperatures routinely surpassed 110 degrees. After three days on the line, the men looked like wraiths: lips blistered, hair matted, coral dust caked on unshaven faces. Sweat ran into their eyes, which already ached from the glare of the sun. The acrid smell and biting taste of cordite stung their noses and throats. Their hands were raw and abraded from crawling on the rocks. No one could escape the all-pervading stench of putrefying bodies, rotting rations, and their own excrement. Clouds of large greenish-blue flies fed off the unburied dead and tormented the living. Sudden torrential rainstorms came in the late afternoon, and sometimes at night. There was no escape from the relentless artillery and mortar barrages.