Every year, I see the same thing re Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[zappaman]

145. Peleliu need never happened.

We had a local historian take us there when visiting Palau.
What's remarkable is they have left everything there...90mm caliber machine gun turrets, chinaware, tank treads, you name it.
It's a holy place and the stories he told us were horrific.
The head guys knew it was unnecessary 2 weeks before and could have called it off, but didn't.
To add to the misery, the tide was calculated based on a neighboring island. So, when the marines landed, it was actually low tide and they had to storm the beach from 100 yds out.
Unfortunately, the Japanese had their machine guns mounted on either side and just mowed down dozens of marines.

There is a small museum there and one of the exhibits is a photograph album from a marine containing heinous shots of dead bodies. It seemed gruesome and pointless until the last page where he had written (and I'm paraphrasing) "TO MY BROTHERS IN THE CORP AND TO THE BRAVE JAPANESE WHO FOUGHT WITH COURAGE-NONE OF THIS WAS NECESSARY AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED."

Powerful stuff