Quote Originally Posted by Sherwin View Post
My father-in-law fought on Peleliu in WWII. He was in the First Marine Division under Nimitz. He told the story that General Douglas McArthur wanted the marines to help in Iwo Jima but that Nimitz said he couldn't spare them because he needed them to take Peleliu.

Peleliu was a fortified rock of an island that the Japs had owned for many years. It was of small use to the Allies because of it's loction, but Nimitz sent the marines into hell just to keep them from McArthur. The casualties were terrible and pilots reported that you could smell the corpses while you were flying in. The marines fought for a month with no hot food and no chance to clean up. The temperature was around 115°F (46°C), and the Marines soon suffered high casualties from heat exhaustion

That is leadership? (If this is wrong, I hope someone will set me straight.)
It would have been the Philippines and not Iwo Jima...and MacArthur had been wanting to hold onto the First Marine Division ever since their New Britain campaign (which was also poorly supported, but on MacArthur's watch).

The defects on Peleliu were not directly attributable to Nimitz. It was the division commander who failed his Marines in that campaign, and did so from the very end of the New Britain operation. Rupertus was the one who resisted committing Army troops to the fight, who kept his men in the line longer than they should have been, and failed to oversee the preparations for the invasion itself (which included going ashore with about half the tanks the First Marine Division normally had...and tanks would have been quite useful in many areas of Peleliu).