Sloan - Brotherhood of Heroes: the Marines at Peleliu, 1944 -- The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War

His heart pounding in his throat, Private First Class William J. Leyden raised his head above the side of the amphibious tractor and got his first glimpse of the beach ahead. It was anything but reassuring.

Enemy mortar shells and high-explosive artillery rounds were blasting the shoreline as far as Leyden could see in both directions, sending up huge water spouts in the surf. Further inland, the big guns of Navy ships, firing since dawn from several miles out to sea, raised towering clouds of coral and rock, fire and smoke, as they hammered at Japanese targets still invisible behind walls of flame. Carrier-based Hellcat fighter planes roared low over the beach, their wing guns spitting .50-caliber tracers at enemy pillboxes and gun pits.

All of it was dead ahead and alarmingly close nowonly a couple of minutes away, Leyden figured. He shuddered and tried to steady himself on rubbery knees, feeling as if the jaws of hell were opening to swallow the amphibious tractor and everyone in it.

Leyden was in the first wave of Marines about to storm ashore on an obscure speck of an island called Peleliu 600 miles west of Mindanao in the Philippines. Until a few days ago, he and his comrades had never heard of the place, but the brass said it had to be taken to protect the flank of Army General Douglas MacArthurs forces when MacArthur made good on his promise to liberate the Philippines from two and a half years of brutal Japanese occupation.

Leyden was supposed to be the first of a dozen men to exit the right side of the amtrack while another dozen went out the left side. But the skinny rifleman-scout from New York was only eighteen, untested in combat, and jittery as hell. The thought of leaving the protective confines of the tractor and exposing himself to hostile fire for the first time filled him with anticipation and dread. This was the moment hed been training for, and anticipating with a mixture of excitement and forboding, ever since hed joined the Marines on his seventeenth birthday. Still, he couldnt shake the thought that maybe he didnt have what it took to get through the next few minutes.

Would he live up to his ownand his buddieshigh expectations, or would he freeze up? Even worse, would he turn and run?

Leyden squeezed his eyes shut and called on his faith for strength. He pictured his devout Irish Catholic mother saying a novena for him at this very moment.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee

Opening his eyes, Leyden found Corporal Leonard Ahner, his friend and fire team leader, staring at him from inches away. Ahner, a lanky Hoosier from Huntington, Indiana, had been through the landing at New Britain the year before, so he had a good idea of what to expect.

You scared, Bill? Ahner asked. There was no condemnation in the veterans question.

Nah, Im okay, Leyden said, fighting the butterflies in his stomach. He could hardly hear his own voice for the explosive roar around him.

Well, if you aint scared, youre the only guy here who aint, Ahner said with a crooked grin. Ill go out first if you want me to.

Leyden shook his head. No, Im ready. Im okay.

He glanced at the faces of his squad mates lined up behind him, a grim-visaged cross section of young America: PFC Marion Vermeer from Washington state, PFC Roy Baumann from Upper Wisconsin, PFC Ray Rottinghaus from Iowa, Corporal Ted Barrow from Texas. Leyden couldnt imagine a greater disgrace than letting these guys down. Hed rather die than let somebody else do his job for him. Yet he knew that Ahner was rightthat every man around him was gripped by the same conflicting feelings. Each was lost in his own thoughts, imagining the best and worst of himself and what the Japanese would throw at them. Each knew what was expected of him. Each wanted to do his job, but nobody wanted to die doing it.

Just relax, a voice in his head whispered. Hell, this probably isnt even the most dangerous thing youve ever done.

Actually, that was true. The craziest, riskiest, most foolhardy thing hed ever done was when he was twelve years old, and he and his best friend, Donald Muoz, had decided to take a ride across Brooklyn on top of a subway car. Theyd been okay in the first three tunnels, where the clearance between the roof of the coach and the tunnel was about a foot and a half. But in the fourth tunnel, theyd come to a place where the clearance was much lessno more than eight or nine inches. Donald had been killed instantly, and Leyden himself had spent weeks in the hospital with a fractured skull.

That was something hed never, ever wanted to think about, and usually hed been able to keep it firmly locked away in the back of his mind. But now, with the panoramic hell of Orange Beach 2 spread out ahead of him, the memory of the horror in the subway tunnel was somehow reassuring. Almost comforting.

If I could live through that, he thought, I can live through anything.

A few dozen yards behind Leyden, the amtrack carrying Corporal R. V. Burgins mortar squad was coming under increasingly heavy fire. But the nervous tension that had kept Burgin awake much of the night was gone now, replaced by a feeling of calm fatalism. His worries about the trip to shore had eased the moment hed noticed the sign with the big 13 posted on the side of his amtrack.

Lots of people might have interpreted the number as a bad omen, but it was a kind of good-luck charm as far as Burgin was concerned. The wiry young Texan had celebrated his twentieth birthday just over a month ago on August 13. His father had been born on May 13, and two of his brothers had birthdays on November 13. He considered the number lucky enough that hed even chosen to join the Marines on November 13, and so far, everything had worked out pretty well. Hed seen men die all around him on New Britain, but up to now hed come through without a scratch. He took his favorite number on the amtrack as a sign that his good luck was still holding.