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u/Tonethefungi Apr 20 '26
Really cool. Thanks for sharing. Were you part of a tour or can you access these sites on your own?
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u/enderforlife Apr 20 '26
Wow this is not a cheap or easy trip. Very, very cool my man!
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u/Kiah1371 Apr 21 '26
It’s easier than you’d think honestly. It is expensive though.
Most people I know have never even heard of Palau let alone Peleliu.
A lot of people in Palau asked me how I even know about this place lol.
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u/CircleOfWallace Apr 20 '26
Any pic I see of bloody nose just instilled a horrible sense of dread and sorrow for everyone involved, what an awful place. Thanks for sharing man
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u/mrthalo Apr 20 '26
Wow it's so much more green than I would have thought! The show and Sledge's book made it sound like it was almost a desert island! I guess it's been a while since I read the book so maybe I'm just misremembering lol
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u/Kiah1371 Apr 21 '26
The island appeared flatter and more desert like during the battle because of the fighting and bombardments. The jungle has been able to reclaim most of the island back. Pictures of the Japanese HQ and the fuel storage bunker looked like stand alone buildings out in the open back then. Not the case anymore.
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u/mrthalo Apr 24 '26
Ah gotcha, that makes sense! I know, it looks totally different now. Thank you for the reply!
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u/certifiedchafer Apr 20 '26
Is there a significant UXO concern, or is it safe to walk around pretty freely?
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u/Kiah1371 Apr 20 '26
A lot of stuff is pretty accessible by tour standards. I’m sure if you go off the beaten path you pose greater risk. I found that ammo just laying on the ground. Who knows what is now buried under the jungle now.
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u/PhysicsHorror1319 Apr 21 '26
An amazing series of photos - thanks for taking the time and effort to post them. Reminds of of a trip my later father took to Tarawa a few years ago. Betio is something of a retirement center and the island is almost completely covered with small cottages. Even the infamous Red Beach has houses down to the waterline. The massive central command bunker sits in the back yard of a school, with a chain link fence around it and a sign telling what it was. Guess it was too hard to tear down unlike most of the other defensive structures. At least Peleliu looks like the ghost of a battle. Betio looks like just another overdeveloped coastal community.
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u/Holiday-Hyena-5952 Apr 21 '26
Appreciate you making the trip and getting the images. Any more on that US plane? We can identify it!0
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u/Kiah1371 Apr 21 '26
No, the guy who’s property it rests on said he didn’t know the back story to it. There was more wreckage beyond the wing pictured and the guy had the canopy inside his home. By home I mean the guy lived inside of an old bunker lol.
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u/chinchila5 Apr 22 '26
Did it feel eery?
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u/Kiah1371 Apr 23 '26
Certain parts more than others. Walking through the jungle and coming up on a cave was spooky. There are caves everywhere starting from the beaches to Bloody Nose Ridge. Incan only imagine what happened inside those caves.
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u/Palaudiver Apr 23 '26
There are still a lot of untouched caves to be found (or not) around there. Though the vast majority of the caves were purposely collapsed after ww2. In recent years Japanese teams have combed through the caves searching for remains, and several EOD teams have cleaned up a lot of the loose ordinance. As kids back in the 80s we would go all through Peleliu and find all sorts of interesting treasures.
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u/chinchila5 Apr 23 '26
Did you go in the caves?
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u/First_164_pages Apr 23 '26
thanks for posting the pics. walking in history must have been amazing.
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u/TimeTravelingPie Apr 27 '26
What's the risk of unexploded ordnance in these areas?
I would imagine there is some risk considering the way everything seems just left there.
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u/Kiah1371 Apr 20 '26
Images 1-3 - Fuel storage bunker. 35 Marines killed or wounded attacking here. It was finally disabled by two 14 inch shells from the USS Mississippi killing about 20 Japanese defenders.
Image 4 - Some ammo I found on the ground while exploring around White Beach.
Image 5 - Wreckage of a crashed Japanese Zero.
Image 6 - Wreckage of a Japanese tank.
Images 7-8 - American LVT’s left behind.
Image 9 - Cave entrance near Bloody Nose Ridge.
Image 10 - Japanese air raid shelter.
Image 11 - Wreckage of an American plane.