Pelelieu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima

Pelelieu is a little known battle that took place on a remote island in the South Pacific.  This was a very small island but it was a vital stepping stone to Japan.  

Okinawa was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific campaign.  Over 800 Marines died there.  One of the most famous battles on Okinawa was the fight to take Shuri Castle.  

Iwo Jima on the other hand is one of the most famous battles of all time.  This was the last stepping stone to Japan.  It was vital because of the air field on the island.  This air field would help damaged bombers to land and make repairs.  

Final And Desperate Acts

If a Japanese was wounded and about to be captured, he would wait until the Marine infantrymen and corpsman (medic) were on top of him, then pull the pin on a grenade shouting "Banzai"  and take the Marines and corpsman with him in a flash, bang and storm of shrapnel.  That shrapnel (sharp pieces of debris) was not always entirely grenade fragments.  If the Japanese were holed up in a cave or bunker (small fortress usually made of concrete and metal), they would rush out with fixed bayonets and kill as many U.S. soldiers as they could.  Even in the face of a horrible and excruciatingly painful death, they refused to surrender.  Most of the time the Marines had to flush them out with satchel charges (large bundles of high explosives), flame throwers, grenades and sometimes even going in with only their rifles, knives and pistols.  

The most unexpected method of flushing the Japanese out was with dogs.  If Marines encountered heavy resistance from a tunnel complex, the Americans would just send in the dogs (usually Pit bulls or German Shepherds).  Although one of the most effective weapons for cave and tunnel warfare, the flame thrower was not a very promising job.  The life expectancy for a flame thrower man was 5 minutes in combat.  

The Japanese infantry weren't the only ones to use suicide tactics.  The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force were using Kamikaze tactics.  Meaning "divine wind", the Kamikaze pilots were intent on crashing head on into U.S. ships.  This was almost impossible to prevent.  One had to either shoot it down far enough away from the ship that it didn't impact, or you had to hit the plane so many times that the plane would disintegrate.  The Nazis were trying something like this, except without the suicidal tendencies.  The German pilot would fly into a formation of bombers and aim for one of the planes.  Just before impact, the pilot would eject and hope not to be killed.    

Mental Warfare 

Although physical pain was the most feared result of war, the psychological effect was just as bad.  On some occasions some battered, bloody Marine had enough of it all and just broke down.  Good brave men were reduced to sobbing and crying for their mothers.  At night the noise of an "asiatic" Marine, as they called them, was dangerous to the whole platoon because of his wailing.  In one account from Eugene Sledge, a young Marine in his company cracked during the night.  At first they thought that he was having a nightmare but as they tried to silence him he started screaming and crying.  A corpsman gave him two injections of morphine with no result.  They tried punching him to knock him out, but to no avail. Finally they had to resort to cracking his skull open with an entrenching tool to silence him.  

On another occasion, some Japanese attacked the camp at night and tried to kill some Marines.  Lucky enough a Marine in the foxhole that the "Jap" jumped into was alert and was able to kill the enemy.  But sadly the man totally forgot the most important rule at night: Do not, under any circumstances, get out of your foxhole without telling other nearby Marines.  As he was running to the CP (command post) one of his buddies stood up and fired his .45 pistol point blank into the man's chest, thinking he was a Japanese soldier.  The man who had shot the American, completely broke down next day.