After nearly four weeks the Japs still held out on Peleliu's Bloody Nose Ridge, and in a small pocket on nearby Angaur Island. Already on Peleliu 11,083 Japs had been killed, 214 captured; on Angaur 1,150 were dead and eleven were prisoners.
But U.S. casualties kept climbing, too. Since some of its units landed last fortnight on two-by-six-mile Peleliu to aid the hard-pressed marines, the 81st Infantry Division's casualties had approximately doubled, to 251 killed, 1,465 wounded. The 1st Marine Division's three-week total (1,038 killed or missing, 4,650 wounded) was already the heaviest for a single division in the Pacific...
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