Item Summary and Analysis

Chapter Item, I Will Lay Me Down for to Bleed a While..., discusses the Palau Islands and the combat on Peleliu, a small island measuring about seven miles by two miles. The chapter name is continued with the next chapter's name and both are taken from a verse by John Dryden. As the Marine Corps and Army thrusting toward Okinawa began to converge, they passed in the vicinity of Peleliu. An invasion of the island was planned, but before it was executed it became strategically unnecessary; nevertheless, it was already being executed and was therefore allowed to go forward. The invasion was expected to be an easy victory—it was not. The island is dominated by a massive rocky ridge known locally as Umurbrogol and known to the US Marine Corps as Bloody Nose Ridge.

The Japanese defenders had been...