By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
In September, 1944, a young US Marine landed on the island of Peleliu, where he would take part in one of the bloodiest battles of the war in the Pacific. He couldn’t have dreamed that 80 years later, Marines would land there again – this time, on a airstrip named in his honor.
Earlier this month, a KC-130J transport touched down on the Peleliu runway, marking a successful end to the Marines’ renovation of the World War II Japanese airfield. The runway has been named for the late Eugene Sledge, a PFC with the 1st Marines Division who fought on the island.
Sledge ended up writing a memoir, “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa,” a stark account of the fighting in both battles. Later, Sledge would be one of the central characters in Hugh Ambrose’s book, “The Pacific,” which was turned into a 10-part series on HBO.
The Marines say the Peleliu airstrip is mission critical to enhancing US military strategic capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region at a time when China has become more aggressive.
Peleliu is part of the island nation of Palau, located in the Philippine Sea. The country has about 17,000 residents. In 1994, the two countries signed a Compact of Free Association (COFA) under which the US is obligated to the defend Palau, while its citizens are allowed to serve in the US armed forces.
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That agreement expired last fall. In March, a new COFA was signed with Palau, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. It calls for only the US to have a military presence, while the three nations will get $7.1 billion in financial assistance.
US officials were said to have been stunned in 2022, when China signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, site of the bloody Guadalcanal battle in World War II.
Meanwhile, Beijing was pressuring Palau to break off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Only eleven nations have formal ties with the Taiwanese government. According to Stars and Stripes, Palau’s president wrote to an unnamed US senator, saying that China promised to fill every hotel room in the country and lease two acres in Palau for $20 million a year for a call center.
A map shows why the superpowers think the tiny island nation is valuable. It’s only about 500 miles southeast of the Philippines, and, as the site Army Technology put it, is “commanding the approaches to Indonesia…and Papua New Guinea, and flanking a number of other islands and archipelagoes.”
The US is taking advantage of its close ties with Palau. It has started work on an over-the-horizon radar system there that should be ready in 2026. Patriot air-defense missiles were test-fired during a temporary deployment.
And earlier this month, a US Army unit and soldiers from the Tennessee National Guard deployed to Palau during the Valiant Shield exercise launched the new Precision Strike Missile and engaged a moving target at sea.
