Landing in Hell

The Pyrrhic Victory of the First Marine Division on Peleliu, 1944

By: Peter Margaritis

Narrated by: Shawn Compton

On September 15, 1944, the United States invaded the tiny Pacific island of Peleliu, located at the Southern end of the Palau Islands. Boasting a large airfield from which the Americans could mount bomber campaigns, Peleliu was a strategically essential part of Gen. MacArthur's long-awaited liberation of the Philippines. With the famed 1st Marine Division making the amphibious assault, Pacific High Command was confident that victory would be theirs in just a few days.

They were drastically wrong. A mere week after landing, having sustained terrific losses in fierce combat, the 1st Marine Regiment was withdrawn. The entire division would be out of action for six months after sustaining the highest unit losses in Marine Corps history.

This audiobook analyzes the many things that went wrong in the Battle for Peleliu and in doing so corrects several earlier accounts of the campaign. It includes a comprehensive account of the presidential summit that determined the operation, details of how new weapons were deployed, a new enemy strategy, and command failure in what became the most controversial amphibious operation in the Pacific during WWII.

©2018 Peter Margaritis (P)2020 Tantor

Excellent balance

a great balance of the personal stories and the overall command issues. It was an excellent analysis of both, and of the broader issues of the war.

A classic battle for the conquest of the South Pacific during World War II.

Extremely well written and well performed
I strongly recommend this book to any individuals who have an interest in the Pacific war.

Chapters of minute detail (number of shell fired for each weapon type etc…)

The actual story is such a small part then it devolves into chapters of minutia

Not exciting like I had hoped

It's not bad, but nowhere near as exciting as it could've been. This book is much more about the planning and execution of the battle, plus the decisions and interactions between officers. It did not contain much of the soldier's experience on the ground, which made it all feel a bit detached and sort of dull. Not terrible or anything, just not what I'm interested in