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Chirping tropical birds amid a blue sea and sky lend a peaceful ambiance to Peleliu, an island northeast of Anguar and southwest of Koror. Nonetheless, behind this serene landscape lies a frightening and bloody incident of the past: Peleliu is where the Pacific D-Day occurred between the Americans and the Japanese in World War II. Over fifteen thousand soldiers died on its beaches, almost matching Palau's entire population today, leaving behind ghostly battlefields, memorials and shipwrecks that sharply contrast with Peleliu's calm and serene countryside now.
A government boat brings tourists twice a week to Peleliu, one of Palau's sixteen states. Peleliu is mostly composed of tough volcanic limestone, which made it an ideal defense fortress for the Japanese. The Orange Beach is where the US forces landed, who eventually died on Peleliu. The airstrip is still intact, and shipwrecks can still be viewed by both snorkelers and divers. There are thousands of small and big relics in the state but people cannot keep any for a souvenir because apart from the fines, visitors might involuntarily lay hands on an unexploded bomb.
Many memorials and graves were erected in the state commemorating both US and Japanese soldiers. Atop the tombs are the dead soldiers' rusting helmets, combat boots and pillboxes. Upon hiking the trail to Umurbrogol Mountain, one will come across a two-storied building, the 1920's headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Navy, with its crumbling staircase and rusting concrete walls engraved with marks of gunshots. Japanese children visiting the place hang colorful chains of paper cranes that contrast with the tattered pillars.
Umurbrogol Mountain is a tough hike fit for the adventure-spirited. Its thick jungles are where the fiercest battle in Peleliu took place. Blood stains and burns of American flamethrowers can still be gleaned in a long network of caves and tunnels, where the Japanese hid and left behind boots, bottles and bullets visible even today. Ferns have grown over tanks. Memorial plaques are scattered everywhere, especially in areas where Japanese officers committed their ritual suicide. Along with several memorials, snipers' huge guns still look out over the island and its crystal waves.
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