'Long Tom' guns aided in victory

By Dan MacArthur
Correspondent

Ken Ashley was in the thick of the battle for Peleliu--one of the some 200 islands in the Palau group, a 45-mile long archipelago at the southern tip of the Philippines in the Central Pacific.

He served as a forward observer directing the fire of a battalion of 155-mm "Long Tom" guns. "The fighting was fierce and for days only the smallest of the beachheads was in our control," he wrote in a remembrance. "Additional discomfort stemmed from the derisive comments directed at us by the infantry that could see no earthly use on Peleliu for guns that were made for ranges of 20 miles.

"But all that changed when our commanding officer conceived the idea of using one of our guns for direct fire at a cave-riddled ridge in the way of the Marines' advance. An officer and three gunners were killed and several others were wounded as we struggled to emplace and sandbag the gun. The range was about 200 yards and we bore-sighted the gun.

"We spent most of one day systematically firing into one cave opening after another. Sometimes a round exploding inside one opening would cause smoke to issue from other openings. Obviously the caves were interconnected. Several times secondary explosions occurred as we hit ammunition supplies. One danger was fragments from our shells flying back at us, so close were our targets," Ashley wrote.

"At one point we had a VIP--Maj. Gen. Roy Geiger, Commander of the III Corps. He had heard of this novel employment of a gun for the purpose that the designer hadn't intended and came forward to see for himself. He insisted that he fire a couple rounds and would have stayed longer except that his aides insisted that he not continue to expose himself unnecessarily.

"Once the ridge had been neutralized, Marines were able to resume their advance. Those who passed us had a few kind words which we appreciated. Col. Lew Walt from Colorado State was in command of the 5th Marines, and I know some of his Marines benefited from that lone 'Long Tom.'"

Despite the controversy about the need for the bloody battle, Ashley noted that bombers did use the airfield captured on Peleliu, and "we were told our victory had been an important one."

Today the independent island nation of Palau bills itself as "the world's most beautiful tropical paradise." As "the only person in the world who had been in the National Park Service and a Marine that took part in the assault," Ashley was invited to return in 1988 to study the potential of Peleliu becoming part of the War in the Pacific Memorial Park system - a prospect he considered remote given the political situation in Palau.

"For me it was an emotional return," Ashley wrote. "I'm glad I had the experience but I never want to go back."

Detailed accounts about the battle for Peleliu are available from a comprehensive web site at www.peleliu.net. Some information from that site was used in compiling these accounts.