thedrifter
09-26-03, 06:38 AM
Submitted by: 13th MEU <br />
Story Identification Number: 200392542918 <br />
Story by Sgt. Mark P. Ledesma <br />
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ABOARD USS PELELIU(Sept. 15, 2003) -- As the sun beamed down on a seemingly ordinary day on the...
thedrifter
09-26-03, 09:29 AM
Keeping Peleliu alive in memory
September 26,2003
Richard Kraus smiles in his official photo, peering from under the visor of a hat that seems slightly too large.
Maybe it's not the hat, after all. Maybe it's Kraus' obvious youth that makes the hat seem incongruous perched on the brow of a boy who should be bent over the engine of his car under the shade of an old oak; or perhaps uptown having a hamburger with buddies at the local teen hangout; or holding hands with his girl in the cool darkness of a Saturday matinee.
But Kraus did none of these things from the moment he donned that hat until he died a few short months later. He spent his career as a U.S. Marine fighting in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, on an island now almost forgotten by history - a sacrifice to a war that engaged the globe.
Kraus died on Peleliu, a microscopic coral atoll in the Palau Islands, exactly one week after the American flag was raised over the 1st Marine Division's command post.
Although Peleliu was considered secured on Sept. 27, 1944, pockets of Japanese resistance remained. These enemy soldiers were so strongly embedded, it would take three additional years before they were all routed.
Peleliu, a link in the chain of Allied victories in the Pacific, was also home to one of the most costly campaigns of the war. Originally targeted as a key piece of real estate in the push to retake the Philippines, the invasion of Peleliu commenced on Sept. 15, 1944. By the time the battle for the atoll ground to a halt, 12,000 Allied troops would lay dead, including Richard Kraus.
He was killed on Oct. 3, 1944, at the age of 18. A driver with the 8th Amphibious Tractor Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, Kraus tasted his first - and last - enemy action on Peleliu. He died after throwing himself on a hand grenade tossed by a Japanese soldier. By perishing, he saved three other lives.
A few days before Kraus' death, another young Marine named John New also met his end on Peleliu.
New, from Mobile, Ala., was a hardened combat veteran at the time of his demise. He'd served on Guadalcanal with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, and had been posted to Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
But on Sept. 25, 1944, New fought on Peleliu, just a stone's throw away from a boy named Kraus. And, when an enemy grenade rolled toward him and two of his fellow Marines, New, like Kraus, covered it with his own body - and died for his actions.
Kraus was still an untested youth when he died, but New was no stranger to the bloody and uncertain winds of war. But a photo of New with his "cover" hitched insolently back on his head, reveals little more than a boy fighting an adult war. New, who died 59 years ago this week, turned 20 six short weeks before his death. Both Kraus and New won the Congressional Medal of Honor for their heroics.
Many who fell in fighting for control of that tiny atoll are still buried on that island half a world away. And, like Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, the fighting on Peleliu sent thousands of good men to their deaths. They should be forever remembered for their sacrifice.
Memories of Peleliu shouldn't be allowed to slip quietly away, existing only in dusty, seldom-read history books and the recollections of aging Marines.
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=Details.cfm&StoryID=16383&Section=Opinion
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: