The paradise island haunted by one of the bloodiest battles of World War II

By Lilit Marcus, CNN

Peleliu, Palau (CNN) — The island is lush, myriad shades of green made deeper by the effects of the morning’s rainfall. Just offshore, snorkelers float over beds of unbleached corals. Walking off the small wooden boat dock, visitors pass clumps of ficus trees and ankle-deep ferns, while cairns of gray stones mark hiking trails.

And then, in the middle of an empty field, stands an amphibious Japanese military tank with garlands of green plants sprouting between its rusted wheels.

The juxtaposition is jarring. But that’s why tourists have come from as far away as the United States, Canada, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan today — for an up-close look at the tropical island where one of the bloodiest and least remembered battles of World War II’s Pacific theater took place.

When American troops arrived on the remote Pacific island of Peleliu in September 1944, their job was simple: to attack the island and destroy the Japanese air base there. After a few days’ bombardment, soldiers set foot on the island to find it empty, all enemies seemingly vanquished.

Unknown to the Americans, and unspotted by their air reconnaissance, Peleliu is full of deep underground cave networks. The Japanese had fortified many of these caves and stocked them with food, water and ammunition, so when the shelling began, they went underground.

The Battle of Peleliu, which was supposed to be a few days’ work, dragged on for months. It became one of the grimmest battles of the entire Pacific theater, and now most historians agree that none of it was necessary. Yet its story remains largely unknown to Americans, who are more likely to have learned about Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal in school.

“It was just a horror show,” says Joe Whelan, author of the book “Bitter Peleliu.”

“It was actually a battle that needn’t have been fought at all — and probably shouldn’t have. In fact, Admiral Halsey recommended that they just skip it. But the invasion fleet was already on its way, and he was overruled by Admiral Nimitz, who was in charge of the whole Pacific.” William Halsey Jr. was the five-star admiral who commanded naval troops in the region.

In all, about 14,000 Japanese and 10,000 Americans lost their lives during the siege of Peleliu. Not all were killed by bombs and guns, either. Temperatures can regularly soar past 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so men died of heatstroke and dehydration. Others became sick from drinking contaminated water. Eventually, the top Japanese commanders died by seppuku, a ritual method of suicide. By then, says Whelan, the war was essentially over and the Japanese, realizing they were losing, had switched to a strategy of attrition.

“They wanted the Americans to attack them, and they could kill more Americans. And they thought if they did that, they could persuade America to negotiate.”

Most historians mark the end date of the Battle of Peleliu as November 24, 1944, the day when the lead Japanese commander, Colonel Kunio Nakagawa, died. These days, tour guides escort travelers in and past some of these caves, where Shinto stones engraved with Japanese writing memorialize the places where soldiers died. Some visitors leave Japanese flags or pressed sakura flowers on these graves, whose stones quickly become overgrown with moss due to the island’s humid climate.

Peleliu is a Micronesian island located about 500 miles east of the Philippines. These days, it’s part of the small cluster of islands that comprise the country of Palau. Palau has been controlled by Japan, Spain, Germany and the United States during its history, but became an independent nation in 1994. Its flag — bright blue with a yellow orb just slightly off center — is nicknamed “happy Japan” by vexillologists, or flag enthusiasts, who think it looks like a brighter inverse of Japan’s red-and-white version.

Only a few thousand tourists per year visit Palau. The country’s airport has just three gates, enough for a few flights a week from cities such as Taipei and Manila. It’s also a stop on the famous Island Hopper, a United Airlines flight that originates in Hawaii and stops at several Pacific islands, including Guam. For some travelers, the flight itself is the attraction, and they simply pass through each destination without stopping to go sightseeing.

Although it’s a country in free association with the United States — meaning it uses US currency and has protection from the American military — Palau remains a relatively unknown destination among American tourists.

Before the war, it was a Japanese protectorate, with laborers coming from Okinawa to mine phosphate. Even today, it’s common to see Japanese surnames dotting Palauan mailboxes.

Beyond the physical ruins of the Japanese base on Peleliu, there are other remnants of the war throughout the island. Many of the place names given by the American troops, including White Beach and Bloody Nose Ridge, are still in use. The remains of the base are open to the elements, while the former hangar is off-limits to tourists, its ceiling partially collapsed.

The US military, which maintains a small presence in Palau, tends to an American military cemetery on Peleliu. Just a short drive from the ruins of the base and airfield, the cemetery has bushes of flowers planted to spell “USA” when seen from the sky.

Palauans out for a walk will still sometimes find relics of the war. The unofficial local rule is to leave any object they find on top of or next to one of the plaques that mark where major war moments happened, knowing that historians and curators from the national museum periodically come around to pick up these items.

On the day I visited the island in January, a US military helmet was hung jauntily off the corner of a wayfinder sign about the Japanese military presence on Peleliu. Pockmarked with holes and partly covered in mold, the helmet added to the eerie atmosphere that pervades the island.

Arguably the biggest change the war brought was to the land itself — largely the work of US military engineers.

“They leveled the land with bulldozers and other equipment, which caused the white subsoil to become visible and the topography to change,” explains Shingo Iitaka, a history professor at the University of Kochi in Japan.

“There is an expression that when the people of Peleliu returned to the island after the war ended, they did not even know where they were.”

Iitaka says that between the many American and Japanese recollections of the Battle of Peleliu, one important perspective is often omitted — that of the Palauan people themselves.

“I think people living in a land that became a battlefield are often forgotten since they were not the parties to the war, but I believe the memory of the war held by the people who are the original owners of that land is something that should be particularly kept in mind.”

“It is almost like living with the dead, or with the traces of the dead.”

These days, there are still groups of Japanese tourists who come to Peleliu to pay respect to their countrymen, or to try to repatriate the dead soldiers’ bones back to Japan. But a surprising new tourist market has emerged — gamers. Peleliu is a key location in “Call of Duty: World at War,” a Pacific-themed edition of the popular game that was released in 2008.

However, present-day Peleliu is not the best place to see traditional Palauan life. Before war and colonization, most Palauan people lived in small villages run by clan elders. Each village would have a bai, or men’s house, an A-frame style structure made of wood painted with images depicting traditional stories and raised off the ground with stilts. These elders would go into the bai to make decisions for the community. Most of these were destroyed, and these days only a handful remain scattered across the country.

To get a broader picture of Palau’s history beyond the World War II years, it’s worth heading to the Belau Museum in the main city of Koror. There, a colorfully painted bai is on display and small, well-maintained exhibits are organized chronologically.

At the dock, pulling away from Peleliu, a brightly painted sign comes into view. “Welcome to Peleliu,” it reads in English and Japanese. “Please come again.”

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CNN’s Ayuka Nitta contributed reporting.