ABSTRACT
The island of Peleliu in the Republic of Palau, Micronesia is host to what is arguably the best-preserved island battlefield from World War II’s Pacific Theater of Operations. Beneath a densely regenerated jungle canopy is a rich material legacy of war forged in the heat of intense close-quarters fighting across the island’s compact coral terrain in 1944. This chapter reveals some of the incredible untold human stories of this fierce battle found encoded in the island landscape and the material remains scattered across its surface. Presented here are some of the results from archaeological survey and analysis work undertaken using a reflexive, multi-source, community-based research approach which provided the keys to unlocking these incredible narratives. This chapter offers a sense of the atmosphere, pace and intensity of events that created such a poignant archaeological record whilst bringing the reader closer to individuals on both sides of the conflict, their ordeals and their experiences as they fought and died over a small Pacific Island far from home.
