Crossing the Coral, Peleliu

The 1st Marine Division landed on Peleliu on September 15, 1944. The division commander had predicted a rough fight of two or three days. On the second morning the 5th Marines were sent straight across the Japanese airfield — several hundred yards of open, blinding-white coral — into fire from the Umurbrogol ridges on the far side.

There was no cover. Men ran, went flat, got up and ran again through mortar and artillery bursts while the temperature on the coral climbed past 110 degrees. Wrecked Japanese aircraft and a gutted hangar were the only landmarks. The airfield was taken that day. The ridges beyond it took until late November.

The 1st Marine Division suffered some 6,500 casualties on Peleliu. The island's value to the wider campaign was questioned before the fighting had even ended.

Most of the picture is white — thick, chalky paint that reads as heat as much as ground. Small figures in olive drab sprint across it, some upright, some flat, all tiny against the expanse, and shell bursts stand up around them like columns. The ridges behind are stripped bare, and a wrecked Japanese fighter and a skeletal hangar mark the far edge. The sky is the hardest blue in the collection. There is no shade anywhere in the picture, which is the whole point.