I received the following in an e-mail from MSgt Owens:

"From morning to dusk A 1/7 moved toward the enemy in the hills. We took constant sniper fire. After dark, the enemy came out of the ground, firing mortars and throwing grenades. Each day, we scouted and searched for Japanese in foxholes, caves and tunnels. We burned and blasted them out with flame throwers, and grenades and other explosives and tried to seal the openings.

Our ranks thinned daily. There was no respite in the action. Each Japanese killed as many Americans before he was killed. Early every morning, company headquarters sent a runner to each platoon for the casualty count. One day a kid who came to the numbers from Sergeant Moll stopped to bum a cigarette. A tree knocked down by shelling lay horizontally, about three feet off the ground, between them. Moll tossed the kid his pack of smokes and reached over the tree to give him a light. Just as the runner took his first drag, a sniper's bullet whizzed by Moll's head and hit the runner in his right front temple. He dead before he hit the ground, the cigarette between his fingers.

Moll and six men were all that was left of our platoon at the end of the battle in the northern hills. Most had been wounded; all had ringworm and dysentery; and five had malaria. On October 6, after 21 days of continuous combat, A 1/7 was pulled out of the lines. But their part in the battle for Peleliu was not over."

I received the following information from MSgt Owens about the above picture:

The picture of A/1/7 on purple beach at Peleliu has 4 Marines in front with no helmets on[…]from left to right - unknown, Capt. Preston Parish our CO, 1stLt   Robert Romo, and 1stSgt Jim Owen. Col Parish attends our reunions and he told us 20 Marines from another Company was placed with A/1/7   to fill the Company for the picture. 1stLt.Robert Romo was our CO when we landed at Okinawa and was KIA on 13th May 1945. A 1stLt. Edward Vagoun was our XO at the time.He took command of the Company and went forward with 3 runners and tried to find G/2/7 so we could relieve them. Not one of the 4 men reached G's lines. Lt Vagoun's body was never found.

I received the following in an e-mail message from Mary Ann Sheridan of Wes Palm Beach, Fla. Her father served with A 1/7 on Peleliu:

I was extremely close to my dear dad. He was my Rock of Gibralter, and often spoke of his time on Peleliu, and how they used to make 'jungle juice' from aqua velva and God only knows what else. 

He was awarded two Purple Hearts for being wounded twice in just about two weeks time in Sept. 1944... on [Peleliu], both... from sharpnel and one near fatal but he came back from it (he was truly a mans man as all of them from that War must have been). When he passed away, Feb. 2004 from...multiple myeloma he had a military funeral [with] three Marine officers, [and] the flag folded and presented to my mom (who was married just shy of 50 years to him, although he was still a single young man during the war). His name was PFC William "Billy" J. Sheridan. He is the one squatting in... the   bottom right corner front...with the "Elvis" hair....One thing he kept till his passing, was his full healthy head of hair. He was and will forever remain a proud man from the "Old Breed" of which he often was found in his last years reading and thumbing through his old[divisional history book.]