Bloody Nose Ridge, Peleliu
According to Shake Davis when he recommended this spot as an ideal over-watch position, Wattie Ridge was named after the man who commanded a platoon of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines that wrestled it away from Japanese defenders in a very bloody fight back in 1944. Mike Stokey lay huddled in a coral crevice on the nose of that ridge waiting for his sat-phone to synch up with a bird and wondering if he would have survived the brutal contest for this little stretch of coral high ground just 150 meters above Peleliu’s sandy western beaches. Wattie Ridge was just one of several spiky, cave-encrusted fingers of high ground that composed the long, jagged stretch of the Umurbrogol Massif known collectively as Bloody Nose Ridge. It was also the perfect place to s
