Left of bang: Marine EOD unit trains on WWII ordnance in Pacific

For two months in 1944, Marines from the 1st Marine Division alongside soldiers from the Army’s 81st Infantry Division fought a bloody battle for the small coral island of Peleliu, Palau.

Roughly 27,000 American troops dropped large amounts of explosives attempting to defeat the nearly 11,000 Japanese soldiers who turned the 5.4 square mile island into a fortress.

In late July a team of the newly created littoral explosive ordnance neutralization Marines came to the island with the goal of using their new skills to remove the explosives leftover under water and on shore.

The team, consisting of eight enlisted Marines and one officer, were created Sept. 2019 as the 1st Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company, 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group based on Camp Pendleton, California, 1st Lt. Brian Tuthill, a Marine Corps spokesman told Marine Corps Times in an early August email.