The landing beaches were enfiladed with hardened machine gun positions and grazing fire on either flank, booby trapped with land mines and improvised explosives, and all the while the Marines remained under accurate fire from mortars and artillery buried and unobservable in the hills beyond.  All of this remained true even after several days of naval bombardment and the US Navy’s assurances that there were no longer any targets available to their gunners on Peleliu.