The Marines move to capture the Peleliu Airfield while outnumbered, underequipped, suffering in intense heat with little water.
Tropes:
- A Father to His Men: The young privates are traumatized from their charge across the airfield, with Private Daniels reduced to counting imaginary Japanese soldiers, but Captain Ack-Ack is nothing but gentle with them. He guides Daniels away to rest and, when Sledge confesses how terrified he was during the battle, Ack-Ack says that he's scared, too, reassuring the young soldier that it's perfectly normal to be afraid and that he believes their cause to be just.
- Hypocritical Humor: Despite being a rather small person himself, Snafu brands Bill Leyton with the Embarrassing Nickname "Ball-peen hammer"—a little hammer for a little man.
- I Did What I Had to Do: One Marine starts having a loud nightmare/breakdown while they need to keep quiet to conceal their position. After trying to silence him in every way, someone hits him with a weapon and apparently kills him. They rationalize it as this; if he'd given them away, all of them would have died.
- Put on a Bus: Leckie gets taken out of commission again, this time by shrapnel in his face. He gets evacuated to a hospital ship for the remainder of the episode.
- The Nicknamer: Snafu gives Sledge the nickname "Sledgehammer."
- Pretext for War: Discussed trope. Some of the soldiers say the belief that their cause is just is what keeps them going.
- Thirsty Desert: The island has been reduced to slag and dirt by repeated bombardments. When the Japanese poison the water sources and the navy can't get in to resupply, this trope starts happening.
- War Is Hell: Most of the episode is men running through exploding battlefields while artillery rains down. There's very little fun and a lot of slogging through the danger.
- Water Source Tampering: The Japanese have contaminated the islands' water sources to weaken the Marines. They discover a spring, only to discover a goat's corpse floating in it.
