Maj. Asia Pastor, logistics plans officer for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, takes a question about a new U.S. military site from a Peleliu resident in Koror, Republic of Palau, May 15, 2024. (Shaina O’Neal/U.S. Navy)
The Pentagon is proposing a new U.S. military site on a Micronesian island where a bloody battle raged during World War II.
Department of Defense representatives met Republic of Palau leaders and residents May 13-15 to discuss the proposed facility on the island of Peleliu, according to a May 17 statement from Joint Region Marianas.
Engineers from the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps shared details of the proposal with the Palauans, including plans to repair and expand the Peleliu Airstrip and South Dock, the statement said.
Efforts by Beijing to gain influence in the region, including a pact with the Solomon Islands that’s seen as a precursor to forward basing by the Chinese navy, has the attention of U.S. officials.
President Joe Biden signed legislation March 9 that provides $7.1 billion over two decades and renews compacts with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau.
The compacts grant the U.S. military exclusive access to the nations’ land, airspace and waters, while their citizens are allowed to work and attend school in America, enlist in the U.S. armed services and access veterans’ health care.
A Peleliu resident asks a question about a new U.S. military site during a public meeting at the state office in Peleliu, Republic of Palau, May 13, 2024. (Shaina O’Neal/U.S. Navy)
Palau was the scene of fierce battles during World War II. About 1,800 Marines and soldiers were killed in the three-month Battle of Peleliu in fall 1944. Another 8,000 were wounded.
The U.S. Army began training again in Palau in 2019, after a 37-year hiatus. The following year, a Patriot missile battery deployed there and shot down a target drone during an exercise.
In October 2020, then-Palau President Tommy Remengesau Jr. offered to host new military facilities, including ports and air bases.
“Palau’s request to the U.S. military remains simple — build joint-use facilities, then come and use them regularly,” Remengesau wrote to then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, according to a Wall Street Journal report the following month.
The Pentagon in December 2022 awarded a $118 million contract to Gilbane Building Co., a Rhode Island firm, to build reinforced concrete pads and foundations for mobile, over-the-horizon radar in Palau by June 2026.
In December, the hospital ship USNS Mercy visited there on a humanitarian assistance mission. Palau also received aid parachuted to remote islands that month during Operation Christmas Drop, which involved airlift missions from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.
“We have a strong partnership with the Palauan government and people,” Harry Elliott, counsel for the Indo-Pacific Command senior military official to Palau, said in the Joint Region Marianas statement. “When the Government of Palau sought to improve the infrastructure in Peleliu, we looked together to the designation of this new defense site to strengthen the U.S.’s ability to secure and defend Palau and meet this request.”
The site is meant to promote the quality of life for the people in Palau and to enhance the military’s capabilities throughout the region to include humanitarian assistance, disaster relief efforts, and power projection, he said.
The project is about partnership, Peleliu State Gov. Emais Roberts said in the statement.
“The Republic of Palau and State of Peleliu asked the U.S. government, asked the Department of Defense to help fix the airfield for our benefit, and also for the benefit of the military if they had the use for it,” he said.
