he came onto pavuvu.e had a great open place down there, the wharf, and got about 20,000 people. >> was it a good show? >> oh, of course it was. girl, girls and everything. >> it's now 1944. some of those veterans have been gone since '41. what does that mean for them to have bob hope stop by? >> oh, it meant everything in the world. >> in early september 1944, the men of the 1st marine division were finally leaving their temporary home. >> the general consensus was that anyplace would be an improvement over pavuvu. >> their destination, peleliu, 2,000 miles from tokyo in the palau island chain. it's just six miles long and two miles wide. japan had acquired it from germany after world war i as part of a league of nations mandate. initially even the japanese saw peleliu has nothing but useless swamps, jujs and sharp coral ridges. but that soon changed. >> a crisis in japanese/american relations. american gun boat bombed. >> the japanese sabre rattled at u.s. when they sunk it off the coast. fdr quickly th