With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [0]
“In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge's. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of—not the ‘good war’—but the worst war ever.”
—KEN BURNS, creator of The War
“Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece.”
—The New York Review of Books
“There are some brilliant memoirs of the savage battle for Okinawa, but E. B. Sledge's is by far the most haunting.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“The best World War II memoir of an enlisted man.”
—Navy Times
Awarded number one Best War Story Ever Told
by Men's Journal magazine
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In memory of Capt. Andrew A. Haldane,
beloved company commander of K/⅗,
and to the Old Breed
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
and the lives ye led were mine.
—RUDYARD KIPLING
Rifles were high and holy things to them, and they knew five-inch broadside guns. They talked patronizingly of the war, and were concerned about rations. They were the Leathernecks, the old Timers…They were the old breed of American regular, regarding the service as home and war as an occupation; and they transmitted their temper and character and viewpoint to the high-hearted volunteer mass which filled the ranks of the Marine Brigade.…
—“The Leathernecks” in Fix Bayonets by John W. Thomason, Jr.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Brig. Gen. Walter S. McIlhenny
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Victor Davis Hanson
PART I PELELIU: A NEGLECTED BATTLE
Foreword by Lt. Col. John A. Crown
1. Making of a Marine
2. Preparation for Combat
3. On to Peleliu
4. Assault into Hell
5. Another Amphibious Assault
6. Brave Men Lost
PART II OKINAWA: THE FINAL TRIUMPH
Foreword by Capt. Thomas J. Stanley
7. Rest and Rehabilitation
8. Prelude to Invasion
9. Stay of Execution
10. Into the Abyss
11. Of Shock and Shells
12. Of Mud and Maggots
13. Breakthrough
14. Beyond Shuri
15. End of the Agony
Appendix: A Roll of Honor
Bibliography
FOREWORD
It was my privilege to assume command of the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced) on 10 April 1944 during the final phase of the New Britain campaign. New Britain was its second combat operation.
Although we didn't know it at the time, two more campaigns lay before the battalion, Peleliu and Okinawa. Each of them would be of greater intensity and extract a greater cost than did the first two. And when the division departed New Britain for a “rest camp” on Pavuvu in the Russell Islands, we began comprehensive training for what was to become Operation Stalemate on Peleliu Island in the Palau Islands. That operation was to receive little publicity or recognition, but it was certainly to be one of the bloodiest and hardest fought in the Pacific war.
Among the replacements who joined us during this period was a young Marine known as “Sledgehammer,” more properly listed as Pfc. E. B. Sledge. He was assigned to Company K, under the command of Capt. Andrew Haldane, one of the finest company commanders in the entire Corps.
Sledgehammer has a Ph.D. now and is a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Alabama. But he has never forgotten his experiences with Company K during the fights for Peleliu and Okinawa.
Although I commanded the 3d Battalion during its training period for Peleliu, it was my fate—through the vicissitudes of seniority, or the lack thereof—to be transferred to the regimental staff before we sailed for Peleliu. That was a source of deep regret on my part.
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