Author: George McMillanPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
History of the First Marine Division in World War II.
The Old Breed
Author: George McMillanPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
History of the First Marine Division in World War II.
With the Old Breed
Author: E.B. SledgePublisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0891419195
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
“Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific—the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary—into terms we mortals can grasp.”—Tom Hanks NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With the Old Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-century battles. Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitive oral history, The Good War. Now E. B. Sledge’s acclaimed first-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns to thrill, edify, and inspire a new generation. An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of such heroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B. Sledge became part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division—3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. Even after intense training, he was shocked to be thrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmare of flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledge hit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled with fear but no longer with panic. Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the New Testament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity and searing honesty the experience of a soldier in the fierce Pacific Theater. Here is what saved, threatened, and changed his life. Here, too, is the story of how he learned to hate and kill—and came to love—his fellow man. “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
The Old Breed of Marine
Author: Abraham FelberPublisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786480556
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
On Friday, August 7, 1942, at 1300, after a furious cannonading by the Navy fighting vessels slamming salvo after salvo into the shores, 36-year-old Marine Sergeant Abraham Felber jumped from a Higgins boat onto Beach Red in the first-wave assault on the deadly jungle island of Guadalcanal. Felber was responsible for writing the Record of Events for his unit, and recorded in meticulous detail the fighting that wrested Guadalcanal from the enemy in the skies, off the shores, and in the muddy jungles. This work is part of the diary that Abraham Felber kept during his service in World War II. It begins with January 7, 1941, and ends with December 31, 1945. As the 1st Sergeant of Headquarters Battery, 11th Marines, Felber dealt with both officers and enlisted men, which exposed him to the perspectives and insights of both. Felber was also granted the unusual privilege of taking photographs during the Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester campaigns, some of which are published here for the first time. Felber's accounts of his unit's role in the combat at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester; his time at Guantanamo Bay, Parris Island and Camp Lejune; daily life, and other experiences are presented here as he recorded them.
Leatherneck Legends
Author: Richard Camp Dick CampPublisher:
ISBN: 9781616737504
Category : Generals
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
China Marine
Author: E. B. SledgePublisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195167767
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
Originally published: Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, c2002.
Islands of the Damned
Author: R.V. BurginPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0451232267
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
A remarkable eyewitness account of the most brutal combat of the Pacific War, from Peleliu to Okinawa, this is the true story of R.V. Burgin, the real-life World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific. “Read his story and marvel at the man...and those like him.”—Tom Hanks When a young Texan named R.V. Burgin joined the Marines 1942, he never imagined what was waiting for him a world away in the Pacific. There, amid steamy jungles, he encountered a ferocious and desperate enemy in the Japanese, engaging them in some of the most grueling and deadly fights of the war. In this remarkable memoir, Burgin reveals his life as a special breed of Marine. Schooled by veterans who had endured the cauldron of Guadalcanal, Burgin’s company soon confronted snipers, repulsed jungle ambushes, encountered abandoned corpses of hara-kiri victims, and warded off howling banzai attacks as they island-hopped from one bloody battle to the next. In his two years at war, Burgin rose from a green private to a seasoned sergeant, fighting from New Britain through Peleliu and on to Okinawa, where he earned a Bronze Star for valor. With unforgettable drama and an understated elegance, Burgin’s gripping narrative stands alongside those of classic Pacific chroniclers like Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge—indeed, Burgin was even Sledge’s platoon sergeant. Here is a deeply moving account of World War II, bringing to life the hell that was the Pacific War.
Old Breed General
Author: Amy Rupertus PeacockPublisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811770354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
Marine general William H. Rupertus is best known today for writing the Corps’ Rifleman’s Creed, which begins, “This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine”—which has been made famous by films such as Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead. Rupertus was one of the outstanding Marines of the twentieth century, standing alongside men such as Smedley Butler, Chesty Puller, and Arthur Vandegrift, but he died in 1945, so his story has never been told. Rupertus “made his bones” in the USMC’s “savage wars of peace” before World War II: Haiti for three years after World War I, China in 1929 (where he lost his wife and children to the scarlet fever epidemic) and again in 1937 (where he witnessed the beginning of Japan’s war against China that turned into the Pacific War of World War II). In World War II, Rupertus commanded during four important battles: Tulagi and Henderson Field during the Guadalcanal campaign; the Battle of Cape Gloucester; and Peleliu. It was a series of blistering battles—and ultimately victories—that helped break the back of the Japanese and pave the way for American victory. In the course of these battles, Rupertus became the Patton of the Pacific—ruthless in war, always on the attack, merciless against the enemy, undefeated in battles—even as he proved himself very much like Eisenhower, suavely diplomatic and able to balance war with politics. These skills allowed Rupertus to crush the enemy in the malaria-infested jungles of the Pacific and personally escort Eleanor Roosevelt on her tour of the Pacific. Old Breed General is the biography of Rupertus and the story of the Marines at war in the Pacific. This is an American story of love, loss, shock, horror, tragedy, and triumph that focuses on Rupertus and the 1st Marine Division in World War II, but which resonates through the 1st, to Chosin in Korea and James Mattis’s command in Iraq.
Last Man Standing
Author: Dick CampPublisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 1616732415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
One of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history, Operation Stalemate, as Peleliu was called, was overshadowed by the Normandy landings. It was also, in time, judged by most historians to have been unnecessary; though it had been conceived to protect MacArthur’s flank in the Philippines, the U.S. fleet’s carrier raids had eliminated Japanese airpower, rendering Peleliu irrelevant. Nevertheless, the horrifying number of casualties sustained there (71% in one battalion) foreshadowed for the rest of the war: rather than fight to the death on the beach, the Japanese would now defend in depth and bleed the Americans white. Drawing extensively on personal interviews, the Marine Corps History Division’s vast oral history and photographic collection, and many never-before-published sources, this book gives us a new and harrowing vision of what really happened at Peleliu--and what it meant. Working closely with two of the 1st Regiment’s battalion commanders--Ray Davis and Russ Honsowetz--Marine Corps veteran and military historian Dick Camp recreates the battle as it was experienced by the men and their officers. Soldiers who survived the terrible slaughter recall the brutality of combat against an implacable foe; they describe the legendary “Chesty” Puller, leading his decimated regiment against enemy fortifications; they tell of Davis, wounded but refusing evacuation while his men were under fire; and of a division commander who rejects Army reinforcements. Most of all, their richly detailed, deeply moving story is one of desperate combat in the face of almost certain failure, of valor among comrades joined against impossible odds.
Commanding the Pacific
Author: Stephen TaaffePublisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682477096
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
The Marine Corps covered itself in glory in World War II with victories over the Japanese in hard-fought battles such as Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima. While these battles are well known, those who led the Marines into them have remained obscure until now. In Commanding the Pacific: Marine Corps Generals in World War II, Stephen R. Taaffe analyzes the fifteen high-level Marine generals who led the Corps' six combat divisions and two corps in the conflict. He concludes that these leaders played an indispensable and unheralded role in organizing, training, and leading their men to victory. Taaffe insists there was nothing inevitable about the Marine Corps' success in World War II. The small pre-war size of the Corps meant that its commandant had to draw his combat leaders from a small pool of officers who often lacked the education of their Army and Navy counterparts. Indeed, there were fewer than one hundred Marine officers with the necessary rank, background, character, and skills for its high-level combat assignments. Moreover, the Army and Navy froze the Marines out of high-level strategic decisions and frequently impinged on Marine prerogatives. There were no Marines in the Joint Chiefs of Staff or at the head of the Pacific War's geographic theaters, so the Marines usually had little influence over the island targets selected for them. In addition to bureaucratic obstacles, constricted geography and vicious Japanese opposition limited opportunities for Marine generals to earn the kind of renown that Army and Navy commanders achieved elsewhere. In most of its battles on small Pacific War islands, Marine generals had neither the option nor inclination to engage in sophisticated tactics, but they instead relied in direct frontal assaults that resulted in heavy casualties. Such losses against targets of often questionable strategic value sometimes called into question the Marine Corps' doctrine, mission, and the quality of its combat generals. Despite these difficulties, Marine combat commanders repeatedly overcame challenges and fulfilled their missions. Their ability to do so does credit to the Corps and demonstrates that these generals deserve more attention from historians than they have so far received.
You'll Be Sor-ree!
Author: Sid PhillipsPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0425246299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Sid Phillips, a World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific, offers up an invaluable firsthand account of the war against Japan. A mortarman with H-2-1 of the legendary 1st Marine Division, Sid was only seventeen years old when he entered combat with the Japanese. Some two years later, when he returned home, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned Sid into an "Old Timer" by Marine standards, and more: he left as a boy, but came home a man. These are his memoirs, the humble and candid tales that Sid collected during a Pacific odyssey spanning half the globe, from the grueling boot camp at Parris Island, to the coconut groves of Guadalcanal, to the romantic respite of Australia. Sid recalls his encounters with icons like Chesty Puller, General Vandergrift, Eleanor Roosevelt, and his boyhood friend, Eugene Sledge. He remembers the rain of steel from Japanese bombers and battleships, the brutality of the tropical elements, and the haunting notion of being expendable. This is the story of how Sid stood shoulder to shoulder with his Marine brothers to discover the inner strength and deep faith necessary to survive the dark, early days, of World War II in the Pacific.