With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

Rating:
Summary: REST IN PEACE, BROTHER, ONE LAST BEACH....
Review:


Fanatical enemy----- check

Fake surrenders----- check

Religious / Racial 'ideologues'----- check

Suicidal surprise attacks where the planners (officers) are never
in any danger, until their willing teenagers/women 'run out'.

(funny how that works out) (so very 'brave', oui ? )



We are proud to
claim the title...
(in Naha AND Fallujah)



An article that mentioned Paul Fussell's thoughts on

'Sledge' brought me here. NOT for the squeemish.



Rating:
Summary: The Classic Account of the Marine's Island Campaigns
Review: This is one of the finest narratives of modern combat ever written. The author was a young southerner who enlisted in the Marine Corps in the months following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Sledge was sent to the South Pacific, where the United States was taking back a seemingly endless chain of tiny coral atolls. The implacable enemy - who almost never surrendered - was dug in deep and had to be rooted out through air, naval and artillery bombardment, small-arms fire and even hand-to-hand combat. The islands were hot and humid and the conditions the marines lived under unfathomable. Through courage, grit and dogged determination, the marines prevailed, but none of them were left unscathed. Sledge, who went on to the quiet life of a biology professor, writes of the Pacific War from the point of view of the infantryman, eye-deep in the blood, muck, mire, courage and comradeship of combat.

Rating:
Summary: The Forgotten Campaign
Review: Devasting account of the Pacific campaign as fought by the U.S. Marines in WWII. I say forgotten because I, like many Americans, have always seemed to focus on the European campaigns, probably because so many Americans are of European ancestry. Once I started reading about the Pacific War, I came to realize that it was, if anything, more brutal than the European War. Eugene "Sledgehammer" Sledge recounts his days in the 1st Marine Divsion (The Old Breed) fighting (and remarkably coming out unscathed) at Peleliu and Okinawa. Personally, I had never heard of Peleliu, but after reading this book, I believe it was one of the toughest and most brutal campaigns of the Pacific War. Fighting on a coral island (which made digging foxholes impossible) near the equator (110 in the shade)against an enemy that knows only kill or be killed. And the water brought to the island had been contaminated by motor oil, making many Marines sick if they drank it. Mr Sledge tells his story in a matter of fact narrative that truly makes you relize the horror of these battles faced by American boys. Truly these men were our GREATEST GENERATION.

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: With the Old Breed should be required reading in our classrooms, for this is the brutal reality of war at its most horrific. No sensationalism here; E. B. Sledge merely tells it the way it was. There is no glory in war, in the shedding of another man's blood; in digging a foxhole in a torrential downpour only to uncover the badly decomposing body of a Japanese soldier crawling with maggots; in watching helplessly as four of your comrades retrieve, on a stretcher, a wounded Marine amid machinegun fire ("If it were me out there," Sledge recounts, "I would want to know I wouldn't be left behind."); in enduring a night while being shelled by enemy artillery; in stumbling upon fellow Marines that have been tortured, decapitated and butchered in the worst way imaginable; in suffering sleep deprivation, from malaria and jungle rot, and from hunger, thirst, and, alternately, heat and cold. This is why war should be avoided at all costs, and this is why no one man should ever be given the authority, with a flourish of his signature, to risk the lives of young men and women.

My dad fought on Okinawa, receiving a citation from the office of the president for his participation in the taking of Shuri Ridge. I never knew my dad as a Marine, as he retired from the Corps before getting married and starting a family. I asked him once, when I was a boy, to tell me about his service, but he refused. I asked him again, about six and a half years ago, during the final year of his life, and he again refused. I had hoped that by sharing his pain a healing could take place. Unfortunately, what he saw, what he endured, died with him.

Sledge, in this memoir of his service on Peleliu and Okinawa, told me everything my dad withheld from me. This incredible account, told with frank detachment, is hailed as the best World War II memoir of an enlisted man, and with good reason. Part adventure, part history, "Sledgehammer" not only relates many of the clichés every Hollywood movie depicted on the subject, but also everything they left out.

Thanks, Sledgehammer, for sharing your story, and my dad's, with me. He perhaps felt I couldn't understand what he endured. Perhaps no civilian can. Yet after having read With the Old Breed, I understand a little better why he was the way he was.

Your generation is truly the greatest generation.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST FOR YOUR LIBRARY
Review: This is probably one of the most realistic works I have read. It is a absolute must for anyone attempting to understand the Pacific Campaign, what our men went through and what they did for us. I have read this one twice and plan a third reading soon. This is the sort of history they should be teaching in our schools rather than some of the meaningless stuff now presented. This is certainly one work you can get your teeth into. Highly recommend you add it your your collection! Thank you Mr. Sledge.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, one tough soldier.
Review: I have an uncle who survived the Okinawa campaign. Of the 30+ men in his platoon, 10 lived, he alone came thru unscathed. He only talked about his experiences once. That was right after he came back in the 40's. He has related that carrying a flamethrower isn't a fun job, but no details at all about his service. I can understand now why he has been tight-lipped about it. It was a horrific experience.

I got the book yesterday in the mail. I couldn't put it down until I finished it last night. The descriptions were excellent. I was there.

I have been a student of WWII since elementary school. I was fascinated with the advances of technology that occurred then. This book put a face on war that I don't ever remember seeing in the 35 years that I've studied that time period. His story shows the brutality and low-tech nature of close combat.

It is inspiring to see the determination to "see it through" that was exhibited by our men in WWII.