With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
Language: English
1939-1945 1939-1945 - Campaigns - Japan - Okinawa Island 1944 American American history Asian Australasian & Pacific history Battle of Biography & Autobiography Biography: historical Campaigns E. B East Asia Far East History History - Military Japan Middle Eastern history: Second World War Military Military - United States Military - Veterans Military - World War II Military History Military Personal Narratives Military life & institutions Naval forces & warfare Okinawa Island Okinawa Island (Japan) Palau Peleliu Peleliu Island Personal narratives Second World War Sledge Soldiers Soldiers - United States South Pacific USA United States Veterans War World War World War II World War II - East Asia World history: Second World War political & military
Publisher: Presidio Press
Published: May 1, 2007
Description:
SUMMARY: 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–3d 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.