With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge
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Book Reviews of With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
Book Review: Epic memoir of the brutal war with Japan
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an epic memoir about the author's time with the 1st Marine Div (K Co, 3rd Bn, 5th Marine Regt) on Peleliu and Okinawa. In a word, it is outstanding! It is a true war memoir in that it is virtually entirely about the authors combat experiences. The first 40 pages or so recount his basic background and then his training. The next 100 pages are entirely about the combat on Peleliu. The next half of the book is almost entirely about Okinawa. There is combat on virtually every page but it is never overblown. There is a great deal about the front line conditions, digging foxholes, being thirsty, being miserable, about living beside the dead.
Most of the text though recounts the authors involvment in combat. At times there is a breathtaking story on every page. Some of these I'd read them before - they were so momentous they'd been selected in others peoples books as quotes. Many of these are not for the faint hearted. Sledge spares no one in terms of the awfulness of many of the events. His view that the war was an awful waste is very strong and he has chosen to detail things like they were to prove his point. He is also concious though that regardless of this the war had to be fought. He is exceedingly proud to have been a member of the 1st Marine Division. He also had a great hatred of the Japanese, given what he'd learned of them in combat. He comes to the conclusion that "To defeat an enemy as tough and dedicated as the Japanese, we had to be just as tough. We had to be just as dedicated to America as they were to their emperor." (Pg 156) A very profound observation for a 20 year old to make.
Above all, one is left with his deep sadness about buddys lost. His unit landed at Okinawa with 235 men, received 250 replacements and departed only 50 strong. The fighting before Shuri is ferocious and it sickens him. We read of Japanese infiltration at night, mutilated bodies and mistakes by fellow Marines that cause 'own' deaths. The idea of a terrible waste is revisited again and again. As is the authors disgust and fury towards the Japanese in the way they fought the war.
This book has been described as a classic and I agree. Another reviewer compared "With the Old Breed' to Sajer's 'Forgotten Soldier'. Given the scope of Sledge's writings and the revelation of his deepest thoughts, I'm inclined to support that. This book is one of the top three memoirs of war that I have ever read. Very Highly Recommended!
Book Review: You will find no personal account of WWII more accurate than this...
Summary: 5 Stars
In reading many WWII memoirs you come to find a certain trend of honesty, one that usually has no indication of self bravado or puffing up of one's feathers. With Sledge's With The Old Breed you find the absolute best of all the WWII memoirs, Pacific and European. Even though I knew what to expect I was still blown away by the straight forward honest account of his time spent battling against the Japanese.
Right from the beginning you see how he traveled from boot camp - having purposefully failed OCS in order to fight "the japs" - and over the Pacific to fight at such hellish battles as Peleliu and Okinawa, arguably two of the bloodiest of the whole war. You see his candor as he describes his first beach assault, feel his fear as he cowers in his foxhole as the awesome power of Japanese mortar and artillery pummels the land around and decimates the Marines. You never once doubt whether this was really what happened, knowing full well that his account is true to the letter.
You see he wrote this not to gain notoriety or money, he didn't embellish in order to get it published easier. He wrote down a true and accurate account, warts and all: fear, desperation, helplessness, anger. You see all of it because he wrote his memoir with the intent of giving his family an account of what he went through. Why would he not want to give his family the truest and most accurate account possible? So we benefit from his desire to add his chapter to his family's history. Additionally he adds italicized sections to indicate where he was breaking from his memoir to add the historical background to what happened or was going to happen, as well as asterisks to add a little more detail. Both additions do nothing to diminish his memoir and detract from the honesty, and instead show how much he wanted his account to be read as his account, and not memoir infused with history.
What we have is perhaps the greatest Pacific War memoir ever, and quite possibly the greatest WWII memoir ever (hard to say because the two theaters of operation were so strikingly different, but from what I have read Sledge's is the most real, honest and heartfelt). Without a doubt I would recommend this to any and all.
5 stars.
Book Review: A Heartbreaking Memoir of World War II
Summary: 5 Stars
In simple powerful prose, E.B. Sledge recounts the horrors of the war in the Pacific in his memoir With The Old Breed. Dr. Sledge, who was a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo in Alabama for almost fifty years, wrote his book for his wife and children so they could understand what he had endured in combat. His wife realized the importance of his book and convinced him to publish it. It is considered to be the best memoir written by an enlisted man from World War II, and some have even put it in the same cannon of literature as The Red Badage of Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front. It is equaled only by the memoirs of President U.S. Grant.
A native of Mobile Al, Sledge served in the Marines from 1943 to 1946. After boot camp in California, he was shipped to the Pacific. In his memoir, he admits that as his ship was nearing Peleliu, he was so frightened that he was afraid that he would lose control of his bladder and then the other men would know he was a coward. One of the biggest miseries faced by the men was the filth they were forced to live in during combat. Drinking water was too precious to use for bathing and brushing teeth and Dr.Sledge said it brothered everyone he knew.It is an important part of the stress suffered by the men on the battledfield that has not been given much attention by historians or even discussed in memoirs written by veterans. While he watched men die around him, Dr. Sledge survived the war. He was only twenty-two when the war ended but he would never be the same again. There is a picture of Dr. Sledge at the end of the book that was taken in 1946 after he had returned from duty in China. It is of a handsome man in full dress uniform with eyes that are much too sad and old for one so young. As World War II fades into history and passes into legend and myth, first-hand accounts like E.B. Sledge's are vital to understanding the sacrifices made by millions in defeating one of the greatest foes in human history.
Book Review: Everyone should read this book
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a personal memoir of a US Marine who was a member of a front line company (Company K, 3 battalion, 5th Marine Regiment) in two World War II Pacific theater campaigns. It is not about tactics, operations, or strategy, but about what life was like for for men in front line units in the Pacific, the dangers and the depravations they faced. This book is important because of the perspective it can give the reader.
Though its focus is almost entirely on one small band of men (the men of Company K), it provides the reader with important context for understanding the world. Most obviously it gives one a window into what it means to be solider and the "face of battle", how war brings out the best and the worst in human kind, how disease and stress can be as deadly as bullets and shell fragments, and how dehumanizing the whole experience can be. Reading this first hand account makes these statements more than cliches, it makes the personal cost of war tangible in a way third person accounts can not.
Although I suspect this wasn't the authors goal, the book also provides those of us in the post baby boom generations an important perspective that can help us make sense of the arc of history from World War I to 80's. During the World Wars hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people had similar experiences, it must have had a profound impact on how they approached the world, which in turn must of have shaped the inter War and post War periods. Before reading this account I wasn't able to really appreciate how World War I lead to an increase in nihilism or the pain Vietnam War protests must have caused some veterans. Without reading this (or a similar account) one can't have a full grasp on modern history.
Book Review: A Not Pleasant Detailed Analysis of a Soldier's Life
Summary: 5 Stars
This book delivers exactly what the reviewers say: it's not a grand overview of the war. It's only what one soldier saw through his eyes in two vicious campaigns. A young idealistic soldier heads to combat and 6 months later he is attempting to salvage gold teeth from a Japanese corpse before he comes to his senses. But plenty of other's don't. The brutality of war is vividly brought home here: the atrocities on both sides, the fear of constant bombardment by heavy guns, the friendly fire killings as well as one accidental discharge killing a best friend in the company. The survival rates here are so low it's amazing more soldiers didn't lose their minds. What this book covered that I have never seen before is the horrible conditions in the battlefield which he provides such as the stench of rotting dead bodies for days. In addition to describing this so well he also adds details of basic human bodily waste while tied to a foxhole which you must now live in for days in the rain and mud of Okinawa or the heat and coral of Pelilui allowing no ability to bury this waste. Covered for the first time are descriptions of moving equipment and supplies to the front line as well as the deadly stretcher duty of wounded soldiers with bullets flying. Maybe the most terrifying story is an open field crossing with Japanese machine guns at the end setting up a killing zone allowing about a 50% survival rate but with no other choice.
In summary this is just a powerful story that needs to be read. It's neither sexy nor filled with Patriotic fervor. It's about soldiers in the worst possible conditions and the 20 feet in front of them that will determine whether they survive. And it's absolutely a chilling, must read.