With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

This book is a compelling first hand account, from a U. S. Marine private's view, of the hourly and daily horrors American Marines suffered when in battle in the Pacific during WWII. Frankly, I am surprised anyone could endure the strain, both physical and mental, imposed upon these American soldiers. After reading this relatively short, but detailed book, you will reach several conclusions: first, the Pacific campaigns were absolutely hellish; second, the Japanese WWII soldier was fanatical and bestial--virtually devoid of any humanity; third, after Okinawa, the U.S. was absolutely right in using the atomic bomb to end this war; and fourth, we can never repay the men (primarily U. S. Marines) who made the sacrifices necessary to conquer the evil that was Imperial Japan.

The book is centered on two battles, Peleliu and Okinawa: the former fought in 100 degree heat on a coral island lacking any shelter or cover, while the latter was fought in mud on a battlefield reminiscent of trench warfare in WWI Flanders. Both battles were fought against a determined, merciless, and barbaric enemy who fought virtually to the last man and were more than willing to sacrifice their individual lives if they could trade it for the life of but one American. For example, on Peleliu the Japanese committed approximately 11,000 soldiers to the battle and only about 200 surrendered, yet of that number approximately 180 were Japanese sailors, or civilians forced to assist the Japanese. The rest died to a man. The price for their lives and this miserable island was approximately 1800 American dead and another 8000 wounded.

The book explains the Japanese strategy of "defense in depth" adopted after the fruitless banzai charges of Guadalcanal and Saipan. This strategy entailed the construction of mutually supportive tunnels, caves, and other defensive positions that the Japanese defended in a prolonged, organized retreat. Essentially, they knew they could never win these battles, but hoped, through attrition, to convince the Americans that it was too costly in blood and treasure to conquer Japan. E. B. "Sledgehammer" Sledge lets you experience what fighting against this strategy was like as he watches his friends and comrades die day after day during these long campaigns. He especially relates, in an immediate manner, how taxing the fighting conditions were--intolerable heat, knee-deep mud, the constant stench of decaying bodies and the innumerable flies and maggots attracted to them, the poor food, undrinkable water, malaria, dysentery, constant rain, and filth each marine had to endure in wresting these islands from the Japanese. Yet that is only the beginning, for the true horror was the Japanese themselves. Nightly they sent out raiders to try to infiltrate American lines, willing to die just to kill one American in his foxhole. Every night these marines were shelled, and everyday they were forced to move out against an enemy who would never surrender and wanted only to kill them.

You are left with an unshakable belief of this war being worse than hell itself, worse than anything you can imagine. The stories of discovering the mutilated bodies of fellow marines, and the cold-blooded nature of the enemy, explains why this enemy had to be defeated and why these marines had absolutely no pity for them. And once you read the nature of the battle for Okinawa, and learn how the U. S. was forced to sacrifice over 12,000 of its young men to kill 110,000 Japanese who refused to surrender in a battle hopeless for Japan from the start, you should have no reservations about the wisdom of using atomic weapons against Japan. If they were willing to fight like this for an island hundreds of miles from their homeland, you realize they would have fought even harder for their own islands and homes.

Wow. If you want to read a book from the soldier's point of view: this is the book. Loved it.

This is a painfully honest account of the agony, fear, and overall misery that the infantry experience in any war. In telling the history of the Peleliu and Okinawa campaigns of WWII from the grunt's perspective, E. B. Sledge recounts how the brutality of war erodes the moral standards of both friends and enemies. He does not preach; he simply observes with regret.

His book is particularly timely with the US having a large number of battle weary troops returning home from war. The adjustment back to civilian life takes time and understanding. The service member who comes home is not the same person who shipped out a year or two earlier.

Without a doubt, this is the most engaging war memoir that I have ever read.

Sledge has no literary pretension nor ambition of any kind, so what he creates is something akin to Remarque's inimitable All Quiet on the Western Front.

With the Old Breed reads like a novel because of the brutal honesty with which the narrator, Sledge himself, relates his experiences from a profound Humanism--a genuine, and not inchoate, Humanism. This is direct story-telling: in first person and terrifyingly candid, untarnished, nor emended by the passing of time. (The book was first published in 1981.)

A young man, who climbs out of "the Abyss", to use Sledge's description of the Peleiu and Okinawa campaigns, survives with his humanism intact if not generated to greater empathy.

Read this.

Sledge's account of his time as a young soldier fighting in the Pacific is heartbreaking and harrowing. It is one of the better memoirs to come out of the Second World War. I recommend this along with William Manchester's "Goodbye Darkness."