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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “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

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
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 18, 2008
ISBN9780307549587

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Rating: 4.421104777120315 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is an immensely sombering tale of one Marine's experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa during WW2. In my view, it stands as a testament to the sacrifice, courage and heroism performed by our combat troops in WW2. It also serves as high tribute to those who have fallen for our freedom.

    Eugene Sledge recorded his daily experiences on anything he could get his hands on. Against regulation, Sledge secertly tucked away his memories in a copy of The New Testament. He was caught so often with this New Testament that his fellow Marines thought he was more devout than he actually was. After the war, Mr. Sledge wrote his experiences down as a way to share his story with his immediate family members. Later, his wife pushed him to share it with the masses.

    For one who hasn't served in war time it would be quite difficult to imagine the sheer hell and emotional toll exerted on the soldiers in the thick of it. Eugene Sledge's memoir of war takes the reader there. He had to endure the interminable shelling of heavy artillery, relentless snipering, unending rain, unforgiving terrain and dark sleepless nights full of the terror of enemy infiltration.

    Mr Sledge often remarks in this book about the senselessness waste of human life in war and the brutality of it all. He wonders how an young neurological student could go from such promising beginnings and a bright future to being killed on a remote island in the Pacific. He opines on the audacity and ignorance of politicans who are so eager to send young, often poor, kids to war. There is a unique sensitivity and awareness to this book that is very profound. It's not quite anti-war, but it's definitely introspective about the cost and wisdom of war.

    Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Much praise has - rightfully - been given to this book. And I can't add more to what has already been said and written about it.

    What I can say is that it is one of those books that leaves me with a lasting impression

    I can only recommend it as a 'must read' to any who study the Pacific War - any war, for that matter - as a reminder that 'War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste' (Page 317) and to carry out most of the overall land war strategy was the 'boots on the ground', the rifleman.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The strength of this memoir rests on three pillars. One, Eugene Sledge's memory for detail is so vivid that I wonder if he had that rare condition known as autobiographical memory. Two, he had a masterful ability to put his detailed memories into words. Three, he experienced actual hell and lived to tell about it.The mud was knee deep in some places, probably deeper in others if one dared venture there. For several feet around every corpse, maggots crawled around in the muck and then were washed away by the runoff of the rain. There wasn't a tree or bush left. All was open country. Shells had torn up the turf so completely that ground cover was nonexistent. The rain poured down on us as evening approached. The scene was nothing but mud; shell fire; flooded craters with their silent, pathetic, rotting occupants; knocked-out tanks and amtracs; and discarded equipment--utter desolation. The stench of death was overpowering. The only way I could bear the monstrous horror of it all was to look upward away from the earthly reality surrounding us, watch the leaden gray clouds go scudding over, and repeat over and over to myself that the situation was unreal--just a nightmare--that I would soon awake and find myself somewhere else. But the ever-present smell of death saturated my nostrils. It was there with every breath I took. I existed from moment to moment, sometimes thinking death would have been preferable. During the fighting around the Umurbrogol Pocket on Peleliu, I had been depressed by the wastage of human lives. But in the mud and driving rain before Shuri, we were surrounded by maggots and decay. Men struggled and fought and bled in an environment so degrading I believed we had been flung into hell's own cesspool.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sledge is a US Marine from a well-off background who was originally in training to become a Marine officer but chose to go instead as a private. The book covers his training, both in the USA and on Pavuvu awaiting his first campaign, and then the two campaigns he fought make up the bulk of the text: first Peleliu in late 1944 and then Okinawa in mid 1945. There is no detail on anything else: it ends shortly after the surrender and "mop-up" on Okinawa.It's the first war memoir I've read, so I'm not sure how it fits into the genre. He talks openly about his (and other Marines') interactions with the Japanese, and what it was like to live on the battlefield. There is memorable discussion of the heat, thirst, mud, rain, and the smell. I read it shortly after watching the HBO series "The Pacific" and found that the show had elaborated or changed several scenes, which I was disappointed in! But that merely serves as an endorsement for this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Outstanding memoir of a marine fighting the Japanese in Peleliu and Okinawa. Horrific at times. Makes you appreciate their sacrifice.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is essentially a diary, compiled by a Marine that participated in the World War II, Pacific theater battles at Peleliu and Okinawa, two of the most savage campaigns of the war. Private E. B. Sledge was a mortar man with K Company of the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Sledge was no writer and perhaps would have profited by use of some professional editing help, but perhaps not. His “everyman” vocabulary and writing style lends a genuineness to the account, which is harrowing, as you might imagine.I recognized some of the events on Okinawa as portrayed in Band of Brothers. Those of us fortunate enough to have avoided armed conflict, and especially the kind related in this memoir, should be educated in the sacrifices made by those who fought and died.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A truly remarkable account of 2 of the most savage battles of the Pacific campaign. Written by a mortar man from Alabama. The writing was done beginning immediately after the first battle and ended in the late 1970’s, it was originally published in the early 80’s. If you were to only read one account of the Marine Corps in the Pacific, this would be the best choice.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Unforgettable. That anyone survived such brutality to live a full life and die an old man is extraordinary. Eventually watched 'The Pacific' with R, very tough.Also part of a new Library of America 'Pacific Memoirs' collection.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Non-fiction novels aren't big on my reading list despite war history being a major interest of mine in recent years.This is certainly a stand out. Sledge's voice is honest and down to earth, as if you're right there with him as he tells it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    With the Old Breed is a frank, honest, brutal description on the life of a rifleman in the U.S. Marine Corps fighting in the Pacific during two fierce battles of World War II. The author, called Sledgehammer by those he served with, describes the experience as he lived it, and his descriptions smack you in the face with the harsh realities of military life, war, and the physical and psychological challenges faced by those involved.Not to be missed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    E. B Sledge deftly handles two huge challenges in writing the first hand narrative of America’s two most costly battles.
    First, he faces the challenge of conveying a vivid picture of combat, death and inhumanity while not present so grisly a picture that readers could not “stomach” the book.
    Second, he faces the bigger challenge of honoring those who fought, especially those who sacrificed their lives, while not dwelling on how totally and completely unnecessary and even criminal the invasion of Peliliu really was.
    There really are no words, no description and not even any cinematic presentations that can truly show the horrors of any war, and the war in the Pacific was far more brutal than most. Sledge rises to the challenge by describing in detail sufficient images to give the reader a feel for the total horror. The graphic descriptions of the few situations allows the readers to understand that things are even worse than what he is reading, yet allow him to continue reading the book.
    Those who fought and even died on Peliliu did what their country asked them to do. Their willingness to face unimaginable, grueling and unrelenting horrors testifies to the courage, loyalty and dedication they had.
    The planners of this engagement, those who ordered nearly 4000 young ment to die failed and perhaps even betrayed them. Peliliu was unnecessary bloodletting. It’s participants did the right thing for the wrong reason, yet they themselves were innocent of the blunder until years later.
    The invasion of Peliliu was undertaken to protect the left flank of MacArthur when he invaded the Philippines. On that basis, perhaps the Peliliu action was important.
    But the larger issue has been settled by military experts and historians for years. The very invasion of the Philippines was both unnecessary and unproductive. America spilled the blood of thousands of its own and those of other nations solely to satisfy the ego of the narcissistic MacArther who had proclaimed, “I shall return.” And return he did, but for no strategic or logistic gain.
    Sledge dodges this issue well and focuses the reader on those who did their duty, who displayed unbelievable heroism and to whom the world owes its gratitude.
    Too bad MacArthur himself didn’t have to land with the Marines.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this about 15 years ago and thought that it deserved another re reading and it didn’t disappoint.

    This is probably the greatest first person account of war ever written. This autobiography account of the battles Peleliu and Okinawa as seen through the eyes of a Marine on the front lines is breathtakingly honest and just as brutal.

    Some of the moments and scenes depicted range from absolutely gruesome to downright heartbreaking.

    This is the kind of things I wished they taught in school. The sacrifice people made and what it cost them to allow us to live in this world left behind.

    The sheer number of lives lost in these battles is just unbelievable. Second guessers of the usage of the atomic bombs should be required to understand theses battles and what they entailed. For rest assured all who survived these never forgot.

    “If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for. With privilege goes responsibility.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Loyalty to each other and to country in the face of certain death, miserable conditions, constant adjustment to miscues from command and control - the true heroes are on the front lines.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent account of a WWII indiviuals experience in the Marines in boot camp and in the hellish campaigns of Peleliu and Okinawa. Provides an excellent insight into the fears, the anger, the desperation, and the unusual events and feelings that occur to a man under combat stress. Sledge writes with such neutrality and ease of access it makes it simple to follow yet makes one understand his feelings and the surroundings. One comes away feeling a taste of what he felt, and feeling for he and his mens plight at some of the strategic decisions made along with the anger and the futility of war.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As other reviewers have noted, this is one of the best descriptions of a battle field I have ever read. The picture Sledge paints of the mud and decaying bodies he dug foxholes in Okinawa will always stay with me when I think of the war in the Pacific. If you are looking for a ode to the absurdity of war, here it is.The HBO series, The Pacific, used material adapted from this memoir. R. V. Burgin whose book Islands of the Damned was also used to make the series was a Corporal in Sledge's mortar squad and is mentioned several times in this work.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent. One of my favorite war history books ever. Quite gruesome in parts but, hey, it's about war! One of my favorite things: this book answers all those daily life questions about being in fighting action in a matter-of-fact manner. Really, you want to know what WWII was like for a fighting man? Read it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A haunting memoir from the Pacific front. Well written, appropriately horrifying, and powerful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Intense. Heartbreaking. Horrifying. Mind-boggling. This book was quite a read.Sledge’s descriptions of his experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa are incredibly honest and straightforward—there’s no sugarcoating or glorifying war. He puts emphasis on how miserable, ghastly and appalling the fighting and living conditions were, and how wasteful and tragic the immense loss of young lives was. His book is a striking demonstration of how “war is hell.” Despite all the atrocious things he wrote about, he did have some warm, humorous and inspiring stories to share that were a good reminder that he and the other marines were all just young guys, and many of them were quite admirable and heroic. I'm glad he was willing to share his (and the other marines') story so that what happened, what they accomplished and what they sacrificed will never be forgotten.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    With the Old Breed (1981) is one of the most popular American WWII memoirs, in particular of the US Marines. It contains many of the same themes found in WWII fiction: the path from innocence through experiences never imagined, from boy to man, survival where others perish, an involvement in some bigger event which couldn't be fully fathomed at the time, the horror and alienation of modern war, paying homage to the previous generation (the "Old Breed"). Essentially an allegory of America's emergence from provincial innocence (boyhood) to world power (manhood) through a hardening violence. Thus, it's a "classic" as an archetype of a genre, appropriately for a US Marine named "Sledgehammer". Sledge didn't publish it until 1981 which provided plenty of time for the tropes of the genre to solidify and thus for his diary to adopt the expected form. Then Hollywood did its thing and it became a pop-culture phenomenon. Not to say it's false or bad faith, but neither is it challenging or breaking with (old) conventions, mainly interesting for incidental scenes and anecdote (and thus well suited for the screen). Is there anything in the memoir I didn't already didn't know from 1940s and 1950s WWII movies? As Walt Whitman said "I was the man, I suffered, I was there." War is hell, as the Red Badge of Courage taught us, there are no heroes and glory, just the obscenity of the banal made grotesque.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It is not often I have to put down a book momentarily because I am overcome with emotion. This story of our Marines giving their all for each other and their country, told with openness, honesty, and without bombast, has affected me in that way not once but a number of times. E. B. Sledge came through the fierce fighting against the Japanese on the Pacific islands of Peleliu and Okinawa, without being wounded although not without the deeper scars only troops who have been in combat can attest to. The book is more a tribute to his comrades and the Marine Corps than it is a history of the war. Sledge tells us that "war is brutish, inglorious, and a horrible waste". This book is the basis of the HBO miniseries, The Pacific.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A broad chasm separates those of us who have not served in the armed forces or served in times of peace from the combat veteran. We can only intellectualize what he has experienced: the fear of immediate death; the horror of obliteration of flesh, bones, and sinew; the dehumanization of conscience; the numbing constancy of endless combat; the inevitable realization that the longer a combat soldier survives the greater are the odds that he will perish. E. B. Sledge's narration of his World War II marine experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa communicate all of this vividly.There are those in public office that refuse to stand at the edge of this separation of experience, that view Americans in uniform as expendable instruments of ideological, unilateralist policy. Standing with them too often are the malevolent, the deluded, and the disinterested. Apart from them are the rest of us. We must heed our veterans' experiences and makes our voices heard.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An incredible first hand account from a true American hero. The way he describes the emotions on the battlefield will give you a new respect for the greatest generation. Just a fantastic book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    We recently watched the HBO mini-series The Pacific. It was a fascinating and horrifying look at the American Marines who served in the Pacific theater during World War II. One of the featured Marines was a private named E. B. Sledge. Sledge's journey from his country home in Alabama to the war-torn islands in the Pacific, and his transformation from boy to Marine were powerful stories. As we completed the series, we discovered that Sledge had written a book about his service with the Marine Corp. Eager to find out more about his story, I immediately checked out the book from our library.Sledge's book is a straightforward account of his beginnings as a Marine, and of the battles that he fought. Some of the movements of the troops were confusing to me, as were the references to various Marine regiments and divisions. I'm sure that readers who know more about the military wouldn't be confused at all. But Sledge's account isn't just a retelling of troop movements. Rather, it's his personal story of the sights, sounds, horrors, defeats and triumphs of war. It's graphic at time, but matter-of-fact. As I ended the book, I was overwhelmed with admiration and respect for the thousands and thousands of troops who have served so faithfully in combat for our country.Many of the things that Sledge experienced were documented in the mini-series. If you haven't yet watched the mini-series, I would highly recommend reading With the Old Breed first.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    With the Old Breed was a really good book and it involve war and peoples story in the war and what they went through. I really liked it and i would recomend it to anyone who likes action books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wanted to watch the HBO miniseries THE PACIFIC which was based on two books HELMET FOR MY PILLOW by Robert Leckie AND WITH THIS OLD BREED by E.B.Sledge. Together they take you through Guadalcanal through Okinawa. Leckie has a rich vocabulary and Sledge writes with his heart. Both powerful books with Sledge's book is extraordinary. Ken Burns featured Sledge in his documentary THE WAR. Reading done and not I can reward myself and watch THE PACIFIC.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While Tim O'Brien's account of the Vietnam War's horror and tragedy was poetic, E.B. Sledge's memoirs of the WWII island hopping campaign is told without artistic license. It is simply a brutal narrative of the events that happened as told by one who went through that abyss. Both books share the same message on war, but the narrative styles are on opposite side of the spectrum. I would highly recommend this book to anyone still clinging to the notion that war is in some way anything other than a blight upon mankind.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A great historical novel that depicts the reality of war first hand from a participant of the Pacific battles in WWII.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A brutal book that really pulls no punches about the brutality of war. Much of the book cover the combat experience of Sledge on firstly Peleliu, a small Pacific atoll that Gen. MacArthur deemed necessary to retaking the Philippines. From the point of a Private in a Mortar squad it is simply brutal and inhuman. The book is frank in the callous behaviour of the US marines as witnessed by the author, though he takes pains to hid the identify of the perpetrators. He his also very strong in his descriptions of the treatment meted out by the Japanese to the Marines - it makes it very clear both side were equally nasty. The second part of the book covers the more critical battle - Okinawa, which is covered in the same detail. In the end you can appreciate the relief the two atomic bombs brought to the Marines and other service personal in the Pacific campaign - it also makes the arguments for dropping them more real and with the numbers of people, both combatants and civilians killed in campaign to take Okinawa probably does justify them. The book in places made me feel physically sick but really does convey the true horror war. A compelling read
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a must read for anyone who fancies themselves knowledgeable about World War II, or war itself, for that matter. Eugene Sledge was in two of the most famous battles of the island hopping campaign that helped end the war against the Japanese. He fought on Peleliu (the main island in the battle named for the island group, Pelau), and Okinawa. His honesty is refreshing. There's no false bravado here. He writes of his terror under shelling and his biggest fear of all, the fear of fear. He was terrified he would fold under attack and let his buddies down. In telling this story he grinds no axes and he speaks from the heart at all times. There's none of the whitewashing you find in most first person accounts of battle, so this book is not for the squeamish. I've read dozens and dozens of books on this subject, but this one sometimes made me feel I might get sick. You begin to realize what he's describing as their daily environment must have been similar to a thousand other battlefields through history, but in this case you have someone unafraid to spell it out. My fascination with the subject isn't squashed, but I'll never picture a battlefield in the same way again. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Realistic view of what the infantry men went through on the Pacific islands during WWII.