Author: Robert Leckie
Publisher: Ravenio Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Helmet for My Pillow is a gripping memoir that transports readers to the frontlines of World War II through the eyes of Robert Leckie, a young Marine who fought in some of the most brutal battles of the Pacific Theater. With raw honesty and vivid prose, Leckie recounts his experiences from boot camp to the bloody battles of Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu, offering a deeply personal perspective on the sacrifices, camaraderie, and horrors of war. This powerful narrative serves as a testament to the courage and resilience of the men who fought and died in the Pacific, making it an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the realities of combat and the human cost of war.

Author: Robert Leckie
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786252031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
Includes over 220 photos, maps and plans following Robert “Lucky” Leckie’s Pacific War with the 1st Marine Division “Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war’s fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense of their country. From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie’s hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.”-Print Ed.

Author: R.V. Burgin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0451232267
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A remarkable eyewitness account of the most brutal combat of the Pacific War, from Peleliu to Okinawa, this is the true story of R.V. Burgin, the real-life World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific. “Read his story and marvel at the man...and those like him.”—Tom Hanks When a young Texan named R.V. Burgin joined the Marines 1942, he never imagined what was waiting for him a world away in the Pacific. There, amid steamy jungles, he encountered a ferocious and desperate enemy in the Japanese, engaging them in some of the most grueling and deadly fights of the war. In this remarkable memoir, Burgin reveals his life as a special breed of Marine. Schooled by veterans who had endured the cauldron of Guadalcanal, Burgin’s company soon confronted snipers, repulsed jungle ambushes, encountered abandoned corpses of hara-kiri victims, and warded off howling banzai attacks as they island-hopped from one bloody battle to the next. In his two years at war, Burgin rose from a green private to a seasoned sergeant, fighting from New Britain through Peleliu and on to Okinawa, where he earned a Bronze Star for valor. With unforgettable drama and an understated elegance, Burgin’s gripping narrative stands alongside those of classic Pacific chroniclers like Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge—indeed, Burgin was even Sledge’s platoon sergeant. Here is a deeply moving account of World War II, bringing to life the hell that was the Pacific War.

Author: Michael Herr
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307814165
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
"The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

Author: Chuck Tatum
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0425257428
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
A story of heroism, friendship, and courage in World War 2—as seen in the award-winning HBO miniseries The Pacific. In 1944, the U.S. Marines were building the 5th Marine Division—also known as “The Spearhead”—in preparation for the invasion of the small, Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima... When Chuck Tatum began Marine boot camp, he was just a smart-aleck teenager eager to serve his country. Little did he know that he would be training under a living legend of the Corps—Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone, who had almost single-handedly fought off a Japanese force of three thousand on Guadalcanal. It was from Basilone and other sergeants that Tatum would learn how to fight like a Marine and act like a man—skills he would need when he hit the black sand of Iwo Jima with thirty thousand other Marines. Red Blood, Black Sand is the story of Chuck’s two weeks in hell, where he would watch his hero, Basilone, fall, where the enemy stalked the night, where snipers haunted the day, and where Chuck would see his friends whittled away in an eardrum-shattering, earth-shaking, meat grinder of a battle. This is the island, the heroes, and the tragedy of Iwo Jima—through the eyes of one who survived it.

Author: Dick Camp
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 1616732415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
One of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history, Operation Stalemate, as Peleliu was called, was overshadowed by the Normandy landings. It was also, in time, judged by most historians to have been unnecessary; though it had been conceived to protect MacArthur’s flank in the Philippines, the U.S. fleet’s carrier raids had eliminated Japanese airpower, rendering Peleliu irrelevant. Nevertheless, the horrifying number of casualties sustained there (71% in one battalion) foreshadowed for the rest of the war: rather than fight to the death on the beach, the Japanese would now defend in depth and bleed the Americans white. Drawing extensively on personal interviews, the Marine Corps History Division’s vast oral history and photographic collection, and many never-before-published sources, this book gives us a new and harrowing vision of what really happened at Peleliu--and what it meant. Working closely with two of the 1st Regiment’s battalion commanders--Ray Davis and Russ Honsowetz--Marine Corps veteran and military historian Dick Camp recreates the battle as it was experienced by the men and their officers. Soldiers who survived the terrible slaughter recall the brutality of combat against an implacable foe; they describe the legendary “Chesty” Puller, leading his decimated regiment against enemy fortifications; they tell of Davis, wounded but refusing evacuation while his men were under fire; and of a division commander who rejects Army reinforcements. Most of all, their richly detailed, deeply moving story is one of desperate combat in the face of almost certain failure, of valor among comrades joined against impossible odds.

Author: Richard Tregaskis
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780394862682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Unlike some of those on Guadalcanal in the fall of 1942, Richard Tregaskis volunteered to be there. An on-location news correspondent, he lived alongside the other soldiers: sleeping on the ground -- only to be awoken by air raids -- eating the at times meager rations, and braving some of the most dangerous battlefields of World War II. He more than once narrowly escaped the enemy's fire, and so we have this incisive and exciting inside account of the initial landing of U.S. troops on Guadalcanal -- the significance of which cannot be overstated, for as a colonel told Tregaskis on the eve of the invasion: "It's the first time in history we've ever had a huge expedition of this kind accompanied by transports. It's of world-wide importance. You'd be surprised if you knew how many people all over the world are following this". Our new edition of Guadalcanal Diary will allow the world to continue to follow this amazing story. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Author: Estate of Joseph H Alexander
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612511678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Marine combat veteran and award-winning military historian Joseph Alexander takes a fresh look at one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War. His gripping narrative, first published in 1995, has won him many prizes, with critics lauding his use of Japanese documents and his interpretation of the significance of what happened. The first trial by fire of America's fledgling amphibious assault doctrine, the violent three-day attack on Tarawa, a seemingly invincible Japanese island fortress of barely three hundred acres, left six thousand men dead. This book offers an authoritative account of the tactics, innovations, leadership, and weapons employed by both antagonists. Alexander convincingly argues that without the vital lessons of Tarawa the larger amphibious victories to come at Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa might not have been possible.

Author: William W. Rogal
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786455853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Chronicling the growth of a recruit from boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, to a seasoned troop leader, this memoir also relates the experiences of the 200 marines in A Company, First Battalion, Second Marines, as they engaged in island warfare in the South Pacific at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian.

Author: Chris Alice Kratzer
Publisher: Owlfly Publishing
ISBN: 1737892715
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
With over 400 pages and 900 full-color illustrations, The Social Wasps of North America is the world's first complete illustrated field guide to all known species of social wasps from the high arctic of Greenland and Alaska to the tropical forests of Panama and Grenada. For beginners, experts, and everyone in-between, The Social Wasps of North America provides new insights about some of the world’s least popular beneficial insects, plus tips and tricks to avoid painful stings. This book includes detailed information about the ecology, evolution, taxonomy, anatomy, nest architecture, and conservation of social wasp species. To purchase this book in softcover format, visit our website at OwlflyLLC.com/publications.