This is the first of several books that were required reading for my first WW II Studies course, and while only part was required – the portion on Okinawa, I read the entire thing since I was familiar with the author because he is one of the primary characters in the HBO miniseries The Pacific.
They were not wrong to focus on him. Sledge had a distinguished career as a college professor and only wrote what was initially intended as a private memoir for his family late in life, but he – like Alvin Keenan, who I’ve written about previously – puts his academic skills for writing to good use here, narrating how Marines were trained and how they fought in two of the worst battles of the war – Peleliu and Okinawa.
The book is rightly considered one of the best military memoirs of all time, and we’re fortunate that someone stared at the horrors of close combat over a prolonged period of time, and had the ability to explain to the rest of us what he saw.
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