Describe Books As With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
| Original Title: | With The Old Breed: At Peleliu And Okinawa |
| ISBN: | 0195067142 (ISBN13: 9780195067149) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Details Epithetical Books With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
| Title | : | With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa |
| Author | : | Eugene B. Sledge |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 326 pages |
| Published | : | October 25th 1990 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published November 1981) |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. War. Military Fiction. World War II. Military. Military History |
Relation In Pursuance Of Books With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
In his own book, Wartime, Paul Fussell called With the Old Breed "one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war." John Keegan referred to it in The Second World War as "one of the most arresting documents in war literature." And Studs Terkel was so fascinated with the story he interviewed its author for his book, "The Good War." What has made E.B. Sledge's memoir of his experience fighting in the South Pacific during World War II so devastatingly powerful is its sheer honest simplicity and compassion.Now including a new introduction by Paul Fussell, With the Old Breed presents a stirring, personal account of the vitality and bravery of the Marines in the battles at Peleliu and Okinawa. Born in Mobile, Alabama in 1923 and raised on riding, hunting, fishing, and a respect for history and legendary heroes such as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene Bondurant Sledge (later called "Sledgehammer" by his Marine Corps buddies) joined the Marines the year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and from 1943 to 1946 endured the events recorded in this book. In those years, he passed, often painfully, from innocence to experience.
Sledge enlisted out of patriotism, idealism, and youthful courage, but once he landed on the beach at Peleliu, it was purely a struggle for survival. Based on the notes he kept on slips of paper tucked secretly away in his New Testament, he simply and directly recalls those long months, mincing no words and sparing no pain. The reality of battle meant unbearable heat, deafening gunfire, unimaginable brutality and cruelty, the stench of death, and, above all, constant fear. Sledge still has nightmares about "the bloody, muddy month of May on Okinawa." But, as he also tellingly reveals, the bonds of friendship formed then will never be severed.
Sledge's honesty and compassion for the other marines, even complete strangers, sets him apart as a memoirist of war. Read as sobering history or as high adventure, With the Old Breed is a moving chronicle of action and courage.
Rating Epithetical Books With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
Ratings: 4.44 From 27445 Users | 1621 ReviewsComment On Epithetical Books With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
This is a great memoir if you want to understand what it was like to fight in the Pacific in WWII. It affected me very much as my reading of Norman Mailers The Naked and the Dead did when I first read that. I could feel the painthe dirt or worse yet on Peleliu the coral one couldnt dig intothe bad food and dirty water, dirty and wet clothes, the fear. Its painful to read though and if you wont want to know the gory details faced by young men barely out of school and inexperienced with the world,I am always drawn to historical accounts of the Marine Corps 5th Regiment from WWI to present. The best writings are usually through first hand accounts. E. B. Sledge served in 3/5 during WWII and managed to survive his entire tour without injury. Like a true Marine, Sledge possessed gifts and talents beyond fighting. Sledge kept a diary of information and when the war was over he put his skills to work and wrote a very fine piece full of emotion and personal endeavor. The book transcends WWII
A great read. Straight forward, not overly sentimental or harsh. Just a man who survived two of the worst battles in the Pacific telling us what happened. As I read it two things struck me. First, the invasion of Japan would have been the most costly battle in the history of mankind. There are problems with dropping the atomic bomb. After Nagasaki and Hiroshima the world was never the same. And as a Christian I am adamantly opposed to civilian deaths. But reading this book one begins to realize
I would give it six stars if I could. This was gripping. I have been reading military history all my life but I have never read anything quite like PVT Sledges first-hand account of his war experience as a member of a front-line infantry unit in the 3rd battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. I couldnt believe what I was listening to (It was an audio book.) This book is considered by many as the best first-hand account, battlefield memoir ever written and I cannot disagree.If you have ever
With the Old Breed should be required reading in our classrooms, for this is the brutal reality of war at its most horrific. No sensationalism here; E. B. Sledge merely tells it the way it was. There is no glory in war, in the shedding of another man's blood; in digging a foxhole in a torrential downpour only to uncover the badly decomposing body of a Japanese soldier crawling with maggots; in watching helplessly as four of your comrades retrieve, on a stretcher, a wounded Marine amid machinegun
Firsthand account of a Marine in the Pacific during World War II, Sledge's book is devastatingly unflinching in its examination of close quarters combat against a fearless and dedicated enemy. What did I learn from this book? Using nuclear weapons on Japan was not wrong but overdue.
This has become my favourite WWII memoir from the Allied side, and ironically it's all about the battlefront I know the least about: the island-hopping war in the Pacific.Being more familiar with the European theatre, I kept thinking that this memoir gives vibes of the Pacific as the United States's Eastern Front, because of the savagery, the suicide charges, the ignoring of basic combat conventions and decency, the futile targets, the shitty weather and shittier terrain, the long distanes, the
0 Comments:
Post a Comment