The inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFIC. It was a violent, primal hatred, characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific, like the palm trees and the islands... Landing on the beach of Peleliu in 1944 as a twenty-year-old recruit in the US Marines, Eugene Sledge desperately tries to survive. In Peleliu and Okinawa - two of the fiercest and dirtiest battles of World War II in the Pacific - he witnesses the dehumanizing barbarity shown by both sides and the animalistic hatred that each soldier has for his enemy. During temporary breaks in the fighting, the conditions on the islands mean that the Marines often cannot wash, stay dry, dig trenches, or even find time to eat. Suffering from constant fear, fatigue, and dirt, the struggle for simple survival in a combat zone is utterly exhausting. Nevertheless, despite the horrific conditions, Sledge finds time to take notes that he will later turn into a book. Described as one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war, entitled With the Old Breed, it recounts with compassion and honesty the ferocity, friendship, and deaths of the men he fought with, as well as his own journey from patriotic innocence to a soldier bearing the scars of war.
"Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who transforms the extreme situations of the Pacific War - the terror, the camaraderie, the mundane and the extraordinary - into terms we can understand" - Tom Hanks.
Pages: 352, Dimensions: 12.7x12.7cm
