Islands of the Damned

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

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.

The Book of the Damned

Author: Charles Fort
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1613106424
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
"Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort's Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you"--Taken from Good Reads website.

Hell in the Pacific

Author: Jim McEnery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451659148
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horror McErery’s Rifle Company—the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific—fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnery’s story is a no-holds-barred, grunt’s-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.

You'll Be Sor-ree!

Author: Sid Phillips
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0425246299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Sid Phillips, a World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific, offers up an invaluable firsthand account of the war against Japan. A mortarman with H-2-1 of the legendary 1st Marine Division, Sid was only seventeen years old when he entered combat with the Japanese. Some two years later, when he returned home, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned Sid into an "Old Timer" by Marine standards, and more: he left as a boy, but came home a man. These are his memoirs, the humble and candid tales that Sid collected during a Pacific odyssey spanning half the globe, from the grueling boot camp at Parris Island, to the coconut groves of Guadalcanal, to the romantic respite of Australia. Sid recalls his encounters with icons like Chesty Puller, General Vandergrift, Eleanor Roosevelt, and his boyhood friend, Eugene Sledge. He remembers the rain of steel from Japanese bombers and battleships, the brutality of the tropical elements, and the haunting notion of being expendable. This is the story of how Sid stood shoulder to shoulder with his Marine brothers to discover the inner strength and deep faith necessary to survive the dark, early days, of World War II in the Pacific.

Voices of the Pacific

Author: Adam Makos
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0425257835
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead and A Higher Call comes an unflinching, brutal, and relentless firsthand chronicle of United States Marine Corps' actions in the Pacific during World War 2. Following fifteen Marines from the Pearl Harbor attack, through battles with the Japanese, to their return home after V-J Day, Adam Makos and Marcus Brotherton have compiled an oral history of the Pacific War in the words of the men who fought on the front lines. With unflinching honesty, these Marines reveal harrowing accounts of combat with an implacable enemy, the friendships and camaraderie they found--and lost--and the aftermath of the war's impact on their lives. With unprecedented access to the veterans, rare photographs, and unpublished memoirs, Voices of the Pacific presents true stories of heroism as told by such World War II veterans as Sid Phillips, R. V. Burgin, and Chuck Tatum--whose exploits were featured in the HBO(R) miniseries, The Pacific--and their Marine buddies from the legendary 1st Marine Division. Includes rare photos

Battalion of the Damned

Author: James F. Christ
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description
Based primarily on interviews with the marines who were there, this volume reconstructs the six weeks spent in the Pacific theater of World War II by the First Marine Parachute Division. One of the prime impetuses for the volume is to highlight the neglected, yet extremely costly, contributions made by the division to the assault on Guadalcanal in

Battleground Pacific

Author: Sterling Mace
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250009774
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
Battleground Pacific is a powerfully wrought military memoir by a member of World War II's fabled 1st Marine division. Sterling Mace's unit was the legendary "K-3-5" (for Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment of the 1st Marine Division) and his story takes readers through some of the most intense action of the Pacific War, from the seldom-seen perspective of a rifleman at the point of attack. Battleground Pacific is filled with indelible moments that begin with his childhood growing up in Queens, New York, and his run-in with the law that eventually led to his enlistment. But this is ultimately a combat tale—as violent and harrowing as any that has come before. From fighting through the fiery hell that was Peleliu to the deadly battleground of Okinawa, Mace traces his path from the fear of combat to understanding that killing another human comes just as easily as staying alive. He learns that bravery often equates to stupidity, leading to the death of close friends, but also that life goes on, with death on its heels. Battleground Pacific is one of the most important and entertaining memoirs about the Pacific theater in WWII.

Marine at War

Author: Russell G. Davis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Biography of a Marine in WWII.

Okinawa

Author: Robert Leckie
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101196297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
Penguin delivers you to the front lines of The Pacific Theater with the real-life stories behind the HBO miniseries. Former Marine and Pacific War veteran Robert Leckie tells the story of the invasion of Okinawa, the closing battle of World War II. Leckie is a skilled military historian, mixing battle strategy and analysis with portraits of the men who fought on both sides to give the reader a complete account of the invasion. Lasting 83 days and surpassing D-Day in both troops and material used, the Battle of Okinawa was a decisive victory for the Allies, and a huge blow to Japan. In this stirring and readable account, Leckie provides a complete picture of the battle and its context in the larger war.

Earned in Blood

Author: Thurman Miller
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 9781250048639
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Born in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia in 1919, Thurman Miller was the sixteenth of eighteen children in a family so poor, the local coal miner's kids looked down on them. His father was a subsistence farmer and it was rare for the Miller family to have enough food for everyone. But for Thurman, Appalachia was not just a region: it was a culture, a frame of mind, a being. Fighting, playing, and hiding in the hills would soon serve him well. In 1940 he enlisted and served in World War II with the legendary unit K-3-5 of the First Marine Division. He was involved in some of the most horrific and famous battles in the Pacific Theater, including Guadalcanal and New Britain, where as Gunny Sergeant he sent men to their deaths and narrowly escaped it himself. From harrowing battlefield experiences to the loss of comrades, his powerful combat experiences would stay with him forever. Upon returning stateside, he taught at the prestigious Officer Candidate School at Camp Lejeune, preparing young officers for the horrific battles to come on Okinawa and Iwo Jima. After the war, suffering badly from the malaria and other diseases he contracted in the Pacific and unable to find work, Miller took a job in the coal mines in his home state of West Virginia, where he toiled in darkness for thirty-seven years. The blackness of the mines fed the terrors he lived with since the battlefield and the backbreaking labor ate away at his already compromised body. Bowed but unbroken, Miller survived because of his strength and lifelong devotion to his beloved wife of sixty-five years—a relationship that shines brightly in this distinctly American journey. With uncommon wisdom, intelligence, and humility, this member of the Greatest Generation spins a gripping tale through peace and war, work and family, love and redemption across ten tumultuous decades.