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Brotherhood of Heroes: The Marines at Peleliu, 1944--The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War
This Band of Brothers for the Pacific is the gut-wrenching and ultimately triumphant story of the Marines' most ferocious—yet largely forgotten—battle of World War II.
Between September 15 and October 15, 1944, the First Marine Division suffered more than 6,500 casualties fighting on a hellish little coral island in the Pacific. Peleliu was the setting for one of the most savage struggles of modern times, a true killing ground that has been all but forgotten—until now. Drawing on interviews with Peleliu veterans, Bill Sloan's gripping narrative seamlessly weaves together the experiences of the men who were there, producing a vivid and unflinching tableau of the twenty-four-hour-a-day nightmare of Peleliu.
Emotionally moving and gripping in its depictions of combat, Brotherhood of Heroes rescues the Corps's bloodiest battle from obscurity and does honor to the Marines who fought it.
Between September 15 and October 15, 1944, the First Marine Division suffered more than 6,500 casualties fighting on a hellish little coral island in the Pacific. Peleliu was the setting for one of the most savage struggles of modern times, a true killing ground that has been all but forgotten—until now. Drawing on interviews with Peleliu veterans, Bill Sloan's gripping narrative seamlessly weaves together the experiences of the men who were there, producing a vivid and unflinching tableau of the twenty-four-hour-a-day nightmare of Peleliu.
Emotionally moving and gripping in its depictions of combat, Brotherhood of Heroes rescues the Corps's bloodiest battle from obscurity and does honor to the Marines who fought it.
400 pages, Paperback
First published May 9, 2005
About the author
Bill Sloan
29 books41 followersBill Sloan is a respected military historian, former newspaper reporter/editor and author of more than a dozen books, including Brotherhood of Heroes: The Ultimate Battle. He lives in Dallas, Texas
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
September 4, 2022
Avoid this book like it were a diseased and festering fly encrusted corpse.
The author seemed to use primarily secondary sources for this work. I can’t tell if he plagiarized, but he didn’t appear to find any original work or base any of it on personal interviews. There is little here that can’t be found in previous works on the battle of Pelelieu...and as I show below, there is much that won’t be found in ANY decent account.
Curse me for my nerdiness, but the American tanks on Pelelieu didn’t have 37 mm guns, which he says at one point they had. Later he upgrades it to the more appropriate 75 mm. Nor did the anti-tank units have 35 mm guns (which didn’t exist in the U.S. inventory). They had 37 mm guns. Technical errors like that always chafe me. It betrays the failure of an author to do a deep dive into the military equipment used in the conflict written about.
Sloan gets the combat chronology screwed up on more than one occasion. Swede Hansen gets injured in the right shoulder and arm by mortar fragments before the attack on “The Point”. Then he gets injured in the right arm and shoulder during the the battle for “The Point” by mortar fragments. Hansen didn’t get injured twice in the same exact fashion.
I was all set to be generous and give this book a three star review until about five minutes ago. Note that I listened to the unabridged audio version. While driving along in my car and listening to the book on my phone, I heard the author describe an infiltration of the rear lines of K co, 3/5 during their assault of the fortified ridges of the island. He wrote of the Japanese infiltrators:
“Most of them wore ‘tabi’, the notorious black pajamas that made them next to invisible at night.”
I started cursing, and pulled over in a church parking lot to write this. This single sentence above shows that Sloan is a hack writer and failure as a researcher or responsible pop historian. He’s either ignorant, or making stuff up, or both. Given that he wrote for “The National Enquirer”, I’d say the latter.
‘Tabi” are a split toe sneaker. You can buy them on Amazon and see them in wartime pictures of Imperial Japanese soldiers. Japanese troops didn’t use “black pajamas” in World War Two or at any other time preceding the Pacific conflict. Sloan either imagines them to he Ninjas, or confuses them with the Viet Cong. If the latter, he’s off by a quarter of a century and describing Communist revolutionaries in a different war and a different country.
In describing the death of 1st Lieutenant Ed Jones, Sloan takes the perspective of an omniscient narrator, telling the reader some of what Jones was thinking and doing in the hours before his death. There is no way he could have known any of this. This is supposed to be a work of nonfiction. Authorial license doesn’t extend to inserting fiction to flesh out a story line or to achieve dramatic effect.
With mistakes like these, how can I trust anything that he writes?
From what I can tell Sloan based some of this on personal interviews. Audiobooks have the disadvantage of not listing sources. If so, and if he did the interviews himself, then that is possibly the one redeeming feature of this book.
Part of why I’m so incensed is that I served with the 5th Regiment of the First Marine Division in the early ‘80’s. My father served with the 3rd Marine Division on Guam and Bougainville. World War II Marine history has always been a passion of mine. Mistakes like these hit a nerve with me.
There are so many better works on this battle that are written by both popular historians and professional historians. Some of them Sloan quotes directly. Don’t waste your time with this book when those authors are available. Read Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge, Derrick Wright, Jim Moran and Gordon Rottman and others.
The author seemed to use primarily secondary sources for this work. I can’t tell if he plagiarized, but he didn’t appear to find any original work or base any of it on personal interviews. There is little here that can’t be found in previous works on the battle of Pelelieu...and as I show below, there is much that won’t be found in ANY decent account.
Curse me for my nerdiness, but the American tanks on Pelelieu didn’t have 37 mm guns, which he says at one point they had. Later he upgrades it to the more appropriate 75 mm. Nor did the anti-tank units have 35 mm guns (which didn’t exist in the U.S. inventory). They had 37 mm guns. Technical errors like that always chafe me. It betrays the failure of an author to do a deep dive into the military equipment used in the conflict written about.
Sloan gets the combat chronology screwed up on more than one occasion. Swede Hansen gets injured in the right shoulder and arm by mortar fragments before the attack on “The Point”. Then he gets injured in the right arm and shoulder during the the battle for “The Point” by mortar fragments. Hansen didn’t get injured twice in the same exact fashion.
I was all set to be generous and give this book a three star review until about five minutes ago. Note that I listened to the unabridged audio version. While driving along in my car and listening to the book on my phone, I heard the author describe an infiltration of the rear lines of K co, 3/5 during their assault of the fortified ridges of the island. He wrote of the Japanese infiltrators:
“Most of them wore ‘tabi’, the notorious black pajamas that made them next to invisible at night.”
I started cursing, and pulled over in a church parking lot to write this. This single sentence above shows that Sloan is a hack writer and failure as a researcher or responsible pop historian. He’s either ignorant, or making stuff up, or both. Given that he wrote for “The National Enquirer”, I’d say the latter.
‘Tabi” are a split toe sneaker. You can buy them on Amazon and see them in wartime pictures of Imperial Japanese soldiers. Japanese troops didn’t use “black pajamas” in World War Two or at any other time preceding the Pacific conflict. Sloan either imagines them to he Ninjas, or confuses them with the Viet Cong. If the latter, he’s off by a quarter of a century and describing Communist revolutionaries in a different war and a different country.
In describing the death of 1st Lieutenant Ed Jones, Sloan takes the perspective of an omniscient narrator, telling the reader some of what Jones was thinking and doing in the hours before his death. There is no way he could have known any of this. This is supposed to be a work of nonfiction. Authorial license doesn’t extend to inserting fiction to flesh out a story line or to achieve dramatic effect.
With mistakes like these, how can I trust anything that he writes?
From what I can tell Sloan based some of this on personal interviews. Audiobooks have the disadvantage of not listing sources. If so, and if he did the interviews himself, then that is possibly the one redeeming feature of this book.
Part of why I’m so incensed is that I served with the 5th Regiment of the First Marine Division in the early ‘80’s. My father served with the 3rd Marine Division on Guam and Bougainville. World War II Marine history has always been a passion of mine. Mistakes like these hit a nerve with me.
There are so many better works on this battle that are written by both popular historians and professional historians. Some of them Sloan quotes directly. Don’t waste your time with this book when those authors are available. Read Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge, Derrick Wright, Jim Moran and Gordon Rottman and others.
February 11, 2015
This book was a pleasure to read from start to finnish.
Bill sloan does an excellent job of combining first-hand-accounts with his own narrative of this battle,a battle that cost the lifes of countless men on both sides.
If your looking for a well written book on the battle of Peleliu then this book is a must.
Bill sloan does an excellent job of combining first-hand-accounts with his own narrative of this battle,a battle that cost the lifes of countless men on both sides.
If your looking for a well written book on the battle of Peleliu then this book is a must.
August 1, 2012
I found a number of errors in the book, but they weren't so bad as to distract from the story. And the author refers to MOH recipients as 'winners', and calls the medal, incorrectly, the 'Congressional Medal of Honor'. Both of these errors are surprising from an author that spent as much time as he did with Marines.
One of the other unusual aspects of this book was the overt criticism of Chesty Puller. While battlefield decisions can certainly be looked back upon as incorrect at times, this author seems to put selfish motives into the mind of Puller and his commanding officer. I've read a lot on Puller and have never found any who were close to him that thought that way about him. I think this author stepped beyond reality, likely based on the feelings a one or a few Marines who had something against Puller and found this author a way to voice that animosity.
One of the other unusual aspects of this book was the overt criticism of Chesty Puller. While battlefield decisions can certainly be looked back upon as incorrect at times, this author seems to put selfish motives into the mind of Puller and his commanding officer. I've read a lot on Puller and have never found any who were close to him that thought that way about him. I think this author stepped beyond reality, likely based on the feelings a one or a few Marines who had something against Puller and found this author a way to voice that animosity.
August 31, 2014
Well it’s summary doesn’t exaggerate the contents of the book. Its relatively straight forward it was cool to see how Americans troops advanced toward the Japanese in WWll. With the mostly fast overtaking of islands within Japans control, casualties were less than expected. Until D-day came around where in quote of the book “was an unnecessary bloodbath.” Although in reading this book the capture of the island “Peleliu” deemed to be a strategic standpoint for the victory of the War.
The detail in the book is extraordinary, Bill must of had to sit down and interview with each of his platoon members to get all these different P.O.V’s. I also like how he explains the strategies and objectives to complete for each island being advanced on. The distinguishing of how you earned the respect of your division was not only for the rest of the war but the rest of your life was a very wise point that i’ll take away from this book.
The detail in the book is extraordinary, Bill must of had to sit down and interview with each of his platoon members to get all these different P.O.V’s. I also like how he explains the strategies and objectives to complete for each island being advanced on. The distinguishing of how you earned the respect of your division was not only for the rest of the war but the rest of your life was a very wise point that i’ll take away from this book.
March 10, 2020
After spending a few weeks reading the top rated Pacific Front memoirs, I wanted to take a broader look at one of the major battlegrounds of the WWII Pacific campaign. Sloan expertly lays out the key points of the battle, including the masterminds, the plan, and the execution of the invasion. Readers receive a clear understanding of the battle for Peleliu and its attendant challenges and tragedies. My only criticism is that when attempting to make the story of the Peleliu invasion more personal, he borrows a bit too heavily from Sledge's With the Old Breed.
April 27, 2014
this is by far one of the best books on the pacific war and the Marines who fought there. it focuses on the battle of Pelelui and the First Marine Division. there are some familiar Marines in the book for anybody who has seen the HBO mini-series The Pacific or read the book by Hugh Ambrose of the same name. Eugene Sledge, RV Burgin, Merrial "Snafu" Shelton, etc etc. Whats great is it isnt a rehashing of other books like some of the newer WW2 books can be at times. I literally got 10 pages in went to bed, got up the next day (Sunday) and read the rest of it straight through. I would recommend this book to anybody trying to get a taste or understand what it was like to fight in the Pacific in the later but bloodier battles of the island hopping campaign. Bill Sloan nailed it.
May 15, 2011
Well written and well researched. Although I am a WWII buff I really didn't know much about Peleliu. Probably because it was next to unnecessary to win the overall war, but that didn't make it any less real for those who fought there. I am always amazed at the difference in attitude with the Marines during WWII and what I read of the modern wars. There was so much honor in WWII, though they hated the Japanese for their atrocities yet they respected them as warriors and understood that the common foot solder was under command just as they were.
September 13, 2019
Sloan seems to have carefully researched the entirety of what is known of this battle in the Pacific. He does start of with a claim that the battle likely need not have been fought, only to later raise the issue as an open question worthy of further research. There seem to have any number of heroic acts on the parts of numerous Marines. Chesty Puller seems to have been placed in Sloan's cross hairs for some of his actions that may, of may not, have been responsible for any number of mistakes on the battlefield - I think I'll leave that assessment for others. For real diehard Marine buffs this work is probably necessary.
March 26, 2018
Wow, I knew the battle of Peleliu was terrible, but this book really shows just how terrible it was. Those guys endured extreme heat, no water, Japanese ambushes from all directions, and egotistical senior leadership that kept them in the fight longer than they needed to be.
Brotherhood of Heroes is a fantastic book about the battle. You will come away with a greater appreciation for anyone who served in the Pacific War.
Brotherhood of Heroes is a fantastic book about the battle. You will come away with a greater appreciation for anyone who served in the Pacific War.
April 27, 2018
About half of the book consists of conversations that took place on Peleliu in 1944. While the overall gist was--I am sure--accurate, such an abundance of conversations in which the actual words are forever lost to history to me seemed contrived. Clearly the author interviewed a great number of veterans and that is easy to appreciate in the book, but I think the story would have been better told to have been left as simply third person narrative.
June 25, 2020
A well researched volume, easy to read and tough to put down. I enjoyed some of the names he mentioned as I had heard the names before from books they wrote. It squarely takes the popular concept that Peleliu was a waste of a good Marine Division. Peleliu was never used after the invasion. I really appreciate the Epilogue at the end of the book, telling what happened to many of the Marines who were in the battle.
July 28, 2020
Although not limited to a single company, this book read very much like 'Band of Brothers' in that one gets to know many of the soldiers involved. Having read 'With the Old Breed', I enjoyed getting to know many characters Sledge described, including Sledge himself, from a different perspective. I cannot imagine what being there felt like, but got a detailed glimpse from this well-written account.
September 5, 2018
Vividly portrayed the massive loss of our military at Peleliu. Shocking.
September 2, 2019
Brilliant, could get a very real understanding of what these men went through.
September 17, 2021
Moving almost beyond words.
August 21, 2024
Grateful
Bill Sloan reps the fighting men seamlessly. I really enjoyed & am grateful to all those that fought for our freedom. Pelrliu will be remembered.
Bill Sloan reps the fighting men seamlessly. I really enjoyed & am grateful to all those that fought for our freedom. Pelrliu will be remembered.
October 22, 2017
I appreciated being able to understand more of WWII history. Very descriptive, graphic, and quite detailed. The descriptions of the soldiers were sometimes heartbreaking because of their outcomes, especially after feeling like I knew them.
May 23, 2010
This is one of those World War II books that _almost_ reaches the level of a "Time For Trumpets." It's an excellent history of a piece of the war, giving the reader a firm idea of what went on during the operation and its place in the broader course of the war. Sloan also lets you get to know a number of the Marines personally, with insights into their personalities and quirks, whether they survived the battle or not. In this way you get a much better feel for the eb and flow of the fighting, as well as the magnitude of the sacrifice America made by leaving some of these extraordinary men buried under the sand and coral of an insignificant atoll in the middle of the Pacific.
I have two complaints about the book, one large and one small. The small one is that it focuses on the operations of the Marines on Peleliu, which admittedly was probably necessary in order to keep the book at a manageable 350 pages. It would have been nice to know a little more about the role of the Navy, air assets, and especially the Army, but I say that because I had an uncle in the Army in the Pacific and I'm sensitive to the fact that too often his unit was called on to mop up after the main fighting was over.
My larger complaint--predictably, for those of you who know me--regards the scarcity of maps. In the edition I read, there is an opening map of the whole Pacific so that you can find Peleliu in relation to, say, the Philippines, whose invasion it was meant to support, and Pavuvu in the Solomons, which the 1st Marine Division called its home away from home. The only other map is one of the Umurbrogal Pocket, which was the site of the main fighting in the later stages of the campaign. Amazingly, there was no map of Peleliu as a whole, showing the invasion beaches that are discussed at length in the text. The book would also benefit greatly from an organization chart showing the First, Fifth, and Seventh Marine Regiments, and where the men followed in the text fit into those organizations.
I have two complaints about the book, one large and one small. The small one is that it focuses on the operations of the Marines on Peleliu, which admittedly was probably necessary in order to keep the book at a manageable 350 pages. It would have been nice to know a little more about the role of the Navy, air assets, and especially the Army, but I say that because I had an uncle in the Army in the Pacific and I'm sensitive to the fact that too often his unit was called on to mop up after the main fighting was over.
My larger complaint--predictably, for those of you who know me--regards the scarcity of maps. In the edition I read, there is an opening map of the whole Pacific so that you can find Peleliu in relation to, say, the Philippines, whose invasion it was meant to support, and Pavuvu in the Solomons, which the 1st Marine Division called its home away from home. The only other map is one of the Umurbrogal Pocket, which was the site of the main fighting in the later stages of the campaign. Amazingly, there was no map of Peleliu as a whole, showing the invasion beaches that are discussed at length in the text. The book would also benefit greatly from an organization chart showing the First, Fifth, and Seventh Marine Regiments, and where the men followed in the text fit into those organizations.
August 13, 2012
What I find interesting in this book (one of several by Bill Sloan reviewed) is the common thread with this and of Pacific memiors. Heroes like Eugene Sledge, "SNAFU" Shelton (With the Old Breed), Andy "Ack Ack" Haldane and R.V. Burgin. All of these men appear in several histories of the Marines in the Pacific. Together their stories lay the foundation for endurance, courage and love for their "buddies" that to this day, just seems impossible to put into a modern context.
The battle for Peleliu was strategically unnecessary. We know that only from hindsight. At the time, it was the correct decision. Would the war have changed or been lengthened if Nimitz had bypassed Peleliu? I do not believe so. Still, the narrative of what was projected to be a four day cake walk transforming into a month plus battle is harrowing on its most benign days.
I like Bill Sloan, like this book and feel like I know Sledgehammer, SNAFU, Ack Ack and Hillbilly Jones. Through their own books (with the exception of Haldane and Jones, who did not survive the Peleliu campaign) and HBO's Pacific mini-series, these men are elevated beyond citizen soldiers to icons around which the story World War II in the Pacific is handed down to future generations. To me, that seems right.
The battle for Peleliu was strategically unnecessary. We know that only from hindsight. At the time, it was the correct decision. Would the war have changed or been lengthened if Nimitz had bypassed Peleliu? I do not believe so. Still, the narrative of what was projected to be a four day cake walk transforming into a month plus battle is harrowing on its most benign days.
I like Bill Sloan, like this book and feel like I know Sledgehammer, SNAFU, Ack Ack and Hillbilly Jones. Through their own books (with the exception of Haldane and Jones, who did not survive the Peleliu campaign) and HBO's Pacific mini-series, these men are elevated beyond citizen soldiers to icons around which the story World War II in the Pacific is handed down to future generations. To me, that seems right.
November 24, 2010
In the early 1990s, I met an old US Marine who came in every day for coffee, and to flirt with the waitresses at the restaurant where I worked. He didn't talk about his service, but he had lots of faded Corps tattoos on his wrinkled, weathered arms, and he always wore an old fatigue cap.
When I asked about his service one afternoon, he said in a low, gravelly voice, "yeah, I was on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Okinawa..." or something like that, naming several tough, major combat operations in the island hopping Pacific campaign. He then looked far away for a moment, and said quietly, "That was a bad war", trailing off.
Those five words spoke volumes, and I knew better than to ask anything else, but for those interested, Sloan's book digs deep into the reasons the war in the Pacific was such "a bad war", and why we have much to be thankful for, as regards the service and sacrifices of our vets.
This book is fascinating military history, and good storytelling, with a useful side commentary on leadership. The writing is good, and the book is well researched. If you ever think you're having a 'bad day' this gives perspective.
When I asked about his service one afternoon, he said in a low, gravelly voice, "yeah, I was on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Okinawa..." or something like that, naming several tough, major combat operations in the island hopping Pacific campaign. He then looked far away for a moment, and said quietly, "That was a bad war", trailing off.
Those five words spoke volumes, and I knew better than to ask anything else, but for those interested, Sloan's book digs deep into the reasons the war in the Pacific was such "a bad war", and why we have much to be thankful for, as regards the service and sacrifices of our vets.
This book is fascinating military history, and good storytelling, with a useful side commentary on leadership. The writing is good, and the book is well researched. If you ever think you're having a 'bad day' this gives perspective.
June 15, 2012
This book was read in conjunction with EB Sledge's memoir, With the Old Breed. Sloan’s book focused exclusively on the battle of Peleliu. Peleliu, a battle now deemed unnecessary, was part of MacArthur’s plan to win back the Philippines. Individuals interviewed in Sloan’s book and cited in Sledge’s memoir state that Peleliu was worse than anything in the First World War or Iwo Jima in the Second World War. The coral island was honeycombed with caves and bunkers filled with Japanese unwilling to cede an inch of ground (and who stayed sheltered and harder to kill than they were at Guadalcanal where they charged in waves of banzai attacks). The book gives many firsthand, on-the-ground accounts; mostly from the eyes of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (of which is Sledge was a part (Reading the two books at the same time was interesting to see how Sloan used Sledge’s statements in his memoirs.). While nowhere near the quality of writing found in Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, this was a good book.
September 12, 2022
This is a no holds barred account of the savage fighting that the U.S. Marines First Division known as the Old Breed encountered in their struggle for the corral island of Peleliu. The Marines were told before the invasion that it would be a brief, intense three day struggle that lasted six weeks and inflicted severe casualties that rendered the three infantry regiments of the division not fit for further combat. The Japanese on Peleliu had adopted a new defensive strategy for the first time with a system of interlocking caves dug into the coral. Their mission was to fight to the death and to take 10 Marines with them for every Japanese soldier's life. Peleliu was a foreshadow of what was to later occur on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. To this day historians question whether this attack was warranted as the strategic value of Peleliu was minimal at best. Peleliu taught the Marines that survived the battle and later fought on Okinawa how to fight against the new Japanese defensive system.
March 20, 2013
This was a remarkable book that provided details of a vicious battle for a needless island strategically for the USMC in 1944. Filled with all the horror of Iwo Jima, fought savagely for this rocky island and it took much longer than originally anticipated to defeat the Japanese forces there. Sloan gave some impressive details that on many factors that affected forces in this long battle. One of the most interesting was the cleaning of the oil drums Pavuvu that was done improperly and were later filled with "drinking" water for Marines at Peleliu and ultimately made them very sick. It was a good book to read and supplements a lot of what I saw on the HBO The Pacific series that dealt with Peleliu. A solid 4 star.
May 23, 2022
I really enjoyed reading this book. I read this book a little while back and initially given it 4-stars, but just upped it to 5-starts. The initial impact of the book was subtle but I often find my mind drifting back to the stories told in this book. This is the kind of book that adds perspective and reminds me that my problems really aren't so bad.
While I wouldn't think to put it in the self-help category, it certainly has helped put my problems into perspective. The stories are intimate, but they all tie back together into a cohesive storyline. The sheer brutality of the battle is both terrifying and awe inspiring.
While I wouldn't think to put it in the self-help category, it certainly has helped put my problems into perspective. The stories are intimate, but they all tie back together into a cohesive storyline. The sheer brutality of the battle is both terrifying and awe inspiring.
June 30, 2011
Bill Sloan's book has the perfect tone which allows both casual readers and serious academics to engage in the stories and history of the Marines at Peleliu. Anyone who's watched HBO's The Pacific will known many of the subjects by name, but Sloan's book provides greater background in history not present in the memoirs of E. B. Sledge and R.V. Burgin.
The book tells the story of the battle well from both an academic and human interest perspective. This book is one of the first I suggest to anyone more intereted in learning about K/3/5.
The book tells the story of the battle well from both an academic and human interest perspective. This book is one of the first I suggest to anyone more intereted in learning about K/3/5.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2014
This was awesome. Because the battle of Peleliu was so small it's told mainly from soldiers on the ground but also manages to give you an overall picture of the battle. Getting to know people and then having them die and their friends reactions is really sad. Made me tear up and realize how terrible war truly is. Bill Sloan's prose was also terrific.
August 10, 2010
So moving! So emotional! Oh so real! Books like this break my heart for everyone that was there are true heros and should be honored much more than they are!!! All stories of war hit me deep and eats a bit of me that I can't get back! As it should be!
August 27, 2014
Great book.
Subject is a little known campaign in the Pacific that was as brutal, if not more, as anything else American troops did in the second World War.
Insightful, touching, heartbreaking, sad. Every emotion is covered in this important book.
Subject is a little known campaign in the Pacific that was as brutal, if not more, as anything else American troops did in the second World War.
Insightful, touching, heartbreaking, sad. Every emotion is covered in this important book.
May 23, 2016
This book, like "With The Old Breed," paints as real a life a reader can imagine of the hell US Marines found themselves in the Pacific Campaign of WWII. It seeks to paint a picture of the fear, the brotherhood, and the selfless existence to save other's lives that the young marines experienced.
October 12, 2015
A decent enough job of reporting the stories of participants in the battle of Peleliu, but completely bereft of original ideas. What analysis there is comes second-hand, without any critical review of his sources.
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