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Review
"The best personal account of World War II. Sledge never loses sight of the honor and the glory of war. Excellent in all respects."--Kevin S. Fontenot, Tulane University

"I feel like I should have a campaign ribbon for Pelelin and Okinawa. I have shared the fox hole. I have felt the heat. It is the closest thing to being there. After reading the book my buddies in K-3-5 are real. It has to be among the best works of its kind. The forgotten soldiers tell one story. These Marines are remembered,"--William J. Ikeriran, Univ. of North Alabama

"The book is a superb supplementary text for any American survey course or class on World War Two."--Daniel P. Murphy, Hanover College

"It is a fine text to use for WWII--and for combat studies."--Perce C. Mullen, Montana State Univ.

"Classic....Should be required reading for all students, especially now that we are once again unleashing the dogs of war."--John F. Cox, University of Arizona

"In what may be his finest feat as a critic, Fussell introduces the reader to a hitherto unsung but remarkable author named Eugene B. Sledge....This book richly merits a wider audience....The searing honesty of [Sledge's] words makes them...a fitting epitaph for the ordeal that began in Danzig fifty years ago."--Newsweek

"One of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war."--Paul Fussell, in Wartime

"Among the thousands of soldiers' stories, I am haunted by one from the Pacific War....[Sledge's account is] one of the most arresting documents in war literature."--John Keegan, in The Second World War

"Although rendering his war experiences is "painful," the effort to bring them to the "folks back home" is ultimately worthwhile if not necessary....In every word appear Sledge's urgency of purpose, the immediacy of his experience of war, and the mark of that on his character. I am not alone in claiming this memoir to be the most comprehensive--and scathing, compelling, sorrow-laden--rendering of the marine infantryman's experience in World War II."--Sewanee Review

"One of the most important personal accounts of war that I have ever read. I believe that it will become a classic, and will be read and cited as long as the Pacific campaign is remembered."--John Keegan

About the Author

E.B. Sledge, who served in the First Marine Division in World War II, is now Professor of Biology at the University of Montevallo in Alabama.
Paul Fussell, Donald T. Regan Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of many books, including The Great War and Modern Memory and Wartime.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
Making of a Marine

I enlisted in the Marine Corps on 3 December 1942 at
Marion, Alabama. At the time I was a freshman at Marion
Military Institute. My parents and brother Edward had urged
me to stay in college as long as possible in order to qualify for
a commission in some technical branch of the U.S. Army.
But, prompted by a deep feeling of uneasiness that the war
might end before I could get overseas into combat, I wanted
to enlist in the Marine Corps as soon as possible. Ed, a
Citadel graduate and a second lieutenant in the army, suggested
life would be more beautiful for me as an officer.
Mother and Father were mildly distraught at the thought of
me in the Marines as an enlisted man–that is, “cannon fodder.”
So when a Marine recruiting team came to Marion Institute,
I compromised and signed up for one of the Corps’ new
officer training programs. It was called V-12.
The recruiting sergeant wore dress blue trousers, a khaki
shirt, necktie, and white barracks hat. His shoes had a shine
the likes of which I’d never seen. He asked me lots of questions
and filled out numerous official papers. When he asked,
“Any scars, birthmarks, or other unusual features?” I described
an inch-long scar on my right knee. I asked why such
a question. He replied, “So they can identify you on some Pacific
beach after the Japs blast off your dog tags.” This was
my introduction to the stark realism that characterized the
Marine Corps I later came to know.
The college year ended the last week of May 1943. I had
the month of June at home in Mobile before I had to report 1
July for duty at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
I enjoyed the train trip from Mobile to Atlanta because the
train had a steam engine. The smoke smelled good, and the
whistle added a plaintive note reminiscent of an unhurried
life. The porters were impressed and most solicitous when I
told them, with no little pride, that I was on my way to becoming
a Marine. My official Marine Corps meal ticket got me a
large, delicious shrimp salad in the dining car and the admiring
glances of the steward in attendance.
On my arrival in Atlanta, a taxi deposited me at Georgia
Tech, where the 180-man Marine detachment lived in Harrison
Dormitory. Recruits were scheduled to attend classes
year round (in my case, about two years), graduate, and then
go to the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, for officers’
training.
A Marine regular, Capt. Donald Payzant, was in charge.
He had served with the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal.
Seeming to glory in his duty and his job as our commander,
he loved the Corps and was salty and full of swagger. Looking
back, I realize now that he had survived the meat grinder
of combat and was simply glad to be in one piece with the
good fortune of being stationed at a peaceful college campus.
Life at Georgia Tech was easy and comfortable. In short,
we didn’t know there was a war going on. Most of the college
courses were dull and uninspiring. Many of the professors
openly resented our presence. It was all but impossible to
concentrate on academics. Most of us felt we had joined the
Marines to fight, but here we were college boys again. The
situation was more than many of us could stand. At the end of
the first semester, ninety of us–half of the detachment–
flunked out of school so we could go into the Corps as enlisted
men.
When the navy officer in charge of academic affairs called
me in to question me about my poor academic performance, I
told him I hadn’t joined the Marine Corps to sit out the war in
college. He was sympathetic to the point of being fatherly
and said he would feel the same way if he were in my place.
Captain Payzant gave the ninety of us a pep talk in front of
the dormitory the morning we were to board the train for boot
camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California.
He told us we were the best men and the best Marines in
the detachment. He said he admired our spirit for wanting to
get into the war. I think he was sincere.
After the pep talk, buses took us to the railway station. We
sang and cheered the whole way. We were on our way to war
at last. If we had only known what lay ahead of us!
Approximately two and a half years later, I came back
through the Atlanta railway station on my way home. Shortly
after I stepped off the car for a stroll, a young army infantryman
walked up to me and shook hands. He said he had noticed
my 1st Marine Division patch and the campaign ribbons
on my chest and wondered if I had fought at Peleliu. When I
said I had, he told me he just wanted to express his undying
admiration for men of the 1st Marine Division.
He had fought with the 81st Infantry Division (Wildcats),
which had come in to help us at Peleliu.* He was a machine
gunner, had been hit by Japanese fire on Bloody Nose Ridge,
and was abandoned by his army comrades. He knew he
would either die of his wounds or be cut up by the Japanese
when darkness fell. Risking their lives, some Marines had
moved in and carried him to safety. The soldier said he was so
impressed by the bravery, efficiency, and esprit of the
Marines he saw on Peleliu that he swore to thank every veteran
of the 1st Marine Division he ever ran across.


The “Dago people”–as those of us bound for San Diego
were called–boarded a troop train in a big railroad terminal
in Atlanta. Everyone was in high spirits, as though we were
headed for a picnic instead of boot camp–and a war. The trip
across the country took several days and was uneventful but
interesting. Most of us had never been west, and we enjoyed
the scenery. The monotony of the trip was broken with card
games, playing jokes on each other, and waving, yelling, and
whistling at any and all women visible. We ate some meals in
dining cars on the train; but at certain places the train pulled
onto a siding, and we ate in the restaurant in the railroad terminal.
Nearly all of the rail traffic we passed was military. We saw
long trains composed almost entirely of flatcars loaded with
tanks, halftracks, artillery pieces, trucks, and other military
equipment. Many troop trains passed us going both ways.
Most of them carried army troops. This rail traffic impressed
on us the enormousness of the nation’s war effort.

*Together with the 1st Marine Division, the U.S. Army’s 81st Infantry Division
comprised the III Amphibious Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. Roy S.
Geiger, USMC. For the Palau operation, the 1st Marine Division assaulted
Peleliu on 15 September 1944 while the 81st Division took Angaur Island
and provided a regiment as corps reserve. The 81st Division relieved the 1st
Marine Division on Peleliu on 20 October and secured the island on 27 November.

We arrived in San Diego early one morning. Collecting our
gear, we fell into ranks outside our cars as a first sergeant
came along and told the NCOs on our train which buses to get
us aboard. This first sergeant looked old to us teenagers. Like
ourselves, he was dressed in a green wool Marine uniform,
but he had campaign ribbons on his chest. He also wore the
green French fourragère on his left shoulder. (Later, as a
member of the 5th Marine Regiment, I would wear the
braided cord around my left arm with pride.) But this man
sported, in addition, two single loops outside his arm. That
meant he had served with a regiment (either the 5th or 6th
Marines) that had received the award from France for distinguished
combat service in World War I.
The sergeant made a few brief remarks to us about the
tough training we faced. He seemed friendly and compassionate,
almost fatherly. His manner threw us into a false
sense of well-being and left us totally unprepared for the
shock that awaited us when we got off those buses.
“Fall out, and board your assigned buses!” ordered the first
sergeant.
“All right, you people. Get aboard them buses!” the NCOs
yelled. They seemed to have become more authoritarian as
we approached San Diego.
After a ride of only a few miles, the buses rolled to a stop in
the big Marine Corps Recruit Depot–boot camp. As I
looked anxiously out the window, I saw many platoons of recruits
marching along the streets. Each drill instructor (DI)
bellowed his highly individual cadence. The recruits looked
as rigid as sardines in a can. I grew nervous at seeing how
serious–or rather, scared–they seemed.
“All right, you people, off them damned buses!”
We scrambled out, lined up with men from the other buses,
and were counted off into groups of about sixty. Several
trucks rolled by carrying work parties of men still in boot
camp or who had finished recently. All looked at us with
knowing grins and jeered, “You’ll be sorreee.” This was the
standard, unofficial greeting extended to all recruits.
Shortly after we debused, a corporal walked over to my
group. He yelled, “Patoon, teehut. Right hace, forwart huah.
Double time, huah.”
He ran us up and down the streets for what seemed hours
and finally to a double line of huts that would house us for a
time. We were breathless. He didn’t even seem to be breathing
hard.
“Patoon halt, right hace!” He put his hands on his hips and
looked us over contemptuously. “You people are stupid,” he
bellowed. From then on he tried to prove it every moment of
every day. “My name is Corporal Doherty. I’m your drill instructor.
This is Platoon 984. If any of you idiots think you
don’t need to follow my orders, just step right out here and I’ll
beat your ass right now. Your soul may belong to Jesus,...

Customer Reviews

Words can not describe..
I can only say that this is possibly the best book on war I have read..... EVER!

War with the shine rubbed off...
December 29th, 1980, I arrived at the same Marine Corps boot camp which welcomed EB Sledge nearly 40 years before. With the Old Breed (WTOB) makes it perfectly clear why the stress and hardship of the Marine Corps boot camp experience is necessary. Thankfully, my generation was spared the subsequent horror that Sledge and his fellow marines witnessed on the islands of Peleliu and Okinawa.

Unlike other WWII books, WTOB truly brings home the misery and insanity of the Pacific theater slugfest. Death is imminent on nearly every page. The broken, shredded, mangled bodies of friend and foe are always close at hand. The filth, the stench, the mania of combat are unapologetically laid bare. There are passages so unforgettably gruesome that any romantic view of warfare is crushed beyond recognition.

WTOB reads as a personal journey through hell from which EB Sledge emerged against extraordinary odds. One marvels that he wasn't emotionally scarred beyond recovery. These were impressive men, iron-willed warriors, all of whom deserve our undying gratitude. We benefit from their unbelievable bravery and would be mistaken not to read this book. 5+ stars.

Straight forward harrowing account of war against Japan
Sledge's book is a must-read for anyone interested in WWII battles against the Japanese. No words are wasted trying to impress the reader. Instead, this is a first-hand account of an enlisted soldier's harrowing battle experiences. It does not get any more personal and straight forward than this. The maps in the book are not very good, so I turned to the internet. I Googled every mountain, island, ship name, etc. for an immersing reading experience. You can even use Microsoft's Flight Simulator to fly around the islands.