About book With The Old Breed: At Peleliu And Okinawa (1990)
This memoir of a young WWII marine is not for the faint of heart. It is not for those who want to be shielded from unpleasant truths about human nature and about themselves. Do any of us really know how we would act once the patina of civilization disappears? Eugene Sledge, a 19-year-old from Alabama, battled the Japanese at Peleliu and Okinawa in 1944-1945. A fugitive from the law of averages, he survived the war without a physical wound, despite being in the goriest fighting in the Pacific. After the war he became a respected professor of biology, who wrote in 1981 from the perspective of a scientific and cultured man trying to exorcize the demons that haunted him for 36 years. Sledge chose the study of life after witnessing so much death and never again touched a gun.The Young Lions.If you are looking for tales about G.I.’s handing out candy to kids, this is not your book. Readers accustomed to heroic and wholesome tales of the Greatest Generation will probably be shocked when they read this memoir. Sledge lets the general public in on a “secret ” -- Americans would not allow themselves to be out-dueled in savagery by the Japanese. Sledge’s tone is not that of a scandalized whistle-blower trying to titillate. Instead, it as a cry for understanding and caution. I read between the lines to hear his J’accuse-- ‘You people, safe in the comfort of civilization, have no idea how quickly war will take a fresh-faced, 19-year-old farm boy from Iowa and turn him into a psychopathic killer. Brutality in the Pacific was not an aberration; it was not universal, but it was not uncommon. It was not uncommon because there is a beast within the human spirit that waits patiently for an opportunity to be unleashed. Don’t think that you wouldn’t have done these barbarous acts yourself.’ (This is my paraphrase.)Pacific killing was not “dispassionate.” [I struggle for the right word.] The Pacific was a war of racial extermination where savagery was as common as the palm trees. Japanese killed American wounded and mutilated them. In turn, marines harvested gold teeth from dead and wounded Japanese. Sledge witnessed a fellow marine cut into a wounded prisoner’s mouth with a knife; with the victim thrashing wildly, he cut his cheeks ear-to-ear in order to extract his teeth. Another marine saw what was going on and shot the Japanese dead, either out of mercy or to make his buddy’s job easier. (120) One marine kept a shriveled, sun-dried hand in his pocket as a ghoulish souvenir; another routinely urinated in the open mouths of plentiful Japanese corpses. (199)A comrade flips the switch on his flamethrower and burns out scores of Japanese, grinning as if he were “watering his parent’s lawn with a garden hose.” (118) A mild-mannered marine murders an elderly Okinawan woman. (287) For recreation, the marines drop stones into a smashed skull where water had pooled– like "stone-skipping at the pond back home. Sledge himself was tempted to extract some gold fillings from a corpse until a buddy whispered, “Don’t do it, Sledgehammer, what would your folks think?”(123) Sledge writes:War was a nether world of horror from which escape seemed less and less likely. Time had no meaning; life had no meaning. The fierce struggle for survival in the abyss of Peleliu eroded the veneer of civilization and made savages of us all.(121) Sledge almost dares us to judge. I ask on his behalf, ‘What did you expect from us? Let me try to tell you what it was like.Eugene SledgeFear and Filth.Imagine a landscape littered with corpses like Styrofoam cups. Behold the corpse of a Japanese medic, his abdominal cavity laid bare with “glistening viscera bespecked with fine coral dust ...like a rabbit or squirrel skinned back home.”(63-4) Dead Japanese snipers dangle from the trees to which they had strapped themselves, their “intestines strung out among branches like garland decorations on a Christmas tree.” (192) Smell the putrid human flesh in humid air. On Peleliu, the enemy dead rot where they fall because there was no soil in which to bury them, just jagged coral. In the tropics, the dead stink in two hours. Marines could set their watches by the stages of decay: 1) freshly killed; 2) bloated; 3) maggot-infested; 4) exposed bones --"like biological clocks, clicking off the time. At Okinawa they had dirt to bury foulness, but Sledge inadvertently shovels into a Japanese corpse with wriggling maggots. (276) You can't escape the stench of excrement either, because Peleliu’s rocky coral surface prevented basic field sanitation. Add to that: rancid rations; flies, not houseflies but blowflies “so glutted on filth that they could hardly fly”; and slippery blood pools collecting all over coral. All greenery was abolished by a gray coral dust, giving humans and vegetation an ashen pallor. (146) Behold a pale horse and on him was death.To this saturated misery add exhaustion. You get no sleep because you fear of night infiltration by the Japanese. Drag crates of ammo to forward positions. This without respite for 82 days on Okinawa. Exhausted and demoralized, Sledge falls into such a dense sleep under his poncho that a graves-registration crew assumes he is a corpse. (274) Add to this, the nervous exhaustion from having to fight fear and fatalism. In one of the most poignant moments, he comes across the skeletal remains of a fellow marine:...his half-gone face leered with sardonic grin; as though mocking pitiful efforts to hang on to life in face of sudden violent death which cut him down; maybe mocking the folly of war itself: I am the harvest of man’s stupidity. I am the fruit of the holocaust. I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It’s over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can’t forget. 270 Death was ever-present. Consider the statistics from Sledge's two battles: Peleliu (15 Sep to 27 November 1944)tAmericans 6,650 killed; 8010 woundedtJapanese 10,695 killed; (only 202 surrendered)Okinawa (1 April to 21 June 1945)tAmerican: 12,513 killed; 38,916 wounded.tJapanese: 95,000 plus killed (choosing to die, they left few wounded)tCivilians: 42,000-150,000 killed The incredibly high casualty rate from these two battles was the result of the American commanders' failure to grasp that the Japanese had changed their strategy from earlier battles. The Japanese previously had engaged in very foolish tactics such as the banzai charge where they would rush American positions, screaming at the top of their lungs. American machine gunners handily repelled them. But at Peleliu and Okinawa, they abandoned the banzai and made Americans come to get them from their fixed fortifications– where they had to literally be burnt out or buried alive. The Japanese wounded were relatively low because they tended to fight to the death.These marines greeted the news of atom bomb with indescribable relief. Sledge is convinced that it saved them from almost certain death upon invasion of the Japanese mainland, which was to have been the next step after Okinawa. (I wonder what the invasion of Japan would have meant for my own father, who became 18 in 1944, and, by logical extension, what it might have meant for me and my children.) If Japanese were willing to die to the last man on Okinawa and Peleliu, how much harder would they fight for their homes? American war planners braced themselves for an estimated one million casualties. Sledge concludes his memoir with these thoughts:Until the millennium arrives and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one’s responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one’s country – as my comrades did. With privilege goes responsibility. (315)Regardless of Sledge’s conclusion, the question still stands. Do any of us really know how we would act once the center no longer holds? Why are we so sure? Have we ever seen a fraction of the horror encountered by young Sledge at Peleliu and at Okinawa? If we have not, how would we know the brutality that we ourselves are capable? Does our current fascination with zombies and dystopian societies have anything to do with our suspicion of the beast within? Eugene Sledge, after the war.“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eyes/ who cheer when soldier lads march by/ sneak home and pray you’ll never know/ the hell where youth and laughter go.” – Siegfried Sassoon (Suicide in Trenches), quoted by Sledge in the epigraph.May 10, 2012
Have y'all seen the HBO miniseries, The Pacific? It's not as great as Band of Brothers but it is good. My favorite parts were Eugene Sledge's stories (I somehow dislike Leckie, but probably because of the actor hehe).This book is his memoir and I loved every single part of it. It is as good as William Manchester's masterpiece Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. The following may not be a review after all, it's me pouring my thoughts on this book. A professor of biologySometimes we forget that once a trooper, you're not always a trooper. There is always an "after-life" and it is often the hardest part. Eugene Sledge, after the war, became a professor of biology at a university in Alabama. If you remember the last scenes of Band of Brothers, it included stories on the post-war occupations of each member of Easy. Very colorful. But these people had one thing, one job that they would never forget. Battlefield. Does it define each of them as a person? I believe it does. One does not simply forget about the hardship endured and the brotherhood forged. Oops, getting more sentimental here, let's continue..."Scared? Are you kidding?"Everybody gets scared and anybody says he doesn't is a damn liar. I like the way the old salts (i.e. marines with battle experience) "educate" the newbies. They don't hold back truth, no matter how gruesome. Sledge bestowed a lot of praises to the vets; he clearly worshiped them. I noted however, that the new recruits/replacements sometimes disregard the warnings and obviously nothing good came out of this. Being lulled into a false sense of security is never a good recipe to survive a war. Vital, essential, classified workWell, this work sometime included collecting rotten coconuts. I chuckled reading Sledge's frustration when doing this chore - pretty sure that he and his buddies had not imagined they would be doing that glamorous task during the war. I also like the way he described the non-battle hardship. How hard it was to take a bath, for example. Imagine the rain is your only option and you wish that it will last long enough or else you wouldn't be able to rinse the soap. Or imagine that you have to chase land crabs who would got into your shoes, boxes, bags, cots and whatnots. A marine seemed to always have something to do in the Pacific campaign.Gone AsiaticAsiatic is a Marine Corps term denoting a singular type of eccentric behavior characteristic of men who had served too long in the Far East.One of them was Haney, a gunnery sergeant, who was very Asiatic apparently with his antics (won't spoil them here - you have to read it yourself!). Sledge's description about him was hilarious. One of them : "I felt that he was not a man born of a woman, but that God has issued him to the Marine Corps"."The NCOs run things when the shootin' starts"Well, NCOs seem to be the best position if you're in the army or marines, based on this book and every other books I read on World War II. You are well respected, you know your company/squad well, you're usually battle-hardened, you have authority but not too much responsibility compared if you're an officer. "Corpsman!"I always love reading about medics/corpsman. They are almost always among the bravest and most dedicated part of a unit. Sledge told about a corpsman, Ken Caswell, who continued to treat his patient although his face just been stabbed by a knife to the bone. Yikes! Earlier this year, I read Medic: Saving Lives From Dunkirk To Afghanistan, a splendid book about combat medics earlier this year and it was highly recommended.Analysis on PeleliuSledge the professor made some bullet points of his analysis on the battle at Peleliu. My fave is this one: "Peleliu was proof that the critical factor in combat stress is duration of the combat rather than the severity." Agree on that. I can imagine that going through intense artillery attacks for a prolonged period or staying knee-deep in the mud and constant rain for days can make anyone go crazy."Why the hell did we have to take Peleliu?"The risk of going to war is sometimes not knowing you have to be in a particular place that might be your grave. Peleliu campaign is debatable: was it useful? could it have been bypassed? I'm certain it sucks if you're in that situation and I'm amazed that there were no riots or mass disobedience from the marines. I guess: 1) deep inside they know they'll be able to face hell and back after all 2) they are numb already 3) they trust their buddies and officers 4) all of the above"On 8 May Nazi Germany surrendered. So what?"Hahaha. Poor marines. It took two atomic bombs before the Japanese surrendered. They really couldn't care less about what happened in Europe. (Although the European troops did care about what happened in the Far East because they might be deployed there!).***All in all, this is very insightful book. Easy to read, very detailed (but not boring) about the daily life of a marine in the Pacific. I like that he told stories about the land crabs and the (now) silliness of the war. And the gore, oh how could I ever forget about the gore of souvenir hunters. As for the marines, I have a new found respect for all of them. Semper fi!
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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 as it is an overall testament of the basic Marine Corps values of Semper Fidelis and camaraderie along with tradition, which makes the title “With the Old Breed” so appropriate.
—Mark Mortensen
From the introduction by Paul Fussell One cause of this book's distinction is that its author is not an author. Sledge wrote this memoir less for strangers than to tell his own family what his war had been like. It was his wife who persuaded him to submit it to a publisher. The book is devoid of the literary expediencies and suavity's that may occasion skepticism or disgust in more artistically self-conscious war memoirs. Sledge is so little an author in the pejorative sense that his eye seems never to wander from his subject to contemplate the literary effect he's creating. His style is like window glass - you don't pause to notice it, you look through it to the actuality it discloses. It is this honesty, simplicity, and modesty that gives Sledge's book its extraordinary power.”The actuality” that Sledge’s book shows is horrifying, to the point that I considered including quotes regarding the most gruesome parts of his story and decided not to. It’s best to read those sickening details within the context of his entire experience. Suffice it to say, if you’ve seen the HBO mini-series The Pacific, don’t have any doubt that the most cringe-inducing parts of the show are accurate. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.from “Dulce Et Decorum Est” ~ Wilfred Owen, World War I
—Courtney Umlauf
Prompted to read With the Old Breed by watching HBO's The Pacific, I was unprepared for Sledge's unflinching, simple honesty in reporting and processing his WWII experiences as a Marine infantryman. Sledge discusses not only the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa, but the transition from being a sensitive young man to becoming a hardened, battle-weary veteran. His descriptions provide insight into these battles, and war in general, that have so far escaped more graphic, visual mediums--including The Pacific. The Pacific showed us that on Okinawa, Marine casualties were left to decompose around their live, foxhole-entrapped replacements. It never before occurred to me that under those conditions, there is no way to dispense of human waste. So, under constant shelling, threat of infiltrating, nighttime attacks, surrounded by decomposing bodies--some of whom were friends--with rotting feet, hungry, constantly wet from relentless rain, these poor babies also had to stew in their own poop.Sledge's memoirs also depict a fanatical, military enemy--much like today's fanatical "Islamsists"--that is difficult for post WWII generations to connect with Japan, our current friend, ally and trading partner. I am convinced that Truman's decision to use atomic weapons on Japan must be evaluated in its historical context and not within a contemporary framework.I'm a history buff, but not a military history buff. Consequently, I'm glad that I watched The Pacific before reading With the Old Breed, because the images I retained from the miniseries helped me to visualize the technical details and battle scenes that Sledge describes in his memoirs.
—Lady Jane
