![]() The accounts of the island battles are appalling. It seemed as though a huge volcano had erupted from the sea, and rather than heading for an island, we were being drawn into the vortex of a flaming abyss. The beach was now marked along its length by a continuous sheet of flame backed by a thick wall of smoke. Huge geysers of water rose around the amtracs ahead of us as they approached the reef. A member of the famous 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, he describes the landing on Peleliu: The narrative “Sledgehammer” provides is compelling, horrific, and fascinating. However, he withdrew from the program, as many of his fellow classmates did, and joined the Marines to fight as a rifleman. There he could have earned his degree and joined the war effort in a highly skilled position of some kind, remote perhaps from actual fighting. ![]() Sledge enlisted for the duration of the war +6 months in 1943 and, owing to his intelligence, was part of a military training program at Georgia Tech. Many have come to know his story from the successful 2010 HBO Series The Pacific that relied in part on his diary of these two battles. ![]() I’ve been reading With the Old Breed, Eugene Sledge’s classic account of his experiences in the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa. ![]()
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