With The Old Breed - EB Sledge

Those of you who have watched "Pacific" will be familiar with EB "Sledgehammer" Sledge. He fought with the US Marine Corp at Pelieu and Okinawa in WW2. Initially he was on an officer graduate programme in the US. Bored with the training he volunteered into the MC as an enlisted man. 40 yrs later he was a professor at a US University and decided to write his account of his service as a Private during those two battles, using his diary's as the basis.

I'm not a great fan of US military accounts, although there are a few exceptions, Chickenhawk and this book are two of them. This book is outstanding. Its written in a clear style, without hyperbole or exaggeration. He is very honest about himself and the guys he fought alongside. Equally he doesn't pull any punches when discussing his enemy.

The reviewers claim this book is one of the best junior rank accounts of WW2 from an American perspective, I agree. Sledge clearly did his homework before writing this book. On two separate occasions in the book he references 3 x Royal Welchman. He quotes Robert Graves, from his forward in Frank Richards OSND. Additionally he also quotes a few lines from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon. The fact that he had taken the time to read those authors is reflected in the simple quality of his book. A really good holiday read

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