22 On Peleliu

Author : George Peto
Publisher : Casemate
ISBN 13 : 1612005284
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Twenty-Two on Peleliu written by George Peto and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir of a tough childhood—and tough combat—by an “adventurous, lively, outspoken, opinionated” WWII Marine veteran (Columbus Dispatch). On September 15, 1944, the US First Marine Division landed on a small island in the Central Pacific called Peleliu as a prelude to the liberation of the Philippines. Among the first wave of Marines that hit the beach that day was twenty-two-year-old George Peto. Growing up on an Ohio farm, George always preferred being outdoors and exploring. This made school a challenge, but his hunting, fishing, and trapping skills helped put food on his family’s table. As a poor teenager living in a rough area, he got into regular brawls, and he found holding down a job hard because of his wanderlust. After working out west with the CCC, he decided that joining the Marines offered him the opportunity for adventure, plus three square meals a day—so he and his brother joined the Corps in 1941, just a few months before Pearl Harbor. Following boot camp and training, he was initially assigned to various guard units until he was shipped out to the Pacific and assigned to the 1st Marines. His first combat experience was the landing at Finschhaven, followed by Cape Gloucester. Then as a Forward Observer, he went ashore in one of the lead amtracs at Peleliu and saw fierce fighting for a week before the regiment was relieved due to massive casualties. Six months later, his division became the immediate reserve for the initial landing on Okinawa. They encountered no resistance when they came ashore, but would go on to fight on Okinawa for over six months. This is the wild and remarkable story of an “Old Breed” Marine—his youth in the Great Depression, his training and combat in the Pacific, and his life after the war, told in his own words.

Author : George Peto
Publisher : Casemate
ISBN 13 : 9781612005270
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book 22 on Peleliu written by George Peto and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 15, 1944, U.S. Marines landed on a small island in the Central Pacific called Peleliu, as a prelude to the liberation of the Philippines. Among the first wave of Marines that hit the beach that day was 22-year-old George Peto. This is the wild and remarkable story of an Old Breed Marine told in his own words.

Author : George Peto
Publisher : Casemate
ISBN 13 : 9781612009797
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Twenty-Two on Peleliu written by George Peto and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-01-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 15, 1944, U.S. Marines landed on a small island in the Central Pacific called Peleliu, as a prelude to the liberation of the Philippines. Among the first wave of Marines that hit the beach that day was 22-year-old George Peto. This is the wild and remarkable story of an "Old Breed" Marine told in his own words.

Author : John Peter DeCioccio
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806185260
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Victory at Peleliu written by John Peter DeCioccio and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the 1st Marine Division began its invasion of Peleliu in September 1944, the operation in the South Pacific was to take but four days. In fact, capturing this small coral island in the Palaus with its strategic airstrip took two months and involved some of the bloodiest fighting of the Second World War in the Pacific. Rather than the easy conquest they were led to expect, the Marines who landed on Peleliu faced a war of attrition from the island's Japanese defenders, who had dug tunnels and fortified the island's rugged terrain. When the Marines' advance stalled after a week of heavy casualties, the "Wildcats" of the 81st Infantry Division were called in, at first as support. Eventually, the 1st Marines Division was evacuated and the 81st Infantry secured the island. Now Bobby C. Blair and John Peter DeCioccio tell the story of this campaign through the eyes of the 81st Infantry to offer a revised assessment. Previous accounts of the battle have focused on the 1st Marines, all but ignoring the 81st Infantry Division's contributions. Victory at Peleliu demonstrates that without the army's help the marines could not have succeeded on Peleliu. Blair and DeCioccio have mined the 81st Division's unit records and interviewed scores of veteran participants. The new data they offer challenge the orthodox view that the 81st Infantry merely mopped up an already broken enemy. Allowing their interviewees to tell much of the story, the authors also give a human face to a brutal battle. Although American efforts in the Palau Islands proved largely unnecessary to ultimately defeating the Japanese, the lessons learned on Peleliu were crucial in subsequent fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The 81st Infantry's contributions are now part of that larger story.

Author : Harry A. Gailey
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Peleliu, 1944 written by Harry A. Gailey and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Stephen C. Murray
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817318844
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Battle Over Peleliu written by Stephen C. Murray and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Palauan and colonial landscapes -- History, memory, and island landscapes -- Colonial masters and island society -- Peace, war, and a new empire -- Smiling sky, gathering clouds -- War -- Exile, fear, and hunger: Ngaraard, Babeldaob, 1944-1945 -- An island desolated, a trust betrayed, 1946-1994 -- Pursuing memory -- Retrieving the dead -- Remembering a painful victory -- Parallel histories: three peoples' memories of war and loss -- Conclusion: the roots of the plant

Author : E.B. Sledge
Publisher : Presidio Press
ISBN 13 : 0891419195
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book With the Old Breed written by E.B. Sledge and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific—the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary—into terms we mortals can grasp.”—Tom Hanks NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With the Old Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-century battles. Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitive oral history, The Good War. Now E. B. Sledge’s acclaimed first-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns to thrill, edify, and inspire a new generation. An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of such heroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B. Sledge became part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division—3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. Even after intense training, he was shocked to be thrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmare of flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledge hit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled with fear but no longer with panic. Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the New Testament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity and searing honesty the experience of a soldier in the fierce Pacific Theater. Here is what saved, threatened, and changed his life. Here, too, is the story of how he learned to hate and kill—and came to love—his fellow man. “In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of—not the ‘good war’—but the worst war ever.”—Ken Burns

Author : R.V. Burgin
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0451232267
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Islands of the Damned written by R.V. Burgin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A remarkable eyewitness account of the most brutal combat of the Pacific War, from Peleliu to Okinawa, this is the true story of R.V. Burgin, the real-life World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific. “Read his story and marvel at the man...and those like him.”—Tom Hanks When a young Texan named R.V. Burgin joined the Marines 1942, he never imagined what was waiting for him a world away in the Pacific. There, amid steamy jungles, he encountered a ferocious and desperate enemy in the Japanese, engaging them in some of the most grueling and deadly fights of the war. In this remarkable memoir, Burgin reveals his life as a special breed of Marine. Schooled by veterans who had endured the cauldron of Guadalcanal, Burgin’s company soon confronted snipers, repulsed jungle ambushes, encountered abandoned corpses of hara-kiri victims, and warded off howling banzai attacks as they island-hopped from one bloody battle to the next. In his two years at war, Burgin rose from a green private to a seasoned sergeant, fighting from New Britain through Peleliu and on to Okinawa, where he earned a Bronze Star for valor. With unforgettable drama and an understated elegance, Burgin’s gripping narrative stands alongside those of classic Pacific chroniclers like Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge—indeed, Burgin was even Sledge’s platoon sergeant. Here is a deeply moving account of World War II, bringing to life the hell that was the Pacific War.

Author : Jim Moran
Publisher : Frontline Books
ISBN 13 : 152677822X
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Battle of Peleliu, 1944 written by Jim Moran and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2021-10-30 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Allies had defeated the Japanese in the Solomons and the Dutch East Indies, the capture of the Philippines became General MacArthur’s next objective. For this offensive to succeed, MacArthur felt compelled to secure his eastern flank by seizing control of the Palau Islands, one of which was Peleliu. The task of capturing this island, and the enemy airfield on it, was initially handed to Admiral Nimitz. The Palau Islands, however, formed part of Japan’s second defensive line, and Peleliu’s garrison amounted to more than 10,000 men. Consequently, when the US preliminary bombardment began on 12 September 1944, it was devastating. For two days the island was pounded relentlessly. Such was the scale of the destruction that the commander of the 1st Marine Division, Major General William H. Rupertus, told his men: ‘We’re going to have some casualties, but let me assure you this is going to be a fast one, rough but fast. We’ll be through in three days – it may only take two.’ At 08.32 hours on 15 September 1944, the Marines went ashore. Despite bitter fighting, and a ferocious Japanese defence, by the end of the day the Marines had a firm hold on Peleliu. But rather than Japanese resistance crumbling during the following days as had been expected, it stiffened, as they withdrew to their prepared defensive positions. The woods, swamps, caves and mountains inland had been turned into a veritable fortress – it was there where the real battle for possession of Peleliu was fought. Day after day the Americans battled forward, gradually wresting control of Peleliu from the Japanese. Despite Major General Rupertus’ prediction, it was not until 27 November, after two months, one week and five days of appalling fighting, and a final, futile last sacrificial charge by the remaining enemy troops, that the Battle of Peleliu came to an end.

Author : Joseph Wheelan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1472849493
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bitter Peleliu written by Joseph Wheelan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hard-hitting history of the Pacific War's 'forgotten battle' of Peleliu – a story of intelligence failings and impossible bravery. In late 1944, as a precursor to the invasion of the Philippines, U.S. military analysts decided to seize the small island of Peleliu to ensure that the Japanese airfield there could not threaten the invasion forces. This important new book explores the dramatic story of this 'forgotten' battle and the campaign's strategic failings. Bitter Peleliu reveals how U.S. intelligence officers failed to detect the complex network of caves, tunnels, and pillboxes hidden inside the island's coral ridges. More importantly, they did not discern – nor could they before it happened – that the defense of Peleliu would represent a tectonic shift in Japanese strategy. No more contested enemy landings at the water's edge, no more wild banzai attacks. Now, invaders would be raked on the beaches by mortar and artillery fire. Then, as the enemy penetrated deeper into the Japanese defensive systems, he would find himself on ground carefully prepared for the purpose of killing as many Americans as possible. For the battle-hardened 1st Marine Division Peleliu was a hornets' nest like no other. Yet thanks to pre-invasion over-confidence on the part of commanders, 30 of the 36 news correspondents accredited for the campaign had left prior to D-Day. Bitter Peleliu reveals the full horror of this 74-day battle, a battle that thanks to the reduced media presence has never garnered the type of attention it deserves. Pacific War historian Joseph Wheelan dissects the American intelligence and strategic failings, analyses the shift in Japanese tactics, and recreates the Marines' horrific experiences on the worst of the Pacific battlegrounds. This book is a brilliant, compelling read on a forgotten battle.