Old Breed General

Author : Amy Rupertus Peacock
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0811770354
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Old Breed General written by Amy Rupertus Peacock and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marine general William H. Rupertus is best known today for writing the Corps’ Rifleman’s Creed, which begins, “This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine”—which has been made famous by films such as Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead. Rupertus was one of the outstanding Marines of the twentieth century, standing alongside men such as Smedley Butler, Chesty Puller, and Arthur Vandegrift, but he died in 1945, so his story has never been told. Rupertus “made his bones” in the USMC’s “savage wars of peace” before World War II: Haiti for three years after World War I, China in 1929 (where he lost his wife and children to the scarlet fever epidemic) and again in 1937 (where he witnessed the beginning of Japan’s war against China that turned into the Pacific War of World War II). In World War II, Rupertus commanded during four important battles: Tulagi and Henderson Field during the Guadalcanal campaign; the Battle of Cape Gloucester; and Peleliu. It was a series of blistering battles—and ultimately victories—that helped break the back of the Japanese and pave the way for American victory. In the course of these battles, Rupertus became the Patton of the Pacific—ruthless in war, always on the attack, merciless against the enemy, undefeated in battles—even as he proved himself very much like Eisenhower, suavely diplomatic and able to balance war with politics. These skills allowed Rupertus to crush the enemy in the malaria-infested jungles of the Pacific and personally escort Eleanor Roosevelt on her tour of the Pacific. Old Breed General is the biography of Rupertus and the story of the Marines at war in the Pacific. This is an American story of love, loss, shock, horror, tragedy, and triumph that focuses on Rupertus and the 1st Marine Division in World War II, but which resonates through the 1st, to Chosin in Korea and James Mattis’s command in Iraq.

Author : Stephen Taaffe
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 1682477096
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Commanding the Pacific written by Stephen Taaffe and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Marine Corps covered itself in glory in World War II with victories over the Japanese in hard-fought battles such as Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima. While these battles are well known, those who led the Marines into them have remained obscure until now. In Commanding the Pacific: Marine Corps Generals in World War II, Stephen R. Taaffe analyzes the fifteen high-level Marine generals who led the Corps' six combat divisions and two corps in the conflict. He concludes that these leaders played an indispensable and unheralded role in organizing, training, and leading their men to victory. Taaffe insists there was nothing inevitable about the Marine Corps' success in World War II. The small pre-war size of the Corps meant that its commandant had to draw his combat leaders from a small pool of officers who often lacked the education of their Army and Navy counterparts. Indeed, there were fewer than one hundred Marine officers with the necessary rank, background, character, and skills for its high-level combat assignments. Moreover, the Army and Navy froze the Marines out of high-level strategic decisions and frequently impinged on Marine prerogatives. There were no Marines in the Joint Chiefs of Staff or at the head of the Pacific War's geographic theaters, so the Marines usually had little influence over the island targets selected for them. In addition to bureaucratic obstacles, constricted geography and vicious Japanese opposition limited opportunities for Marine generals to earn the kind of renown that Army and Navy commanders achieved elsewhere. In most of its battles on small Pacific War islands, Marine generals had neither the option nor inclination to engage in sophisticated tactics, but they instead relied in direct frontal assaults that resulted in heavy casualties. Such losses against targets of often questionable strategic value sometimes called into question the Marine Corps' doctrine, mission, and the quality of its combat generals. Despite these difficulties, Marine combat commanders repeatedly overcame challenges and fulfilled their missions. Their ability to do so does credit to the Corps and demonstrates that these generals deserve more attention from historians than they have so far received.

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

DOWNLOAD NOW!

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 : George McMillan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Old Breed written by George McMillan and published by . This book was released on 1949 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of the First Marine Division in World War II.

Author : E. B. Sledge
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195167767
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book China Marine written by E. B. Sledge and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, c2002.

Author : Dick Camp
Publisher : Zenith Press
ISBN 13 : 1616732415
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Last Man Standing written by Dick Camp and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2010-11-10 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history, Operation Stalemate, as Peleliu was called, was overshadowed by the Normandy landings. It was also, in time, judged by most historians to have been unnecessary; though it had been conceived to protect MacArthur’s flank in the Philippines, the U.S. fleet’s carrier raids had eliminated Japanese airpower, rendering Peleliu irrelevant. Nevertheless, the horrifying number of casualties sustained there (71% in one battalion) foreshadowed for the rest of the war: rather than fight to the death on the beach, the Japanese would now defend in depth and bleed the Americans white. Drawing extensively on personal interviews, the Marine Corps History Division’s vast oral history and photographic collection, and many never-before-published sources, this book gives us a new and harrowing vision of what really happened at Peleliu--and what it meant. Working closely with two of the 1st Regiment’s battalion commanders--Ray Davis and Russ Honsowetz--Marine Corps veteran and military historian Dick Camp recreates the battle as it was experienced by the men and their officers. Soldiers who survived the terrible slaughter recall the brutality of combat against an implacable foe; they describe the legendary “Chesty” Puller, leading his decimated regiment against enemy fortifications; they tell of Davis, wounded but refusing evacuation while his men were under fire; and of a division commander who rejects Army reinforcements. Most of all, their richly detailed, deeply moving story is one of desperate combat in the face of almost certain failure, of valor among comrades joined against impossible odds.

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

DOWNLOAD NOW!

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 : Steven J. Zaloga
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1780960328
Total Pages : 119 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book US Marine Corps Tanks of World War II written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, the US Marine Corps formed six tank battalions that battled through the harsh conditions of the Pacific Theatre. Using the same basic tanks as the US Army, notably the M3 and M5A1 light tanks and the M4 Sherman medium tank, the marines made both technical and tactical innovations to make them more effective in the fight against the Japanese. Deep wading equipment, flamethrower tanks, and even wooden armor all became part of the Marine arsenal. This book examines the tactics and technology that made the US Marine Corps tank service unique in the annals of warfare.

Author : V H Krulak
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 1612511619
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book First to Fight written by V H Krulak and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 1999-02-22 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this riveting insider's chronicle, legendary Marine General "Brute" Krulak submits an unprecedented examination of U.S. Marines—their fights on the battlefield and off, their extraordinary esprit de corps. Deftly blending history with autobiography, action with analysis, and separating fact from fable, General Krulak touches the very essence of the Corps: what it means to be a Marine and the reason behind its consistently outstanding performance and reputation. Krulak also addresses the most basic but challenging question of all about the Corps: how does it manage to survive—even to flourish—despite overwhelming political odds and, as the general writes, ""an extraordinary propensity for shooting itself in the foot?"" To answer this question Krulak examines the foundation on which the Corps is built, a system of intense loyalty to God, to country, and to other Marines. He also takes a close look at Marines in war, offering challenging accounts of their experiences in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In addition, he describes the Corps's relationship to other services, especially during the unification battles following World War II, and offers new insights into the decision-making process in times of crisis. First published in hardcover in 1984, this book has remained popular ever since with Marines of every rank.

Author : Sid Phillips
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0425246299
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book You'll Be Sor-ree! written by Sid Phillips and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sid Phillips, a World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO®'s The Pacific, offers up an invaluable firsthand account of the war against Japan. A mortarman with H-2-1 of the legendary 1st Marine Division, Sid was only seventeen years old when he entered combat with the Japanese. Some two years later, when he returned home, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned Sid into an "Old Timer" by Marine standards, and more: he left as a boy, but came home a man. These are his memoirs, the humble and candid tales that Sid collected during a Pacific odyssey spanning half the globe, from the grueling boot camp at Parris Island, to the coconut groves of Guadalcanal, to the romantic respite of Australia. Sid recalls his encounters with icons like Chesty Puller, General Vandergrift, Eleanor Roosevelt, and his boyhood friend, Eugene Sledge. He remembers the rain of steel from Japanese bombers and battleships, the brutality of the tropical elements, and the haunting notion of being expendable. This is the story of how Sid stood shoulder to shoulder with his Marine brothers to discover the inner strength and deep faith necessary to survive the dark, early days, of World War II in the Pacific.