Most Popular Books by E. B. Sledge

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--3d 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.From the Trade Paperback edition.

"China Marine is the long-awaited sequel to E. B. Sledge's memoir, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa. Picking up where he ends his previous book, Sledge, a young marine in the First Division, traces his company's movements and charts his own "difficult passage to peace" following his horrific experiences of battle in the Pacific. He reflects on his duty in the ancient city of Peiping - now Beijing - and recounts the difficulty of returning to his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, and resuming civilian life haunted by the shadows of close combat."--BOOK JACKET.