thedrifter
05-25-09, 09:11 AM
Thanks to diary, WWII warriors offer us message
May. 25, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Others have noted he had the perfect name for a Marine. E.B. Sledge, as if he were cast of molten iron. But to our great good fortune he was a more fragile vessel.
Not that he wasn't tough; he surely was. Or durable; he survived two savage battles in history's most terrible war.
Many of our readers of his generation will know his memoir "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa." But most of you will not. And that is the purpose of this editorial on Memorial Day, 2009. To introduce you to a World War II diary that people who study
human conflict describe as one of the great narratives of any war.
In some ways it is a sermon, not on goodness, but on man's capacity for evil.
And it took a man like Sledge with supple mind and perceptive eye to describe in such fine-grain detail the horrors of World War II's heart of darkness - the Pacific combat theater.
To read Sledge is to share the journey of fresh-faced Americans riding the train from Atlanta to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego, eager not to miss the epic events unfolding in their lifetime. "Everyone was in high spirits . . . as though we were headed for a picnic."
Suffice to say, Peleliu and Okinawa were no picnics. Taking the central Pacific island of Peleliu cost the United States the highest casualty rate of any amphibious attack in its history, according to war historian Martin Gilbert. In 11 days, 9,171 Americans were killed. At Okinawa, the lead-up to the anticipated invasion of mainland Japan, 7,613 Americans were killed on land and 4,907 in air and kamikaze attacks at sea. More than 127,000 Japanese soldiers and 80,000 civilians died.
The hardships of the war in the Pacific were multi-layered. There were the 115-degree heat and high humidity of Peleliu and the unrelenting rain and cold of Okinawa. There were Peleliu's coral reefs and sands that cut flesh and wore down the heels of combat boots; and Okinawa's mud that sucked the boots off sore feet and made every movement hard labor.
Then there was the enemy. The savagery of al-Qaida pales to that of the warriors of imperial Japan, who fought to the death and wantonly murdered women and children as today's jihadists do, but were far better trained and equipped to kill. The Japanese soldier in the Pacific mutilated his American victims, displayed their bodily limbs and organs in fearful warning of what lay ahead.
What makes Sledge's memoir perhaps forever contemporary is what it tells all Americans who benefit from these miseries of others. Returning U.S. Marines, wrote Sledge, "tried to comprehend people who griped because America wasn't perfect, or their coffee wasn't hot enough, or they had to stand in line and wait for a train or bus. . . . We just wished that people back home could understand how lucky they were and stop complaining about trivial inconveniences."
Ellie
May. 25, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Others have noted he had the perfect name for a Marine. E.B. Sledge, as if he were cast of molten iron. But to our great good fortune he was a more fragile vessel.
Not that he wasn't tough; he surely was. Or durable; he survived two savage battles in history's most terrible war.
Many of our readers of his generation will know his memoir "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa." But most of you will not. And that is the purpose of this editorial on Memorial Day, 2009. To introduce you to a World War II diary that people who study
human conflict describe as one of the great narratives of any war.
In some ways it is a sermon, not on goodness, but on man's capacity for evil.
And it took a man like Sledge with supple mind and perceptive eye to describe in such fine-grain detail the horrors of World War II's heart of darkness - the Pacific combat theater.
To read Sledge is to share the journey of fresh-faced Americans riding the train from Atlanta to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego, eager not to miss the epic events unfolding in their lifetime. "Everyone was in high spirits . . . as though we were headed for a picnic."
Suffice to say, Peleliu and Okinawa were no picnics. Taking the central Pacific island of Peleliu cost the United States the highest casualty rate of any amphibious attack in its history, according to war historian Martin Gilbert. In 11 days, 9,171 Americans were killed. At Okinawa, the lead-up to the anticipated invasion of mainland Japan, 7,613 Americans were killed on land and 4,907 in air and kamikaze attacks at sea. More than 127,000 Japanese soldiers and 80,000 civilians died.
The hardships of the war in the Pacific were multi-layered. There were the 115-degree heat and high humidity of Peleliu and the unrelenting rain and cold of Okinawa. There were Peleliu's coral reefs and sands that cut flesh and wore down the heels of combat boots; and Okinawa's mud that sucked the boots off sore feet and made every movement hard labor.
Then there was the enemy. The savagery of al-Qaida pales to that of the warriors of imperial Japan, who fought to the death and wantonly murdered women and children as today's jihadists do, but were far better trained and equipped to kill. The Japanese soldier in the Pacific mutilated his American victims, displayed their bodily limbs and organs in fearful warning of what lay ahead.
What makes Sledge's memoir perhaps forever contemporary is what it tells all Americans who benefit from these miseries of others. Returning U.S. Marines, wrote Sledge, "tried to comprehend people who griped because America wasn't perfect, or their coffee wasn't hot enough, or they had to stand in line and wait for a train or bus. . . . We just wished that people back home could understand how lucky they were and stop complaining about trivial inconveniences."
Ellie