With the Old Breed

E. B. Sledge
Book report by
Robert Tigner

Eugene Sledge was a United States Marine (USMC) during World War II

serving in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Sledge, nicknamed

Sledgehammer, was enrolled in the V-12 USMC officer candidate school at

Georgia Tech.1 He and many of his class mates flunked out in order to be

sent as an enlisted man to Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego for

boot camp and Camp Elliot for advanced infantry training. He eventually

served with the 1st Marine Division, King Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines

(K/3/5) as a 60mm mortar man. All marines are a rifleman first and so at

times Sledge also did duty as a rifleman and stretcher bearer. Eventually

Sledge reached the rank of Corporal. Sledge never comments in his book on

his rank. Sledges campaigns included Peleliu and Okinawa as well as

occupation duty in China. As I read Sledges description of the MCRD San

Diego training regimen, I began to recall my US Navy boot camp experience

32 years after his. At my time in boot camp, MCRD and the US Navy boot

camps were separated by a fence. We could see the beach and bay where

Sledge ran for conditioning training. I began to realize, as he did too, just

what the Marine training was about, conditioning, rapid response, following

orders and physical endurance. His description of serving in the rifle range

target butt pits was one of the ways the Marines got recruits used to the
sound of incoming rounds.2 It also taught them that there really was a

purpose to digging in, either a foxhole or slit trench.

Sledge describes the weeks and months long training and near boredom that

preceded his first battle, Peleliu. He often did not understand the training

workup until he made his first amphibious landing. He also described some of

the characters that would play parts in the coming campaigns. Gunnery

Sergeant Hanley was one of those. Haney was an older Marine, early 50s

and a WWI combat veteran, whos whole life was the Corps. He would clean

his M1 three times per day and practice bayonet drills after. Haney was one

of those enlisted Marines whose authority came from his experience and

previous combat.3

Monotonous work parties and weeks of training are all part of the military

experience. Trainees often had no real understanding of why they were doing

the evolutions because they did not been in combat nor did they know where

they were going. But Sledge learned what that purpose was as he boarded

USS LST-661, landing ship tank. These LST-542 class ships were unnamed in

WWII as over 1000 were built during WWII.4 The Peleliu landing was Sledges

first combat experience and he saw his first dead Japanese, a medic. He was

horrified at the sight but was surprised at the nonchalance that other

Marines showed as they picked through the bodies for souveniers.5 As the

operation wore on, Sledge describes his feelings of rage, fear, a desire to cry

and other emotions which came during shellings. His emotions often

stemmed from an inability to respond and could only imagine the death that
was coming. Sledge talks about death, maiming and wounding frequently but

never uses those terms. He and other Marines said that someone got hit.

Sledges stories of Marines joking about how close a thing was when a bullet,

grenade or shell miss was when missed seem strange to anyone who has not

faced combat. His description of the destruction of human beings becomes

darker in his Okinawa campaign description. Not until D+12 when Sledge

landed on Ngesebus Island during a flanking maneuver to protect the

northern end of Peleliu from Japanese artillery and reinforcements, does he

describe his own close combat experience. It almost seemed a comical

experience from his description but also confused and deadly close. He

describes killing Japanese with his carbine and the feelings of remorse and

then chides himself for feeling so for a foe trying to throw grenades at him

and his buddies.

During the first few days of the Peleliu campaign Sledge does not describe

seeing a live Japanese soldier. That also occurred during most of the Okinawa

campaign. Not until late in the Okinawa campaign did the Marines see many

Japanese. Often it was only 1 or 2 at a time until they had reduced a strong

point. Then the Marines could see the dead Japanese. As Sledges Peleliu

description moved on, one saw how the Marines were learning how to deal

with the Japanese soldiers and their tactics and how the Marines were

learning to stay alive. But the Japanese were also learning. Sledge describes

how tactically minded the Japanese had become, firing artillery and mortars

when they could do the most destruction. The Japanese were designing a
defense in depth that was a reaction to the lack of success they had in

stopping Marines on the beaches during early amphibious landings. Sledges

Okinawa wrings show that the Japanese followed the defense in depth

strategy there as well.

As the Peleliu battle wore on, Sledge describes a tiredness, exhaustion and

despair that crept in on him from enduring constant battle and from the

wariness that he had to have during the nights. He also describes the stench

of rotting Japanese corpses, human waste and rotting rations. He also

comments many times about the useless waste, materiel and human futures,

that war is. Human waste and rotting rations also caused a fly explosion that

was treated with DDT. The living conditions for Marines just kept getting

worse and were beyond wretched at the Umbrogol Pocket. Sledge also

describes how wretched the water was that was brought to them during the

early battle. They had cleaned 50 gallon oil barrels at Pavavu and now they

realized how the water reached them and why it had an oily sheen and taste.

Water and rations always seemed to be a problem, quantity and quality, at

both campaigns. Peleliu was extremely hat and there never seemed to be

enough water while at Okinawa water could not reach the Marines in large

enough quantity in the later part of the campaign due to mud and poor

weather.

Sledge calls war a disease. He describes one officer, Mac, who once tried to

shoot off the penis of a dead Japanese soldier, urinating in the mouth of a

Japanese corpse or taking target practice at the teeth of a dead Japanese.

Sledge described Mac as an aberration to the officer corps for the Marines.

Sledge writes that as civilized men, we were duty bound to return soon to

return to the chaotic nether world of shells and bullets and suffering and

death.6

Sledge writes that unlike Peleilu, he had an understanding of what to expect

as he moved south towards the Shuri line in Okinawa. Even though he and

other Marines felt fear, everyone did their duty and said no one gave into

their fear. But some did eventually break mentally.

Sledge writes about the drudgery and hard physical work that occurs in war.

He remarks about how often war narratives and histories neglect this aspect

of war. Often because of the natural topography which the Japanese used for

defensive positions, it was necessary to carry ammo, food, water and

casualties. The work could lead to physical breakdown that occurred in

combat. Bad weather, heat cold rain mud, often accelerated the breakdown.

But the weather also added to the physical discomfort of living on the front

line and just behind it. The rear echelon Marines would sometimes show up

at the front clean shaven well fed and in clean dungarees reminding the front

line Marines how miserable they were. Sledge also describes a constant

headache that he had because of the constant large caliber shelling that

occurred on Okinawa. I can only imagine how much hearing loss Sledge had

to live with in later years as well.

The Okinawa experience for Sledge was much more degrading than Peleiliu.

The mud, dead Japanese, maggots, inability to move dead Marines. Sledge

describes his impression of a dead Marine at Half Moon Hill that could not be

moved. He felt the Marine was mocking him because Sledge still had to

endure the struggle and to survive while the dead Marines struggle was

over. He writes that even many years after the war he could remember the

scene.7 The living conditions were so degrading and horrible that Sledge

seemed to resign himself to a bad outcome.

I have read a few stories of 20th century combat as well as combat narratives

of the recent Iraq war. I cannot recall reading as much about the lousy

conditions that infantry or rifleman endure. Sledge provided new insight in

how bad those conditions can be for them. Sledge also describes emotions

that I had not read about as well. His description of combat adds much to my

understanding of what the experience is like.

1. Eugene B. Sledge, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Sledge,

accessed 9 Feb 2017.

2. Sledge, E B, With the Old Breed. Presidio Press Paperback Edition 2010, p.

12

3. Ibid p. 38.

4. Landing Ship, Tank. Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Ship,_Tank, accessed 10 Feb 2017.

5. Sledge. p. 64-65.

6. Sledge. p. 200

7. Sledge p. 270.