With the Old Breed

Awarded number one Best War Story Ever Told
by
Men's Journal
magazine

In memory of Capt. Andrew A. Haldane,
beloved company commander of K/⅗,
and to the Old Breed

Rifles were high and holy things to them, and they knew five-inch broadside guns. They talked patronizingly of the war, and were concerned about rations. They were the Leathernecks, the old Timers…They were the old breed of American regular, regarding the service as home and war as an occupation; and they transmitted their temper and character and viewpoint to the high-hearted volunteer mass which filled the ranks of the Marine Brigade.…

—“The Leathernecks” in
Fix Bayonets
by John W. Thomason, Jr.

Foreword by Brig. Gen. Walter S. McIlhenny

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Victor Davis Hanson

PART I
PELELIU: A NEGLECTED BATTLE

Foreword by Lt. Col. John A. Crown

1.
Making of a Marine

2.
Preparation for Combat

3.
On to Peleliu

4.
Assault into Hell

5.
Another Amphibious Assault

6.
Brave Men Lost

PART II
OKINAWA: THE FINAL TRIUMPH

Foreword by Capt. Thomas J. Stanley

7.
Rest and Rehabilitation

8.
Prelude to Invasion

9.
Stay of Execution

10.
Into the Abyss

11.
Of Shock and Shells

12.
Of Mud and Maggots

13.
Breakthrough

14.
Beyond Shuri

15.
End of the Agony

Appendix: A Roll of Honor

Bibliography

It was my privilege to assume command of the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced) on 10 April 1944 during the final phase of the New Britain campaign. New Britain was its second combat operation.

Although we didn't know it at the time, two more campaigns lay before the battalion, Peleliu and Okinawa. Each of them would be of greater intensity and extract a greater cost than did the first two. And when the division departed New Britain for a “rest camp” on Pavuvu in the Russell Islands, we began comprehensive training for what was to become Operation Stalemate on Peleliu Island in the Palau Islands. That operation was to receive little publicity or recognition, but it was certainly to be one of the bloodiest and hardest fought in the Pacific war.

Among the replacements who joined us during this period was a young Marine known as “Sledgehammer,” more properly listed as Pfc. E. B. Sledge. He was assigned to Company K, under the command of Capt. Andrew Haldane, one of the finest company commanders in the entire Corps.

Sledgehammer has a Ph.D. now and is a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Alabama. But he has never forgotten his experiences with Company K during the fights for Peleliu and Okinawa.

Although I commanded the 3d Battalion during its training period for Peleliu, it was my fate—through the vicissitudes of seniority, or the lack thereof—to be transferred to the regimental staff before we sailed for Peleliu. That was a source of deep regret on my part.

It's customary for historical accounts to be written about
military campaigns. It's not unusual for officers to write their personal narratives of such operations. But it's all too rare for an ordinary Marine infantryman to set down in print his own impressions of war. This is the man who actually closes with the enemy, who endures a plethora of privations along with pain and all too often death, who is the lowest common denominator when battle is joined.

Sledgehammer Sledge was such a Marine. In this book we see the war as he himself saw it. Anyone who has served in the ranks will find many situations analogous to his own experiences recounted accurately in the recital of fears, frustrations, and small triumphs. It's fascinating and instructive reading.

—Brig. Gen. Walter S. McIlhenny,

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret.),

Avery Island, Louisiana

This book is an account of my World War II experiences in training and in combat with Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division during the Peleliu and Okinawa campaigns. It is not a history, and it is not my story alone. I have attempted, rather, to be the spokesman for my comrades, who were swept with me into the abyss of war. I hope they will approve my efforts.

I began writing this account immediately after Peleliu while we were in rest camp on Pavuvu Island. I outlined the entire story with detailed notes as soon as I returned to civilian life, and I have written down certain episodes during the years since then. Mentally, I have gone over and over the details of these events, but I haven't been able to draw them all together and write them down until now.

I have done extensive research with published and unpublished histories and documents pertaining to my division's role in the Peleliu and Okinawa campaigns. I have been amazed at the vast difference in the perception of events recounted in these narratives as contrasted to my experience on the front line.

My Pacific war experiences have haunted me, and it has been a burden to retain this story. But time heals, and the nightmares no longer wake me in a cold sweat with pounding heart and racing pulse. Now I can write this story, painful though it is to do so. In writing it I'm fulfilling an obligation I have long felt to my comrades in the 1st Marine Division, all of whom suffered so much for our country. None came out unscathed. Many gave their lives, many their health, and
some their sanity. All who survived will long remember the horror they would rather forget. But they suffered and they did their duty so a sheltered homeland can enjoy the peace that was purchased at such a high cost. We owe those Marines a profound debt of gratitude.

E.B.S.

Although this is a personal account, which was originally written for my family, there have been numerous people who have helped shape it into book form for the general reader.

First I want to thank Jeanne, my wonderful wife. She typed the Peleliu portion of the manuscript from stacks of my handwritten pages, and was the first to suggest that this narrative might be of interest to others than our family. She has encouraged and aided me with ideas, advice, editing, and typing. That the lengthy original manuscript was completed after years of spare-time writing and research during graduate school and child rearing is due as much to her assistance as to my efforts.

Deepest appreciation is extended to my editor, Lt. Col. Robert W. Smith, USMC (Ret.). During his last year as editor of the
Marine Corps Gazette,
he became interested in seeing this complete account in book form during our work on extracts, which appeared as a three-part article, “Peleliu: A Neglected Battle.” His interest has been my good fortune. In addition to his vast editing skill, Bob has been an inexhaustible source of good ideas and advice. On more than one occasion he has bolstered my sagging morale when I've become weary with what is not a happy subject. His objectivity has guided me through the forest when I couldn't see the trees, and when it was painful to both of us to omit parts of the original. I am grateful for his sensitivity and impeccable professionalism.

I want to thank my publisher, Col. Robert V Kane, USA (Ret.), and Adele Horwitz, Editor in Chief of Presidio Press,
who saw in my verbose original manuscript a story that should be told.

This book could not have been written without the benefit of Marine Corps historical material. My requests for help were rapidly and efficiently granted in every instance. For this I want to thank Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret.), Director of Marine Corps History and Museums Be-nis Frank; Ralph Donnelly; and Henry I. Shaw.

For their help and encouragement I express my gratitude to Brig. Gen. Walter McIlhenny, USMC (Ret.); Lt. Col. John A. Crown, USMC (Ret.); Brig. Gen. Austin Shofner, USMC (Ret.); Capt. John A. Moran, USMC (Ret.); and Maj. Allan Bevilacqua, USMC (Ret.).

M. Sgt. Robert F. Fleischauer, USMC (Ret.), is due recognition and thanks for his fine work on the maps and sketches.

I thank Mrs. Hilda Van Landingham for typing the first draft of the Okinawa portion. Mary Francis Tipton, Reference Librarian at the University of Montevallo, merits my deepest appreciation for her help. Dr. Lucille Griffith, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Montevallo, was one of the first people to suggest this account be published. Her faith in it is redeemed, and I thank her.

My heartiest thanks to my old K/⅗ buddies who have assisted so much in verifying company casualty figures, countless other details, and photograph identification: Ted (Tex) Barrow, Henry A. Boyes, Valton Burgin, Jessie Crumbacker, Art Dimick, John Hedge, T. L. Hudson, William Leyden, Sterling Mace, Tom Matheny, Jim McEney, Vincent Santos, George Sarrett, Thomas (Stumpy) Stanley. If I have omitted any names, I apologize. Any errors in the manuscript are solely mine.

I appreciate the cooperation and understanding of my sons John and Henry and their patience with a father who was often preoccupied with past events.

A grant from the University of Montevallo Faculty Research Committee aided in the preparation of the manuscript.

E.B.S.

So E. B. Sledge ends his memoir of the horrors of the Marines’ fighting in late 1944 and spring 1945 against the imperial Japanese on Peleliu and Okinawa. We should recall these concluding thoughts about patriotic duty because
With the Old Breed
has now achieved the status of a military classic—in part on the perception of Sledge's blanket condemnation of the brutality and senselessness of war itself.

Although there are horrors aplenty in the graphic accounts of the 1st Marine Division's ordeal in these two invasions, his message is still not so darkly condemnatory. The real power of Sledge's memoir is not just found in his melancholy. Even in his frequent despair over the depravity seen everywhere around him, there is an overriding sense of tragedy: until the nature of man himself changes, reluctant men such as E. B. Sledge will be asked to do things that civilization should not otherwise ask of its own—but must if it is to survive barbarity.

Who, in fact, was Eugene Bondurant Sledge—a previously unknown retired professor who late in life published his first book, originally intended only as a private memoir for his family? Yet within two decades of publication that draft became acknowledged as the finest literary account to emerge about the Pacific war.

Despite the still growing acclaim given
With the Old Breed—
first published more than twenty years earlier by the
Presidio Press of Novato, California—the death of Sledge at seventy-seven, in March 2001, garnered little national attention. After his retirement, Sledge had remained a mostly private person who rarely entered the public arena.

Even with his perfect Marine name, E. B. Sledge might have seemed an unlikely combat veteran. Born the son of a prominent local physician in Mobile, Alabama, the articulate, slight, and shy Sledge spent only a year at Marion Military Institute, and then enrolled at the Georgia Institute of Technology—before choosing instead to leave the officers’ training program to enlist in late 1943 in the U.S. Marine Corps as a private. This early intimate experience with officer training, together with the subsequent decision to prefer service with the enlisted corps, colors much of the narrative of
With the Old Breed.
Sledge repeatedly takes stock of officers, and both the worst and best men in the Corps prove to be its second lieutenants and captains.

After the defeat of Japan, Sledge served in the American occupying force in China; his account of that tour was published posthumously as
China Marine.
Sledge later remarked he found the return to civilian life difficult after Peleliu and Okinawa, as did many veterans of island fighting in the Pacific who could not “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.” Yet Sledge adjusted well enough to graduate in 1949 with his B.S. degree. By 1960 he had completed his Ph.D. in zoology and settled on an academic career; at thirty-nine he joined the University of Montevallo, where he taught microbiology and ornithology until his retirement.

His scholarly expertise and precision of thought and language, gained from nearly thirty years as a teacher and scientist, perhaps explain much of the force of
With the Old Breed.
The narrative is peppered with wide-ranging empirical observations of his new surroundings—and philosophical shrugs about the incongruity of it all: “There the Okinawans had tilled their soil with ancient and crude farming methods; but the war had come, bringing with it the latest and most refined technology for killing. It seemed so insane, and I realized
that the war was like some sort of disease afflicting man.”

The look back at the savagery of Peleliu and Okinawa— based on old battle notes he had once kept on slips of paper in his copy of the New Testament—is presented with the care of a clinician. Sledge's language is modest; there is no bombast. The resulting autopsy of battle is eerie, almost dreamlike. Dispassionate understatement accentuates rather than sanitizes the barbarity. Sledge describes a dead Japanese medical corpsman torn apart by American shelling thusly: “The corpsman was on his back, his abdominal cavity laid bare. I stared in horror, shocked at the glistening viscera bespecked with fine coral dust. This can't have been a human being, I agonized. It looked more like the guts of one of the many rabbits or squirrels I had cleaned on hunting trips as a boy. I felt sick as I stared at the corpses.”

We readers are dumbfounded by the first few pages—how can such a decent man have endured such an inferno, emerged apparently whole, and now decades later brought us back to these awful islands to write so logically about such abject horrors? On the eve of the invasion of Peleliu, the ever curious Sledge matter-of-factly asks an intelligent-looking but doomed Marine what he plans to do after the war, and then he describes the reply, “ ‘I want to be a brain surgeon. The human brain is an incredible thing; it fascinates me,’ he replied. But he didn't survive Peleliu to realize his ambition.”

The Pacific ground theater of World War II from Guadalcanal to Okinawa that nearly consumed Sledge, as it did thousands of American youths, was no dream, but a nightmare unlike any other fighting in the nation's wartime history. It was an existential struggle of annihilation. And the killing was fueled by political, cultural—and racial—odium in which no quarter was asked or given: “A brutish, primitive hatred,” Sledge reminds us decades later, “as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands.”

The sheer distances across the seas, the formidable size of the imperial Japanese fleet, and the priority of the United States in defeating Nazi Germany first, all meant that the
odds were often with the enemy. In particular theaters the Japanese had advantages over the Americans in numbers, choice of terrain, and even supply. We now might underestimate the wartime technology of imperial Japan, forgetting that it was often as good as, or even superior to, American munitions. On both islands Sledge writes in detail of the singular Japanese mortars and artillery that wheeled out, fired, and then withdrew in safety behind heavy steel doors. Especially feared was “a 320-mm-spigot-mortar unit equipped to fire a 675-pound shell. Americans first encountered this awesome weapon on Iwo Jima.”

As Sledge relates, the heat, rugged coral peaks, and incessant warm rain of the exotic Pacific islands, so unlike the European theater, were as foreign to Americans as the debilitating tropical diseases. Land crabs and ubiquitous jungle rot ate away leather, canvas—and flesh. “It was gruesome,” Sledge the biologist writes of Peleliu, “to see the stages of decay proceed from just killed to bloated to maggot-infested rotting to partially exposed bones—like some biological clock marking the inexorable passage of time.” He adds of the stench, “At every breath one inhaled hot, humid air heavy with countless repulsive odors.”

The awfulness was not just that the fanatical nature of the Japanese resistance meant that America's Depression-era draftees were usually forced to kill rather than wound or capture their enemy. Rather, there grew a certain dread or even bewilderment among young draftees about the nature of an ideology that could fuel such elemental hatred of the Americans. On news of the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the veteran Sledge remained puzzled: “We thought the Japanese would never surrender. Many refused to believe it. Sitting in stunned silence, we remembered our dead. So many dead. So many maimed. So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.”

E. B. Sledge's story begins with his training as a Marine in Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. The memoir centers on two nightmarish island battles that ultimately ruined the division. The first was at Peleliu (Operation Stalemate II, September 15-November 25,
1944), where in 10 weeks of horrific fighting some 8,769 Americans were killed, wounded, or missing. About 11,000 Japanese perished—nearly the entire enemy garrison on the island. Controversy raged—and still does about the wisdom of storming many of the Pacific islands—whether Gen. Douglas MacArthur really needed the capture of the Japanese garrison on Peleliu to ensure a safe right flank on his way to the Philippines.

Yet such arguments over strategic necessity count little for Sledge. His concern is instead with the survival of his 235 comrades in Company K, which suffered 150 killed, wounded, or missing. And so there is little acrimony over the retrospective folly of taking on Peleliu. Sledge's resignation might be best summed up as something like, “The enemy held the island; we took it; they lost, and we moved on.”

Operation Iceberg (April 1, 1945-July 2, 1945) the next year to capture Okinawa was far worse. Indeed it was the most nightmarish American experience of the entire Pacific war—over 50,000 American casualties, including some 12,500 soldiers and sailors killed, and the greatest number of combat fatigue cases ever recorded of a single American battle.

My namesake Victor Hanson, of the 6th Marine Division, 29th Regiment, was killed near the Shuri Line, in the last assault on the heights, a few hours before its capture on May 19, 1945. His letters, and those of his commanding officer notifying our family of his death, make poignant reading— including the account of his final moments on Sugar Loaf Hill. Indeed, the very name Okinawa has haunted the Hanson family, as it had Sledge's and thousands of other American households, for a half century hence. For decades in the United States no one really knew—or wished not to know— what really went on at Okinawa.

In fact, neither of Sledge's two battles, despite their ferocity and the brutal eventual American victories—being in obscure, distant places and in the so-called second theater— garnered the public attention of Normandy Beach or the Battle of the Bulge. In the case of Okinawa, the savagery was overshadowed, first, by the near simultaneous death of
Franklin Roosevelt on April 12, and the May 8 German surrender in Europe; and then later by the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9), just over five weeks after the island was declared finally secured on July 2.

Sandwiched in between these momentous events, tens of thousands of Americans in obscurity slowly ground their way down the island. They accepted that they might have to kill everyone in most of the last crack Japanese units, led by the most accomplished officers in the Japanese military, the brilliant but infamous generals Mitsuru Ushijima and Isamu Cho and the gifted tactician Col. Hiromichi Yahara.

When the battle was over, the U.S. Navy had suffered its worst single-battle losses in its history. The newly formed 6th Marine Division and Sledge's veteran 1st Marine Division were wrecked, with almost half their original strength either killed or wounded. The commander of all U.S. ground forces on Okinawa, Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., became the highest-ranking soldier to die in combat in World War II. The destructive potential of thousands of kamikaze suicide bombers, together with the faulty prebattle intelligence that had sorely underestimated the size, armament, and ferocity of the island resistance, created a dread about the upcoming November 1 scheduled assault on the Japanese mainland (Operation Olympic).

Controversy still rages over the morality of dropping the two atomic bombs that ended the war before the American invasions of Kyushu and Honshu. But we forget that President Truman's decision was largely predicated on avoiding the nightmare that Marines like E. B. Sledge had just endured on Peleliu and Okinawa. If today Americans in the leisure of a long peace wonder whether our grandfathers were too hasty in their decision to resort to atomic weapons, they forget that many veterans of the Pacific wondered why they had to suffer through an Okinawa when the successful test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16 came just a few days after the island was declared secure. Surely the carnage on Okinawa could have been delayed till late summer to let such envisioned
weapons convince the Japanese of the futility of prolonging the war.

There are fine memoirs of Okinawa and narrative accounts of the battle's role in the American victory over Japan, most notably William Manchester's beautifully written
Goodbye, Darkness,
and George Feifer's comprehensive
Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb.
But E. B. Sledge's harrowing story remains unmatched, told in a prose that is dignified, without obscenities or even much slang—all the more memorable since the author was not a formal stylist nor given to easy revelations of his own strong passions. John Keegan, Paul Fussel, and Studs Turkel have all praised Sledge's honesty, especially his explicit acknowledgment that he experienced the same hatred, but fought daily against the barbarity that drove others to nearly match the atrocities of their Japanese enemies.

Unlike the case of many postwar memoirs, the accuracy of Sledge's facts has never been called into question. He does not magnify his own achievements or those of his own Company K. Sledge sometimes uses a few footnotes of explication at the bottom of the page. Often they are heartbreaking asterisks that apprise the reader that the wonderful officer Sledge has just described in the text was later shot or blown up on Peleliu or Okinawa. He reminds his readers that his Marines, being as human as any other soldiers, were capable of great cruelty—“a passionate hatred for the Japanese burned through all Marines I knew.” But that being said, Sledge's own moral censure reveals a certain American ex-ceptionalism that such barbarism should and usually was to be condemned as deviance rather than accepted as the norm—quite different from the Japanese: