We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,567,128.01 | Books Available: 795,898 | Members Online: 201

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Out In The Boondocks - Marines In Action In The Pacific - 21 U S Marines Tell Their Stories

Out In The Boondocks Marines In Action In The Pacific 21 U S Marines Tell Their Stories
Author: James D. Horan

Out in BOONDOCKS MARINES IN ACTION IN THE PACIFIC 21 U. S. MARINES TELL THEIR STORIES BY JAMES D. HORAN AND GEROLD FRANK G P PUTNAMS SONS NEW YORK FOREWORD When the full story of World War II is written, perhaps then we shall be able to assay the importance of the U. S. Marines and their Homeric exploits in the Solomon Islands. Let the military ... more »experts gauge the strategic significance of these battles, which began with landings on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo on August 7, and marked the first exclusively American land offensive in the Pacific. It is sufficient to agree now that they stopped the Japanese in their tracks, smashed the myth of Japanese invindbility, and threw the Japanese warlords off a racing stride. Our concern is with the men who took part in these battles, with whom we spoke and to whom we listened hours on end, and whose stories you will find in these pages. Each of them had death as neighbor. Each of them had undergone a mental and physical ordeal more punishing, in the opinion of medical authorities today, than any combat troops have known in history. They were men who had what it takes. Men Some were only boys, like eighteen-year-old Billy Harding. Not even the most omniscient dramatist would cast Billy for the role he played. Certainly, by all the rules he seems more suited to be pictured sitting at a drug-store counter sipping a malted milk than strangling a Japanese soldier on the edge of a Guadal canal fox hole. But they were all Marines, and what they did is the stuff of which the songs and sagas of a people are made. Billy Harding, and twenty-year-old Jimmy Hall, who played cHig tjfe d afi Wili e a Japanese mop-up squad nudged ti oy and stripped him and, miraculously, ISi nJbt b c cti to niake sure, and all the rest of the boys who went, out in the boondocks, would dismiss such character ization a f o business, and be pretty uncomfortable about it. But we who sit behind typewriters and dare only a smudged finger or a twitchy eye have the right to use words about them. We spoke to them in naval hospitals, in the quiet of hotel rooms, in their homes and we know what they are. Hero fits them. Some of these Marines were part of the Marine Raider Bat talion, commanded by Col. Merritt A. Edson. For months be for August 7 they trained, both in the United States and on small islands in the South Pacific, for the job they had to do. Your Marine Raider is tough. He makes up the advance guard, the shock-troops, the battering rams, as it were, who hit an objec tive and soften it up for the troops that follow. Hes a Marine flus, handpicked for the most dangerous and difficult tasks. He has perfected himself in every possible technique of defense and offensive warfare. He knows amphibious fighting. Hes at home in a rubber boat, in a fox hole or as part of a raiding party as signed to hit, destroy and disappear. Hes a specialist in hand to-hand fighting, and he knows the skills of gouging, bayonet ting, strangling and knifing. Hes trained to sweep out of nowhere to strike at an objective, smash air and naval bases, com munication centers, ammunition dumps, military stores, defen sive installations. On August 7 it was the Raiders who invaded and captured the island of Tulagi, following that up by sweep ing over Florida Island and relentlessly pursuing the Japs who had escaped from Tulagi. Meanwhile, the main body of the Marines had landed on Guadalcanal. On September i the Raiders joined forces wtih them on Guadalcanal and helped push the Japanese back into the jungles. On September n, under Colonel Edson, the Raiders attacked the Japanese village of Tasimbogo. Painted like Sioux Indians, they crept through the jungles and attacked the village at dawn, burned it to the vi ground and destroyed vital enemy ammunition dumps. The U. S. Marines were thrown into the battle of Lunga Ridge, variously known as Raiders Ridge, Bloody Knoll and Edsons Ridge...

ISBN-13: 9781406743074
ISBN-10: 1406743070
Publication Date: 3/15/2007
Pages: 224
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Sastri Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Out In The Boondocks - Marines In Action In The Pacific - 21 U S Marines Tell Their Stories

Loading...