The late Professor E. B. Sledge wrote this memoir almost 40 years after his separation from the U.S. Marine Corps. He had seen service with the 1st Marine Division in the Pacific in WW II. He had dropped out of college where he had been enrolled in an Officer candidate program and enlisted as a private. After basic and advanced training, he was ordered to join the 1st Marine Division in West Pacific.
First, let's define the word: infantry. The root goes way back, to the Latin infant-small child. lit. one unable to speak. equiv. to in-+ -fans, past participle of fari- to speak. Interpreted as one who cannot walk or talk.
By the time Sledge arrived in the South Pacific, Gen. MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz were getting a handle on the Japanese. The expansion of Empire was over, and the push back to Tokyo was under way. The Allied Forces began their island hopping campaign that would take these forces across the Pacific, using islands as stepping stones on the long march north.
After the victory on Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, the First Marine Division was sent to Australia to regroup and refit for its next operation. That next "big show" would take place in the Palau group of islands, on a high coral atoll called Peleliu. To this day, the clash on Peleliu remains controversial: was it really necessary? Was the little airstrip that significant? Was the operation unstoppable after it was set in motion? Was the intelligence accurate? Were Japanese tactics and strategy properly evaluated? Most answers to these questions are mixed and unanswerable.
But for those Marines who waded ashore on D-Day, the questions will always be: was it worth the lives of so many young American infantrymen?
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