In the fall of 1943, armed with only his notebooks and pencils, Time and Life correspondent Robert L. Sherrod leapt from the safety of a landing craft and waded through neck-deep water and a hail of bullets to reach the shores of the Tarawa atoll with the US Marine Corps.
Living shoulder to shoulder with the marines, Sherrod chronicled combat and the marines’ day-to-day struggles as they leapfrogged across the Central Pacific, battling the Japanese on Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. While the marines courageously and doggedly confronted an enemy that at times seemed invincible, those left behind on the American home front desperately scanned Sherrod’s columns for news of their loved ones.
After Sherrod’s death in 1994, the Washington Post heralded his reporting as “some of the most vivid accounts of men at war ever produced by an American journalist.” Now, for the first time, Ray E. Boomhower tells Sherrod’s story in this intimate account of the Pacific front war efforts.
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“Anyone who has watched History Channel specials on World War II in the Pacific will undoubtedly be familiar with the name ‘Robert Sherrod.’ His war writing and coverage was unsurpassed in that theater as he found himself in some of its fiercest battles. While a few books have been released previously that contain his coverage on Tarawa and other specific campaigns, this should prove an interesting first-hand collection of his dispatches and one that any WW2 history buff should add to their library.”
— WW2Reads.com
“Like Ernie Pyle in World War II Europe and North Africa, Sherrod eloquently told the story of American troops in the Pacific. And Boomhower tells Sherrod’s story just as well.”
— Owen V. Johnson, author of At Home with Ernie Pyle“Ray Boomhower’s deeply researched and superbly written book makes clear why Sherrod was one of American’s greatest reporters and why his work rings true today.”
— James H. Madison, author of Hoosiers: A New History of IndianaBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Ray E. Boomhower is interim senior director of the Indiana Historical Society Press. He has written books on the lives of Ernie Pyle, Lew Wallace, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, May Wright Sewall, and John Bartlow Martin, among others. In 2010 he was named winner of the Regional Award in the annual Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards.
Joe Barrett, an actor and Audie Award and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared both on and off Broadway as well as in hundreds of radio and television commercials.