One of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history, Operation Stalemate, as Peleliu was called, was overshadowed by the Normandy landings. It was also, in time, judged by most historians to have been unnecessary; though it had been conceived to protect MacArthur's flank in the Philippines, the U. S. fleet's carrier raids had eliminated Japanese airpower, rendering Peleliu irrelevant. Nevertheless, the horrifying number of casualties sustained there foreshadowed for the rest of the war: rather than fight to the death on the beach, the Japanese would now defend in depth and bleed the Americans white.
Drawing extensively on personal interviews, the Marine Corps History Division's vast oral history and photographic collection, and many never-before-published sources, this book gives us a new and harrowing vision of what really happened at Peleliu—and what it meant. Working closely with two of the 1st Regiment's battalion commanders—Ray Davis and Russ Honsowetz—Marine Corps veteran and military historian Dick Camp recreates the battle as it was experienced by the men and their officers.
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"The book overall is very easy to read, with plenty of personal accounts adding the human element to what could have been a book full of dry tactics and numbers. . . . If you enjoy this period of history, this book deserves a space on your library shelf."
— IPMS
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Dick Camp served as a Marine officer for twenty-six years before retiring in 1988. He was a company commander in Vietnam with the Third Marine Division along the DMZ and Khe Sanh. He is the author of more than ten books, including Storming the Point and Marines in Combat.
P. J. Ochlan is an Audie Award–winning, multiple Earphones Award–winning, and Voice Arts Award–nominated narrator of hundreds of audiobooks. His acting career spans more than thirty years and has also included Broadway, the New York Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp, critically acclaimed feature films, and television series regular roles.