Description
Book SynopsisThe inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFIC
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts to ever come out of World War 2. Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war''s fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country.
From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it''s really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled
Trade Review
Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived -- Tom Hanks
A powerful book that pulls no punches * The New York Review of Books *
One hell of a book! The real stuff that proves the U.S. Marines are the greatest fighting men on earth! -- Leon Uris, author of Battle Cry
