Product Description

This Band of Brothers for the Pacific is the gut-wrenching and ultimately triumphant story of the Marines' most ferocious -- yet largely forgotten -- battle of World War II.

Between September 15 and October 15, 1944, the First Marine Division suffered more than 6,500 casualties fighting on a hellish little coral island in the Pacific. Peleliu was the setting for one of the most savage struggles of modern times, a true killing ground that has been all but forgotten -- until now. Drawing on interviews with Peleliu veterans, Bill Sloan's gripping narrative seamlessly weaves together the experiences of the men who were there, producing a vivid and unflinching tableau of the twenty-four-hour-a-day nightmare of Peleliu.

Emotionally moving and gripping in its depictions of combat, Brotherhood of Heroes rescues the Corps's bloodiest battle from obscurity and does honor to the Marines who fought it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149140 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Released on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .97" h x 6.14" w x 9.24" l, .98 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The battle of Peleliu, though certainly not the bloodiest of the Pacific war, was a ghastly ordeal. The rugged hills of the tiny coral island were honeycombed with caves and bunkers whose determined Japanese defenders had to be pried from every nook and cranny at the cost of nearly 10,000 American casualties. Sloan, author of Given Up for Dead: America's Heroic Stand at Wake Island, delivers an engrossing grunt's-eye-view of the fighting, structured around personal reminiscences by the Marines who bore the brunt of it. By day, they inched forward with tanks, machine guns, grenades and flame-throwers; by night, they grappled in their foxholes with knife-wielding enemy infiltrators. The author repeatedly salutes the Marines' bravery but allows the horror of war-the loss of friends, the stench of the dead, the torment of thirst and sleep deprivation-to make itself felt: "I had resigned from the human race... I just wanted to kill," recalls one soldier. Sloan maintains enough perspective that the shape of the battle isn't lost amid the action, and he critiques American commanders' conduct of the campaign, which many historians consider a tragic waste of lives on an island that should have been bypassed. His regrettably one-sided account says little about the Japanese experience, and his focus on slogging foot soldiers somewhat distorts the character of the American effort, which relied on massive artillery and airstrikes. Still, he tells a gripping story, full of excitement and pathos, about one of the more hellish struggles of the Second World War. Photos. Agent, Roger Labrie.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Peleliu is one of the Palau Islands, southeast of the Philippines. In World War II, it was a Japanese base on the road to MacArthur's "return." The island was unsuitable for offensive purposes but was heavily garrisoned and fortified. When the First Marine Division went ashore, its first wave was actually outnumbered by the Japanese, who, instead of making banzai charges, sat in caves, tunnels, and holes and fought until they were killed. In the process, marine casualties ran into five figures and left enough defenders to give the army a hefty mopping-up job. Sloan, author of the excellent Given Up for Dead (2003), about Wake Island, focuses on Company K, Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, and draws heavily on interviews with its surviving members. He also casts his net widely enough to offer a detailed, gripping panorama of one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War, which may well have been unnecessary. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Sloan expertly captures the enduring greatness of American soldiers sent to fight against impossible odds."

-- W.E.B. Griffin, author of the Brotherhood of War novels

"What a riveting story Bill Sloan tells in Brotherhood of Heroes. The U.S. Marines at Peleliu were braver than brave. Sloan captures the rank horror of combat in the Pacific Theater -- and the valor of our armed forces -- with stunning verve, dramatic anecdotes, and impeccable research. A towering achievement."

-- Douglas Brinkley, author of Tour of Duty and director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Tulane University

"Bill Sloan has told the wrenching personal stories of U.S. Marines who gave their lives and blood in World War II on a Pacific island that nobody knew or cared about. More striking is the fact that nobody knows or cares now about those Marines and that island. This book should change that forever. On another level, Brotherhood of Heroes should be read by everyone who contemplates going or sending others to war."

-- Jim Lehrer, host of The News Hour on PBS

"Peleliu was one of the most brutal -- some would say the most brutal -- battles of the Pacific war. Yet it has always been overshadowed by more famous engagements, such as Iwo Jima and Leyte Gulf. In Brotherhood of Heroes, Bill Sloan elevates the battle of Peleliu into the first rank of Pacific war history, where it belongs. A splendid achievement and an absorbing read."

-- Jeffrey Hunt, curator, Admiral Nimitz National Museum of the Pacific War