Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training 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 sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense 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 war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie's hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.
Now producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, the men behind Band of Brothers, have adapted material from Helmet for My Pillow for HBO's epic miniseries The Pacific, which will thrill and edify a whole new generation.
Leckie’s memoir of his experiences in the Pacific campaign of WW2 is one my favorite memoirs. Why? Because it is so well written. His vivid descriptions of combat impress on the reader a true sense of reality, of being there in that foxhole.
“I think of Judgment Day. I think of Götterdämmerung; I think of the stars exploding, of the planets going off like fireworks; I think of a volcano; I think of a roaring and an energy unbelievable; I think, of holocaust; and again I think of night reeling from a thousand scarlet slashes and I see the red eye of hell winking in her wounds—I think of all these, and I cannot tell you what I have seen, the terrible spectacle I witnessed from that hillside.”
Leckie's emotional descriptions and writing style, rather than the storyline, are the primary reasons for my 5 star review. This is not your everyday ghost-written war memoir, describing a litany of deeds written in essay style. Leckie lyrically emphasizes his objection to war, maybe not realized while experienced, but certainly at the time of writing.
The Epilogue poignantly describes Leckie's experience of the end of the war in the pacific and is asking us the question if the end really justified the means: Leckie answers in his final sentence, "... dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud." ( )
Las memorias de Robert Leckie constituyen uno de los más apasionantes relatos de un testigo directo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En enero de 1942, poco después del ataque japonés a Pearl Harbor, se alistó en el cuerpo de marines de los Estados Unidos. En Mi casco por almohada narra su odisea, desde el durísimo entrenamiento en Carolina del Sur hasta las feroces batallas de la campaña del Pacífico.
Parris Island, Guadalcanal, Pavuvu, and Peleliu covered Leckie's career in the Marine Corps. For many in the First Marines, the two battles spanned their lives as well as their careers. For those that see glory in battle and war; this book should be required reading. Before the US got its logistics in place, marines were eating Japanese rice and drinking gasoline-fouled water from metal containers. Guadalcanal was necessary but Peleliu should have been, like Rabaul, isolated and ignored. Macarthur insisted, Nimitz, acquiesced and thousands of marines died.
Informatie afkomstig uit de Zweedse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
To Those Who Fell
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Zweedse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
A cutting wind slanted up Church Street in the cheerless dawn of January 5, 1942.
Citaten
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Zweedse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
I, whom you have seen as irreverent and irreligious, now pray in the name of Chuckler and Hoosier and Runner, in the name of Smoothface, Gentleman, Amish and Oakstump, Ivy.League and Big-Picture, in the name od all those who suffered in the jungles and on the beaches, from Anzio to Normandy - and in the name of the immolated: of Texas, Rutherford, Chicken, Loudmouth, od the Artist and White-Man, souvenirs and Racehorse, Dreadnought and Commando - of all these and the others, dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud.
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training 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 sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense 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 war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie's hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.
Now producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, the men behind Band of Brothers, have adapted material from Helmet for My Pillow for HBO's epic miniseries The Pacific, which will thrill and edify a whole new generation.
)
)
Google Books — Bezig met laden...
2
“I think of Judgment Day. I think of Götterdämmerung; I think of the stars exploding, of the planets going off like fireworks; I think of a volcano; I think of a roaring and an energy unbelievable; I think, of holocaust; and again I think of night reeling from a thousand scarlet slashes and I see the red eye of hell winking in her wounds—I think of all these, and I cannot tell you what I have seen, the terrible spectacle I witnessed from that hillside.”
Leckie's emotional descriptions and writing style, rather than the storyline, are the primary reasons for my 5 star review. This is not your everyday ghost-written war memoir, describing a litany of deeds written in essay style. Leckie lyrically emphasizes his objection to war, maybe not realized while experienced, but certainly at the time of writing.