THE ISLAND
A History of the First Marine Division on Guadalcanal, August 7 ~ December 9, 1942
Herbert Merillat
NF/NF. Jacket in mylar. (Washington, DC: Zenger Publishing, 1979). Reprint of original 1944 edition.
Photographs, maps, appendices, index, 283 pages. On front end pages is a map of Guadalcanal and detail map of the terrain over which the Marines fought in the weeks between Aug 7 and Dec 9, 1942.
For those who do not remember what it was like in the months after Pearl Harbor, it is well to
reflect that those were dark days indeed. The Japanese had won at Guam, Wake, Bataan, Hong Kong, Malaya,
Singapore, Burma, the Netherlands East Indies and Corregidor. All our efforts had been defensive, trying to hold on to what we had when war broke out. When the decision was made to invade the island of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific east of Australia, our troops had not been tested in any kind of major offensive action. Would we be able to turn the tables on the Japanese and be victorious? Or would the Guadalcanal invasion just be one more in a long string of defeats? The uncertainty was all the greater because the action would take place thousands of miles from home, in an unfamiliar tropical environment. In the end, we were victorious, in large part because of the men of the First Marine Division. This book is the story of their fight for Guadalcanal.
"In this book I have tried to tell, as accurately as I can, the story of the Marines who fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal more than four months, as I saw the story develop. It is offered as an account of what the First Marine Division, Reinforced, gave and took in the long struggle with the Japanese for the possession of Henderson Field, the Key to the southern Solomons." (from the author's preface).
Published in 1979 for $15, now OUT OF PRINT.
$50.00
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