More on Eugene Sledge

The Auburn University Digital Library hosts a pretty fantastic collection on Eugene Sledge.  Drop and by and browse/read about the life and times of a complicated and interesting man.

Eugene Sledge

 

For you folks surfing in looking for Eugene Sledge info, check this review of his book, With the Old Breed-At Peleliu and Okinawa. It’s a shameless plug to a review by a pretty talented writer at the DB. Enjoy.

Additionally, I took this photo at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in VA a few months back. As I walked through, reading about the history of the Marines, I stumbled upon this. It’s a display about Sledge’s book with a video narrative, much like the kinds of things you see on the History channel. It was one of the few video displays there. I couldn’t get a good shot straight on.

You can read about my visit to the museum here.

The Pacific War, #12

Dateline: September 22, 2007

More from Dale Dye on the product of the work taking place now…

In some of the most spectacular and stirring sequences I have ever seen put on film, we landed on the Orange and White Beaches of Peleliu last week. Much of what I saw on those bitterly opposed landing operations looked just like the still and motion picture images that we have seen from Peleliu back in 1944. It was as vivid and deadly as the stuff we see in the old Movietone newsreels.

Keep in mind, Dye has seen a few: SPR, Band of Brothers to name a few action driven products, and those were pretty good. What is happening now, at least according to Dye, matches the high production value of his previous work, and note his emphasis, that they are “the most…stirring sequences I have ever seen put to film.” Not just war flicks. But film.

The complete entry is here.

The Pacific War, #9

Dateline: Saturday, 8 September 2007

So I was checking out the Entourage season 2 DVD yesterday, and guess who makes an appearance? Dale Dye was there dropping f-bombs all over the place. I thought then…” ’bout time for another entry from Mr. Dye. It’s been a week.”

So this morning, I read that a good portion of the first episode is complete and that’s it’s time to introduce the “sledgehammer,” Eugene Sledge, author of With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa who enters the fray in episode 4, Dye says. He writes:

We first meet Sledge when he joins the 1st MarDiv as a replacement on Pavuvu in the Russell Islands. Shortly after he gets settled in, the Division is alerted for the landings in the Palau Islands, one of the most costly and controversial campaigns of WW II in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Much like major military operations, this jumping around between episodes is done to take advantage of situation and terrain. We are here in the tropics, so it makes sense to recreate all of our historical amphibious landings where we have beaches, ocean and landing craft. At Peleliu we will land from a variety of amphibs including LVT-4’s escorted by LVT(A)-4’s (called “amtanks” by Marines of the period) which are essentially the basic model amtrac fitted with a turret from the Stuart light tank and firing a 37mm cannon.

So more equipment updates are here, the sequence of the production, as well some details of the main characters in the narrative. The complete entry is here.