Weekly “what are you reading” thread #27

Listened to audiobook Devil Dogs: from gaudalcanal to the shores of Japan

It's a modern incarnation of the famed Old Breed by burger Eugene Sledge which described his time fighting the Imperial Japanese in the US island hopping campaign in the Pacific theatre. It showed the Marine Corpse and Navy as they struggled in using ampibian warfare on the islands, and the gruesome combat they endured.

The Old Breed was infamous when printed in USA in 1980 sometime, as it was considered one of the most accurate portrayals of the Pacific theatre, and brought a lime light over USA forces onto the Pacific, as the European theatre hogged most of american attention.

The Old Breed was very gruesome and vivid in its portrayal of the horrors of the pacific, especially with regards to US marines having to endure unknown hardships, like illness in tropical biomes, where they suffered malaria, fungus and other grotesque infections before they even arrived at the frontlines, including the discomfort of rotting bodies, pestilence by rats and giant coconut crabs.

Devil Dogs is sort of a repeat of Old Breed, but instead focusses on the company Sledge belonged to as it partook in every major island engagement of the Pacific, outside of Iwa Jima, and the relinquishment of the Philiphines. It follows specifically K35 company, with many characters completing their service, before being replaced for concurrent servicemen.