Book description
The inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFIC
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts to ever
come out of World War 2. Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the
US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we
follow his journey, from boot camp 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 sacrifice of
war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made,
fight, and all too often die in the defence 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 it's really like when victory can only be
measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and
accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow tells the gripping true story of
an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. 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.
'Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem.
Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in
the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who -
somehow - survived' Tom Hanks
Robert Leckie was born on December 18, 1920 in Philadelphia. After
enlisting in the United States Marine Corps shortly after the attack on
Pearl Harbor, he worked in the 1st Marine Division as a machine gunner
and as an intelligence scout during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He was
later awarded the Purple Heart.
Helmet for My Pillow
received the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents' Annual Award in 1957.
He died in December 2001.
