On the Canal: The Marines of L-3-5 on Guadalcanal, 1942-1943

by Ore J. Marion, Thomas Cuddihy (Primary Contributor)

A straightforward, gripping tale from the Marines that stormed ashore on Guadalcanal in World War IITold with humor and honesty in a no-holds-barred approach that only a Marine who was there could tellExcerpt on firing a rifle grenade: "I jammed the rifle stock tight against my shoulder, raised myself up off the ground to a kneeling position, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle went bang! and the recoil jarred it loose from my grip. The rifle smacked me hard in the jaw. With that, I went down on my face while the little bluebirds started going tweet, tweet, tweet around my head.--'Did I hit it?' I asked.--'Yeah, you hit it, ' Flash said. 'The damn thing just didn't work.'--We finally ran into somebody from another unit, a guy who really understood how the new style grenade was supposed to work. We explained our misfortune to him, and he asked us did you pull the firing pin out . . . The god damn pin!"

Genres: World War II, Nonfiction, History

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jeff Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as well written as say Sledge or Leckie, but then both of those men had many years of education, and in Leckie's case as an author. Marion's work is raw, plain, but decidedly honest, making it worth the occasionally clumsy prose. Marion, as a Marine of many years experience, neither glosses over, nor adds many flourishes.