American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941-1951

by Craig M. Cameron

Events on the battlefields of the Pacific War were not only outgrowths of technology and tactics, but also products of cultural myth and imagination. American Samurai offers a bold and innovative approach to military history by linking combat activity to cultural images. Marines projected ideas and assumptions about themselves and their enemy onto people and events throughout the war--giving life to formerly abstract myths and ideas and molding their behavior to expectations. This fascinating book concludes by considering what happened to the myths and images and how they have been preserved in American society to the present.

Genres: World War II

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1994

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it hard to believe that I’d not heard of this book. I can see why now as it’s a mixed bag. It’s off putting and slow moving. It’s filled with “intellectual-ese” language. Not many Marines will want to hear such a critical analysis of their ethos. But it’s fascinating and goes down so many interesting avenues: racism, misogyny, group theory, cohesion, training, personnel management, memory and remembrance, Interservice rivalry, and technological fanaticism-who knew there was such a term?

The author makes an outrageous comment (IMHO) calling Guadalcanal one sided as if there was no doubt the Marines would prevail. Easily said in hindsight. The Japanese would remedy their tactical incompetence on Guadalcanal at Peleliu and it would be the Marines under Rupertus that would show their ineptitude with frontal assaults that decimated the Division.

Lots of irony as the Marines became de facto samurai while fighting the descendants of actual samurai while calling them beasts and animals- dehumanizing the enemy. In North China the Division would actively work with the Japanese Army to maintain order.

It took me three months to get through this. I’m glad I read it. It’s too bad the author is deceased as I’d love to have heard his thoughts on Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[T. Fowler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be a very unusual and fascinating study of how the US Marines created an image of themselves as an elite fighting force and how this affected the brutality of combat in the Pacific War. The author shows that the Marines needed to create an image of themselves at the start of the 20th century to ensure their survival as a separate force within the US military. The book then focuses in particular on the experience of the 1st Marine Division in the Pacific War and how the imagery inculcated in the troops affected their attitude towards the Japanese and even towards the US army. The author shows how warfare evolved over the Pacific War and briefly examines changes up to the Vietnam war, showing how the Marines in his opinion have struggled to maintain a unique image of their role as an elite force. Trhoughout this narrative, Cameron analyzes a number of topics about Marines in combat from a rare unbiased, unadorned, but knowledgeable point of view that many will find offensive - such as how the spirit of the Marines could be compared to the Waffen SS, how combat is a sexual exprience, and how neuropsychiatric breakdown of Marines from the intensity of combat on Pelelieu and Okinawa was not acknwledged as acceptable by some. At the end of the book, he shows how the imagery of the Marines was presented to the public in war films and books and how this continued to evolve post-1945. The book was published in 1994; it would be fascinating to see how the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan have affected the Marines and changed their image today.

[T. Fowler]

Wrong author