With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

by Eugene B. Sledge

We might grumble to each other about our officers or the chow or the Marine Corps in general, but it was rather like grumbling about one’s own family—always with another member.

He looked at me wearily with bloodshot eyes and choked as he said, “Twenty is all that’s left in the whole company, Sledgehammer. They nearly wiped us out. I’m the only one left out of the old bunch in my company that was with us in mortar school at Elliott.”

Although the bitter battle for Peleliu would drag on for another two months, the 1st Marine Division seized all of the terrain of strategic value in the first week of bitter fighting. In

Yet the cost had been high: 3,946 casualties. The division had lost one regiment as an effective fighting unit, and had severely depleted the strength of its other two.

We were unable to understand their attitudes until we ourselves returned home and tried to comprehend people who griped because America wasn’t perfect, or their coffee wasn’t hot enough, or they had to stand in line and wait for a train or bus.

About midmorning on 29 May, 3/5 attacked the Shuri with Company L in the lead and Companies K and I following closely. Earlier in the morning Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines had attacked eastward into the ruins of Shuri Castle and had raised the Confederate flag. When we learned that the flag of the Confederacy had been hoisted over the very heart and soul of Japanese resistance, all of us Southerners cheered loudly. The Yankees among us grumbled, and the Westerners didn’t know what to do.