Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey from Guadalcanal to Peleliu

Jim McEnery · Bill Sloan

Jun 2012 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Robert Fass

About this audiobook

In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettably immersive chronicle of horror and heroism.Made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific, McEnery's rifle company-the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division-fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the Pacific. In arresting detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where the Americans turned the tide of war against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and to bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped speed the final defeat of the Japanese garrison. From his evocative recollections of hand-to-hand fighting and the loss of buddies in hellish fighting to his frank portraits of legends like Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller and General Douglas MacArthur, McEnery's gritty narrative is as valuable for its insights on a war increasingly lost to memory as it is terrifying and engrossing-a master work that no one interested in military history can afford to pass up.

About the author

Jim McEnery, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, enlisted in the Marines in 1940 and fought in three major campaigns in the Pacific.

Bill Sloan is renowned military historian and the author of more than a dozen books, including The Ultimate Battle and Brotherhood of Heroes. A former investigative reporter and feature writer, Sloan lives in Dallas, Texas.

A two-time Audie Award winner, veteran actor Robert Fass is equally at home in a wide variety of styles, genres, characters, and dialects. He has earned multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, including for his narration of Francisco Goldman's novel Say Her Name.