Devil Dogs: A New History of the Second World War from the Sunday Times Bestselling Author of SBS Saul David
£3.80
A Times History Book of the Year 2022
From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last.
The ‘Devil Dogs’ of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were part of the legendary first Marine Division. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942 – the first US ground offensive of the war – and were present when Okinawa, Japan’s most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the ‘Green Hell’ of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a campaign described by one K Company veteran as ‘thirty days of the meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict on each other.’
Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most effective soldiers in world history – and defeat it. This is the story of how they did just that and, in the process, forged bonds of brotherhood that still survive today.
Remarkably, the company contained an unusually high number of talented writers, whose first-hand accounts and memoirs provide the colour, emotion, and context for this extraordinary story. In Devil Dogs, award-winning historian Saul David sets the searing experience of K Company into the broader context of the brutal war in the Pacific and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne.
Gripping, intimate, authoritative and far-reaching, this is a unique and incredibly personal narrative of war.
Saul David’s previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021.
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Additional information
| Publisher | William Collins (15 Sept. 2022) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 28328 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 625 pages |
by Robert Tucker
Hard back with lots of pages.
by Brian Gooch
History
by David E
Fascinating account of how the Pacific war progressed through the involvement of one group of Americans. Absolutely frightening account of how these men became embroiled in the intense fight with the Japanese military forces to reconquer all the territory lost. Although I had read quite a lot of the account previously still a worthwhile book to read.
by John Ranson
Decent account of American soldiers fighting their way across the Pacific during WW2
by davidk
Nitty gritty fantastic writing
by John Copeland
A well wrutten and sholarly work, but the seemingly endless biographical details of the participants become somewhat tiresome, and one bottle seems very much like another. The book is far too long, suffering from the prolixity of the word processor. Probably a book not for the general reader.
by Falcon266
A harrowing account of the USMC King Company as they fight the Imperial Japanese Army from Guadalcanal to Okinawa 1942 – 1945. Horrific casualty rates against an enemy who never yield until the end. The difficult mountainous ground, filth, squalor, smell of rotting corpses, the humidity, the endless artillery and mortar attacks made it one of the hardest campaigns the Amercican forces had to endure.
by greasey
This book is just another rehash of Stephen E Ambrose’s Pacific, but written by British writer Saul David. It concentrates on King Company part of the 3rd Marine Division. It covers all the same stuff in Ambrose’s Pacific, from Guadalcanal, to New Britain, Peliu, Iwa Jima and Okinawa, with a brief mention of the naval battles. We do have a different cast of characters, except for the experience of Eugene Sledge. Overall I was disappointed with this book as it doesn’t offer anything new about the war in the Pacific, hence only 3 stars out of 5.