Eric Hammel’s Followers (50)

Eric Hammel

Born

in Salem, Massachusetts, The United States

June 29, 1946

Died

August 25, 2020

Website

https://erichammelbooks.com/

Genre

History, Biographies & Memoirs

Influences

Walter Lord, John Willard Toland ...more

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Eric Hammel was born in 1946, in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in January 1964 and earned a degree in Journalism from Temple University in 1972. His road to writing military history began at age twelve, when he was stuck in bed for a week with a childhood illness. Eric's father bought him the first paperback book he ever owned, Walter Lord's Day of Infamy. As he devoured the book, Eric realized that he wanted to write books exactly like it, what we now call popular narrative history. Lord had pieced together the book from official records illuminated with the recollections of people who were there. Eric began to write his first military history book when Eric Hammel was born in 1946, in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in January 1964 and earned a degree in Journalism from Temple University in 1972. His road to writing military history began at age twelve, when he was stuck in bed for a week with a childhood illness. Eric's father bought him the first paperback book he ever owned, Walter Lord's Day of Infamy. As he devoured the book, Eric realized that he wanted to write books exactly like it, what we now call popular narrative history. Lord had pieced together the book from official records illuminated with the recollections of people who were there. Eric began to write his first military history book when he was fifteen. The book eventually turned out to be Guadalcanal: Starvation Island. Eric completed the first draft before he graduated from high school. During his first year of college, Eric wrote the first draft of Munda Trail, and got started on 76 Hours when he was a college junior. Then Eric got married and went to work, which left him no time to pursue his writing except as a journalism student.

Eric quit school at the end of his junior year and went to work in advertising in 1970. Eric completed his journalism degree in 1972, moved to California in 1975, and finally got back to writing while he operated his own one-man ad agency and started on a family. 76 Hours was published in 1980, and Chosin followed in 1982. At the end of 1983 Eric was offered enough of an advance to write The Root: The Marines in Beirut to take up writing books full time. The rest, as they say, is history.

Eric eventually published under his own imprint, Pacifica Press, which morphed into Pacifica Military History and IPS Books. At some point in the late 1990s, Eric realized he had not written in five years, so he pretty much closed down the publishing operation and pieced together a string of pictorial combat histories for Zenith Press. Eric nominally retired in 2008 and took up writing as a full-time hobby writing two novels, 'Til The Last Bugle Call and Love and Grace. Fast forward to 2018 and Eric was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and on August 25th 2020, Eric passed from this life to the next at the age of 74. ...more

4 posts
Eric Hammel's Blog

Eric Hammel isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

My New eBook Pictorial

A new ebook pictorial is now available from Pacifica Military History. It includes 467 gripping photographs taken by U.S. Marine Corps combat photographers during the Okinawa Campaign. It is available only from Pacifica Military History and is designed to be read on PC Windows machines, Mac OSX machines, and iPads.

A free sample is here:

http://www.pacificamilitary.com/books... Read more of this blog post »

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Published on August 09, 2012 12:34 • Tags: marine-corps, military-history, okinawa-battle, usmc

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Eric Hammel’s books

Average rating: 4.21 · 2,187 ratings · 166 reviews · 96 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Cactus Air Force: Air War over Guadalcanal by Eric Hammel, Thomas McKelvey Cleaver (Goodreads Author), Richard P. Hallion (Foreword) 4.33 avg rating — 209 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War 4.17 avg rating — 206 ratings — published 1981 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, Tet 1968 4.12 avg rating — 135 ratings — published 1991 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Guadalcanal: Starvation Island 4.31 avg rating — 125 ratings — published 1987 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds 4.47 avg rating — 113 ratings — published 1989 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Guadalcanal Decision at Sea: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal 4.25 avg rating — 105 ratings — published 1988 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Six Days in June: How Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli War 3.96 avg rating — 104 ratings — published 1992 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Root: The Marines in Beirut, August 1982-February 1984 4.26 avg rating — 72 ratings — published 1985 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ambush Valley: I Corps, Vietnam, 1967 4.28 avg rating — 67 ratings — published 1990 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal & The Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942 4.12 avg rating — 67 ratings — published 1988 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Eric Hammel (?)

“So far as Admiral King was concerned, “Germany First” be damned; he worked to his own schedule and had no intention of giving the enemy a year to consolidate their victories and fortify their conquered territories while his navy transported the US Army to England, then waited for the defeat of Hitler before rolling back the opponent that the US Navy had been preparing to fight for the previous 20 years.”
― Eric Hammel, The Cactus Air Force: Air War over Guadalcanal

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“Though he risked his life, Ransone sat down to pull off the galoshes, which he tossed aside as he regained his feet. There was little to commend the leather soles of his combat boots over the rubber soles of the galoshes, but he had given up all other options. He struggled on until lack of sleep”
― Eric Hammel, Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War

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