Seven Leagues to Paradise: a Round-the-World Trip in Search of the Perfect Place to Live

by Richard Tregaskis

Seven Leagues to Paradise
by Richard Tregaskis

Hardcover

First published April 17, 2000

About the author

Richard Tregaskis was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on November 28, 1916, and educated at the Pingrie Day School for Boys, Elizabeth, New Jersey, at Peddie School, Hightstonsic, New Jersey, and at Harvard University. Prior to World War II he worked as a journalist for the Boston Herald newspaper.

Shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, Tregaskis volunteered as a combat correspondent representing the International News Service. (In fact, Tregaskis was one of only two journalists on location at Guadalcanal.)

Assigned to cover the war in the Pacific, Tregaskis spent part of August and most of September, 1942 reporting on Marines on Guadalcanal, a pivotal campaign in the war against Japan. He subsequently covered the European Theater of Operations against Nazi Germany and Italy.

Tregaskis' most renowned book, Guadalcanal Diary, recorded his experiences with the Marines on Guadalcanal. As the jacket of the book's first edition noted, "This is a new chapter in the story of the United States Marines. Because it was written by a crack newspaperman, who knew how to do his job. . . . Until the author's departure in a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on September 26th, he ate, slept, and sweated with our front-line units. His story is the straight day-by-day account of what he himself saw or learned from eyewitnesses during those seven weeks."

As a testimony to the power of Tregaskis' writing, ''Guadalcanal Diary'' is still considered essential reading by present-day U.S. military personnel. (A modern edition is available with an introduction by [[Mark Bowden]], author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.

Tregaskis later covered Cold War-era conflicts in China, Korea, and Vietnam.

Tregaskis died at age 56 near his home in Hawaii as a result of drowning.