Stronger Than Fear

by Richard Tregaskis

Richard Tregaskis reached the Pacific during World War II in time to see Doolittle's planes take off from the Hornet to bomb Tokyo. He was an eyewitness to the Battle of Midway, and was in the first wave of Marines to land at Guadalcanal. From this experience came the world-famous Guadalcanal Diary.

Richard Tregaskis reached the Mediterranean Theatre in time for D-Day, flew on the first B-17 raid over Rome, and participated in the entire Sicilian campaign, the capture of Naples and the action on the Volturno River front. Gravely wounded at Cassino, he later returned to Europe and the Western Front, where he observed—within constant fire range—the soldiers and events that provided the spirit of his first great novel of World War II, Stronger Than Fear.

Author Bio: Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1916, Richard Tregaskis was graduated from Harvard, cum laude, in 1938. He was a reporter, war correspondent, motion picture and television writer, and author of the best-selling Guadalcanal Diary and Vietnam Diary.

He won the George Polk Award in 1964 for reporting under hazardous conditions.

Genres: History

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

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.

Reviews

[Allyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting themes, and shorter than I thought it would be. Gave me some new insights on war.

[Catherine Lienhard]

His first novel and it's pretty bad. WarII in Europe.

(read 8/31/67)