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Helmet for My Pillow
Now the inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFIC
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts to ever come out of the Second World War. Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country.
From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it's really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow is a gripping account from an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.
Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived - Tom Hanks
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts to ever come out of the Second World War. Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country.
From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it's really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow is a gripping account from an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.
Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived - Tom Hanks
277 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
2733 people are currently reading
16948 people want to read
About the author
Robert Leckie
55 books218 followersLeckie was born on December 18, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began his career as a writer in high school, as a sports writer for ''The Bergen Evening Record'' in Hackensack, New Jersey.
On January 18, 1942, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H Company, 2nd Battalion 1st Marines Regiment 1st Marine Division (United States). Leckie saw combat in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and had been wounded by blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the ''Buffalo Courier-Express'', the ''New York Journal American'', the ''New York Daily News'' and ''The Star-Ledger''. He married Vera Keller, a childhood neighbor, and they had three children: David, Geoff and Joan According to Vera, in 1951 he was inspired to write a memoir after seeing ''South Pacific '' on Broadway and walking out halfway through. He said "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical His first and best-selling book, ''Helmet for My Pillow'', a war memoir, was published in 1957. Leckie subsequently wrote more than 40 books on American war history, spanning from the French and Indian War (1754–1763) to Operation Desert Storm (1991). Robert Leckie died on December 24, 2001, after fighting a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
On January 18, 1942, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H Company, 2nd Battalion 1st Marines Regiment 1st Marine Division (United States). Leckie saw combat in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and had been wounded by blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the ''Buffalo Courier-Express'', the ''New York Journal American'', the ''New York Daily News'' and ''The Star-Ledger''. He married Vera Keller, a childhood neighbor, and they had three children: David, Geoff and Joan According to Vera, in 1951 he was inspired to write a memoir after seeing ''South Pacific '' on Broadway and walking out halfway through. He said "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical His first and best-selling book, ''Helmet for My Pillow'', a war memoir, was published in 1957. Leckie subsequently wrote more than 40 books on American war history, spanning from the French and Indian War (1754–1763) to Operation Desert Storm (1991). Robert Leckie died on December 24, 2001, after fighting a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
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March 31, 2024
“One, only one, of these departing [Japanese] defenders died. He was fat and ponderous, with his blouse and trousers stuffed with rice like the poor chow hound consumed by the crocodiles on Guadalcanal, and because he moved so slowly the bullets struck him in a sheet and disintegrated him in a shower of flesh and rice. It was hot. The white sand burned through our clothing. It was the enervating heat of the steam room. The sweat slid into one’s mouth to aggravate thirst. The water in our canteens was hot, and when I had drunk it all, I filled it with dirty rain water lying in shell craters. Peleliu has no water. The Japanese caught theirs in cisterns open to the sky, and ours had been floated to us in gasoline drums, from which some fool supply officer had neglected to cleanse the residuary oil. Smelling and tasting of gasoline, it was undrinkable. A brazen sun beat upon us when, freed by the silence of the fortress, we rose and marched through the scrub to the airfield. Just before the airstrip, on the edge of the scrub, lay an enormous shell crater. In this we took up positions. I met the Artist.
‘Liberal’s dead,’ he told me. ‘A mortar got him and the Soldier.’
‘How about the Soldier? How’s he?’
The Artist laughed. ‘Better’n us…he’s out of it.’
‘Yeah, too bad about Liberal, though. He was a nice guy.’
‘He got it in the stomach. I saw him sitting up against a tree when I got off the beach. He was laughing. I asked him, and he said he was fine. But he died while he was sitting there…’”
- Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific
Robert Leckie was an extraordinarily prolific author-historian. He didn’t just write a lot of books, he wrote a lot of big books. On my shelf, for instance, I have The Wars of America, which is 1,197 pages of text, and weighs as much as my pug, who is not svelte. But his books are not simply prodigious, they are well-written. Leckie understood history to be a grand tale full of vivid characters, always exciting, if not always pretty.
Before achieving his remarkable successes, though, Leckie was a United States Marine who fought on Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu during the Second World War. In 1957, he published Helmet for My Pillow, an account of his service in the Pacific.
Ordinarily, I avoid memoirs, simply as a matter of taste. In my experience, there’s too much subjectivity, self-justifications, and factual twisting involved in first-person accounts. Given Leckie’s reputation, however – as a writer first and foremost – I gave this a shot.
It is beautifully crafted, exceptionally honest, and wonderfully idiosyncratic. While I definitely had a few – or more – questions about the veracity, there is an essential truth to it that can’t be ignored.
***
Helmet for My Pillow is structured exactly like you’d expect. It begins with boot camp, and the introduction to Leckie’s mates, transitions to the war zone, and ends with a climactic battle. It’s all very much like a John Wayne movie from the 1940s.
Except that it’s not.
During training, Leckie familiarizes us with his style, which walks a fascinating, narrow path between gung-ho patriotism on one side, and a smirking cynicism on the other.
On the one hand, Leckie is not a draftee, but an enlistee, and one who chose the Marines. With some exceptions – that Leckie points out – the Marines were an all-volunteer force, made up of guys who embraced the ethos that humankind’s highest calling was as a rifleman. Though not technically special forces, Marines have always considered themselves uniquely capable soldiers. Thus, Leckie is not being dragged off to war, but leaping into it. At the end of the things, he is extolling the virtues of sacrifice for one’s country.
On the other hand, Leckie is extremely smart, a bit of an iconoclast, and definitely had some unresolved oppositional-defiance in him, at least in his youth. Very early on, he introduces us to a running theme of Helmet for My Pillow, which is the general incompetence, arrogance, and venality of the officer class. As he makes clear, Leckie had two wars going on: one against the Japanese, the other against military regulations.
The opening section of Helmet for My Pillow actually gives us very little indication of what Marine training circa 1942 actually comprised. Instead, we learn a lot about visiting family on leave, and visiting the bars whenever possible.
***
Part of the reason why Helmet for My Pillow feels so true is that Leckie does not oversell his experiences in the greatest war in history. He fights on Guadalcanal – one of America’s longest, biggest battles – and endures grueling conditions. Yet, as he makes clear, most of his day-to-day was boring, marked by creature discomforts such as heat, bugs, rainstorms, supply problems, and officers stealing the stuff he rightfully stole from others.
There is definitely combat – at the Battle of Tenaru – but relative to the rest of the Second World War in general, and other parts of Guadalcanal in particular, it amounted to a skirmish. I say this, of course, having fought no battles whatsoever.
***
After Guadalcanal, things take a fascinating turn, as the most extended sequence in Helmet for My Pillow ends up being a lengthy bacchanal in Australia. Fans of the HBO miniseries The Pacific – which used this book as part of its source material – will be familiar with the general outlines. Here, Leckie goes into much more detail. There are numerous sexual trysts – alluded to, not described, this being the 1950s – a heroic amount of alcohol consumption, and regular flaunting of the rules.
It is in the Australia section that Leckie lets us know that he might have had an issue or two in need of therapeutic resolution. He calls himself a “brig rat,” which is a humorous spin on the reality that he spent a lot of time in jail. For all the glibness, there’s no denying that Leckie nearly got into serious, felony-level trouble, with crimes such as being absent without leave, and assaulting an officer.
The upshot for the reader is that we get to follow around a fearless, scheming, charismatic, hair trigger antihero, which is never uninteresting.
***
The prose is top notch, if a bit purple in some places. Leckie has a gift for description, and there is a true tactility in the way he evokes weather, smells, and especially sounds. His battles come alive through the senses, as delivered by his typewriter.
***
I don’t know much about the real Robert Leckie. It’s hard to find out too much, because while well-known, he’s not truly famous. Basic internet search-work gives his military service, his bibliography, and the fact that he was married fifty-five years. Based on Helmet for My Pillow, he seemed like a humane man. Though sardonic, he lets himself be vulnerable, such as when he goes on at length about his combat-induced enuresis. When he meets some Pacific islanders, he tries to get to know them, and communicate with them. When he meets a bigot, he identifies him as such.
***
War is cruelty, as Sherman said, and you cannot refine it. The Pacific War took that to new highs – or lows. It was a shockingly brutal confrontation – equal to anything the Soviets and Germans hatched, though on a smaller scale – and made more discomfiting by racial caricaturing.
For his part, Leckie is extremely respectful of his Japanese foes. He does not pretend to like them, but he does not denigrate them. Indeed, the most affecting part of Helmet for My Pillow might be Leckie pondering their lives – and God’s existence – while standing in a field of Japanese dead. At the end, we find him wrestling with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and asking the universe to “forgive us for that awful cloud.”
***
In one way, Helmet for My Pillow is totally a product of its time. As Leckie announces at the outset, there was a lot of cursing in the Marines. Including – of course – the mother of all swears. But you won’t find that here! Though the violence is graphic, and the shelling intense, the one bomb that is not described comes in the “f” variety. It’s a bit weird, I’ll admit, but makes sense, given that Hollywood was still a decade away from uttering it as well. Smartly, Leckie doesn’t force us to contend with a fake-f-word like Mailer did in The Naked and the Dead.
***
Another thing missing from Helmet for My Pillow is names. Though this is not explained in my edition, I assume Leckie did this out of respect for the living and the dead, since the war had only been over for twelve years. In any event, everyone in the book gets a nickname.
***
That’s the segue for my one nagging question: how accurate is this? At no point in the text does Leckie explain his process. Unlike fellow memoirist Eugene Sledge, of With the Old Breed fame, Leckie doesn’t cop to taking notes. I mention this because Helmet for My Pillow is detailed. There are extensive dialogues taking place, and it is hard – bordering on the impossible – to believe that Leckie managed to capture all that, and then put it down on paper over a decade later.
Really, this is a small thing. Given the inherent subjectivity of the memoir as a form, I’m okay treating it as Leckie’s truth, rather than the truth-truth.
***
When ranking biographies, I ask myself: do I know what it’d be like to share the same room with the subject. If I do, then the biography is successful.
With memoirs, the question is a little different: do I want to go on a road trip with this person. With Leckie, the answer is a resounding yes.
‘Liberal’s dead,’ he told me. ‘A mortar got him and the Soldier.’
‘How about the Soldier? How’s he?’
The Artist laughed. ‘Better’n us…he’s out of it.’
‘Yeah, too bad about Liberal, though. He was a nice guy.’
‘He got it in the stomach. I saw him sitting up against a tree when I got off the beach. He was laughing. I asked him, and he said he was fine. But he died while he was sitting there…’”
- Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific
Robert Leckie was an extraordinarily prolific author-historian. He didn’t just write a lot of books, he wrote a lot of big books. On my shelf, for instance, I have The Wars of America, which is 1,197 pages of text, and weighs as much as my pug, who is not svelte. But his books are not simply prodigious, they are well-written. Leckie understood history to be a grand tale full of vivid characters, always exciting, if not always pretty.
Before achieving his remarkable successes, though, Leckie was a United States Marine who fought on Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu during the Second World War. In 1957, he published Helmet for My Pillow, an account of his service in the Pacific.
Ordinarily, I avoid memoirs, simply as a matter of taste. In my experience, there’s too much subjectivity, self-justifications, and factual twisting involved in first-person accounts. Given Leckie’s reputation, however – as a writer first and foremost – I gave this a shot.
It is beautifully crafted, exceptionally honest, and wonderfully idiosyncratic. While I definitely had a few – or more – questions about the veracity, there is an essential truth to it that can’t be ignored.
***
Helmet for My Pillow is structured exactly like you’d expect. It begins with boot camp, and the introduction to Leckie’s mates, transitions to the war zone, and ends with a climactic battle. It’s all very much like a John Wayne movie from the 1940s.
Except that it’s not.
During training, Leckie familiarizes us with his style, which walks a fascinating, narrow path between gung-ho patriotism on one side, and a smirking cynicism on the other.
On the one hand, Leckie is not a draftee, but an enlistee, and one who chose the Marines. With some exceptions – that Leckie points out – the Marines were an all-volunteer force, made up of guys who embraced the ethos that humankind’s highest calling was as a rifleman. Though not technically special forces, Marines have always considered themselves uniquely capable soldiers. Thus, Leckie is not being dragged off to war, but leaping into it. At the end of the things, he is extolling the virtues of sacrifice for one’s country.
On the other hand, Leckie is extremely smart, a bit of an iconoclast, and definitely had some unresolved oppositional-defiance in him, at least in his youth. Very early on, he introduces us to a running theme of Helmet for My Pillow, which is the general incompetence, arrogance, and venality of the officer class. As he makes clear, Leckie had two wars going on: one against the Japanese, the other against military regulations.
The opening section of Helmet for My Pillow actually gives us very little indication of what Marine training circa 1942 actually comprised. Instead, we learn a lot about visiting family on leave, and visiting the bars whenever possible.
***
Part of the reason why Helmet for My Pillow feels so true is that Leckie does not oversell his experiences in the greatest war in history. He fights on Guadalcanal – one of America’s longest, biggest battles – and endures grueling conditions. Yet, as he makes clear, most of his day-to-day was boring, marked by creature discomforts such as heat, bugs, rainstorms, supply problems, and officers stealing the stuff he rightfully stole from others.
There is definitely combat – at the Battle of Tenaru – but relative to the rest of the Second World War in general, and other parts of Guadalcanal in particular, it amounted to a skirmish. I say this, of course, having fought no battles whatsoever.
***
After Guadalcanal, things take a fascinating turn, as the most extended sequence in Helmet for My Pillow ends up being a lengthy bacchanal in Australia. Fans of the HBO miniseries The Pacific – which used this book as part of its source material – will be familiar with the general outlines. Here, Leckie goes into much more detail. There are numerous sexual trysts – alluded to, not described, this being the 1950s – a heroic amount of alcohol consumption, and regular flaunting of the rules.
It is in the Australia section that Leckie lets us know that he might have had an issue or two in need of therapeutic resolution. He calls himself a “brig rat,” which is a humorous spin on the reality that he spent a lot of time in jail. For all the glibness, there’s no denying that Leckie nearly got into serious, felony-level trouble, with crimes such as being absent without leave, and assaulting an officer.
The upshot for the reader is that we get to follow around a fearless, scheming, charismatic, hair trigger antihero, which is never uninteresting.
***
The prose is top notch, if a bit purple in some places. Leckie has a gift for description, and there is a true tactility in the way he evokes weather, smells, and especially sounds. His battles come alive through the senses, as delivered by his typewriter.
***
I don’t know much about the real Robert Leckie. It’s hard to find out too much, because while well-known, he’s not truly famous. Basic internet search-work gives his military service, his bibliography, and the fact that he was married fifty-five years. Based on Helmet for My Pillow, he seemed like a humane man. Though sardonic, he lets himself be vulnerable, such as when he goes on at length about his combat-induced enuresis. When he meets some Pacific islanders, he tries to get to know them, and communicate with them. When he meets a bigot, he identifies him as such.
***
War is cruelty, as Sherman said, and you cannot refine it. The Pacific War took that to new highs – or lows. It was a shockingly brutal confrontation – equal to anything the Soviets and Germans hatched, though on a smaller scale – and made more discomfiting by racial caricaturing.
For his part, Leckie is extremely respectful of his Japanese foes. He does not pretend to like them, but he does not denigrate them. Indeed, the most affecting part of Helmet for My Pillow might be Leckie pondering their lives – and God’s existence – while standing in a field of Japanese dead. At the end, we find him wrestling with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and asking the universe to “forgive us for that awful cloud.”
***
In one way, Helmet for My Pillow is totally a product of its time. As Leckie announces at the outset, there was a lot of cursing in the Marines. Including – of course – the mother of all swears. But you won’t find that here! Though the violence is graphic, and the shelling intense, the one bomb that is not described comes in the “f” variety. It’s a bit weird, I’ll admit, but makes sense, given that Hollywood was still a decade away from uttering it as well. Smartly, Leckie doesn’t force us to contend with a fake-f-word like Mailer did in The Naked and the Dead.
***
Another thing missing from Helmet for My Pillow is names. Though this is not explained in my edition, I assume Leckie did this out of respect for the living and the dead, since the war had only been over for twelve years. In any event, everyone in the book gets a nickname.
***
That’s the segue for my one nagging question: how accurate is this? At no point in the text does Leckie explain his process. Unlike fellow memoirist Eugene Sledge, of With the Old Breed fame, Leckie doesn’t cop to taking notes. I mention this because Helmet for My Pillow is detailed. There are extensive dialogues taking place, and it is hard – bordering on the impossible – to believe that Leckie managed to capture all that, and then put it down on paper over a decade later.
Really, this is a small thing. Given the inherent subjectivity of the memoir as a form, I’m okay treating it as Leckie’s truth, rather than the truth-truth.
***
When ranking biographies, I ask myself: do I know what it’d be like to share the same room with the subject. If I do, then the biography is successful.
With memoirs, the question is a little different: do I want to go on a road trip with this person. With Leckie, the answer is a resounding yes.
November 10, 2021
Robert Leckie was a reporter before enlisting in the Marines shortly after Pearl Harbor. The book follows him from his training at boot camp at Parris Island until his return to the States after being wounded at Peleliu, one of the bloodiest battles fought by the Marines in the war. In between this is a beautifully crafted story where Leckie tells how life as a Marine in the Pacific was really like. It follows him where he fought in the dark days on Guadalcanal, had a memorable shore leave in Melbourne, Australia, where the Marines really lived as though it would be their last, then went through the hell of New Britain where the worst enemy was the jungle and on to Pavuvu where he spent time in the psych ward by accident before the horror that was Peleliu.
The book is very well written and has a very poetic air to it for me, and we are introduced to a rich cast of characters, where all are called on their nicknames they had in the Marines. Many of these men did not come back from Peleliu and the book in the end is a tribute to those who gave everything. One of my top war memoirs read and highly recommended to all readers.
The book is very well written and has a very poetic air to it for me, and we are introduced to a rich cast of characters, where all are called on their nicknames they had in the Marines. Many of these men did not come back from Peleliu and the book in the end is a tribute to those who gave everything. One of my top war memoirs read and highly recommended to all readers.
September 16, 2025
Sometimes, I feel that other readers elaborate my thoughts about a book so well that I can't but link to their review, and for Helmet for my Pillow I think this review sums them up best.
Having read Eugene B. Sledge's memoir before Leckie's, I agree with Kenny Kemp's points in his comparison of both, with the exception that I don't think Leckie writes brilliantly. On the contrary, I think Leckie is a passable writer and writes like a journalist, which might make him easier to read but not necessarily a better storyteller.
His lack of self-reflection is the one aspect that struck me the most from the start, because Leckie fails to notice the irony and contradiction between what he says and what is going on round him. He breezes through his combat experience during the major battles the First Marines engage in, and spends more on-page time on his "resting time" experience in the civilian world, which, although revealing about his personality, makes it rather hard to put yourself in his shoes. If Sledge shows you war is hell, Leckie tells you war is hell as he's accepting of this hell and painting himself as part of the problem. Kenny explained this better than I could here:
But only Sledge's weaknesses were not hardened by the War. He entered the Marines an honest, good boy, experienced horror, rejected it as best he could, and left it behind when the War was over. He "never put the uniform on again."
From Leckie's book, I wonder: Was he able to do the same? Unless his book is full of hyperbole (which I doubt; he and "Sledgehammer" were in the same conflict on Peleliu), his casual acceptance of the brutality in which they engaged HAD to have devastating longterm consequences for his own life.
That's the thing for me. You can only guess with Leckie. There's a scene in With the Old Breed that's my favourite: Sledge is about to take a dead Japanese soldier's gold teeth out of his mouth and is stopped by the company's corpsman with the excuse that it's full of germs. He's aware that the excuse is silly, but realises what the medic is trying to do: save him from giving in to the brutality of war and losing his soul to it. And he stops. That scene was reproduced in HBO's serials The Pacific as was, only replacing the corpsman by a teammate.
But would Leckie have stopped? That's the question. I think he wouldn't have stopped. He's too accepting of the statu quo and goes along with the brutal flow of war. The book is full of anecdotes that question his character, and you can easily see why HBO showrunners felt they had to whitewash Leckie for television like they didn't need to do with Sledge and Basilone.
I do, however, believe that his account is still valuable and worth a read. It brings to the table a different perspective, and is an example of how differently men adjust to war and peace in mind, body, and behaviour. For that, Helmet for my Pillow is a good firsthand source of information to learn and understand what it is like to be in a war.
Having read Eugene B. Sledge's memoir before Leckie's, I agree with Kenny Kemp's points in his comparison of both, with the exception that I don't think Leckie writes brilliantly. On the contrary, I think Leckie is a passable writer and writes like a journalist, which might make him easier to read but not necessarily a better storyteller.
His lack of self-reflection is the one aspect that struck me the most from the start, because Leckie fails to notice the irony and contradiction between what he says and what is going on round him. He breezes through his combat experience during the major battles the First Marines engage in, and spends more on-page time on his "resting time" experience in the civilian world, which, although revealing about his personality, makes it rather hard to put yourself in his shoes. If Sledge shows you war is hell, Leckie tells you war is hell as he's accepting of this hell and painting himself as part of the problem. Kenny explained this better than I could here:
But only Sledge's weaknesses were not hardened by the War. He entered the Marines an honest, good boy, experienced horror, rejected it as best he could, and left it behind when the War was over. He "never put the uniform on again."
From Leckie's book, I wonder: Was he able to do the same? Unless his book is full of hyperbole (which I doubt; he and "Sledgehammer" were in the same conflict on Peleliu), his casual acceptance of the brutality in which they engaged HAD to have devastating longterm consequences for his own life.
That's the thing for me. You can only guess with Leckie. There's a scene in With the Old Breed that's my favourite: Sledge is about to take a dead Japanese soldier's gold teeth out of his mouth and is stopped by the company's corpsman with the excuse that it's full of germs. He's aware that the excuse is silly, but realises what the medic is trying to do: save him from giving in to the brutality of war and losing his soul to it. And he stops. That scene was reproduced in HBO's serials The Pacific as was, only replacing the corpsman by a teammate.
But would Leckie have stopped? That's the question. I think he wouldn't have stopped. He's too accepting of the statu quo and goes along with the brutal flow of war. The book is full of anecdotes that question his character, and you can easily see why HBO showrunners felt they had to whitewash Leckie for television like they didn't need to do with Sledge and Basilone.
I do, however, believe that his account is still valuable and worth a read. It brings to the table a different perspective, and is an example of how differently men adjust to war and peace in mind, body, and behaviour. For that, Helmet for my Pillow is a good firsthand source of information to learn and understand what it is like to be in a war.
June 8, 2010
I recently read the analog to this book, "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge, about many of the same Marine engagements in the South Pacific during WWII. I thought "HFMP" would be a rehash of the same, but its told by a different kind of writer: While Sledge is thoughtful, simple in his prose, and sees most things through a moral lens, Robert Leckie is profane, writes brilliantly, and celebrates situational morality: he and his fellow jarheads carouse callously in Melbourne; steal from each other in combat; display no sensitivity to death; fake illness to be removed from combat; and bitterly hate both the enemy and their own officers.
Nevertheless, both are truly powerful. The myth of the "greatest generation" has been flogged ad nauseum and I've partaken in it (my own father flew B-24s in the Palaus), but after these two fine books, I see these men more as they truly were: young scared soldiers who were asked to do the most terrible things mankind is capable of (sometimes wilfully, sadly), and they were necessarily scarred thereby. Sledge went on to a quiet life as a college biology professor; Leckie became a prolific novelist (40 or more). Both survived into their 80s and both, from what I've gathered, were fine, upstanding men after the War.
But only Sledge's weaknesses were not hardened by the War. He entered the Marines an honest, good boy, experienced horror, rejected it as best he could, and left it behind when the War was over. He "never put the uniform on again."
From Leckie's book, I wonder: Was he able to do the same? Unless his book is full of hyperbole (which I doubt; he and "Sledgehammer" were in the same conflict on Peleliu), his casual acceptance of the brutality in which they engaged HAD to have devastating longterm consequences for his own life.
There is no GOOD war, from the soldier-on-the-ground's perspective; the only good war is a short war where you survive and Robert Leckie suffered through the entire, endless Pacific campaign. My heart goes out to his suffering, privations, and the inevitable damage he suffered; indeed, Leckie himself wonders in the book who was hurt more: those who died or those who lived. Yet his own moral failings (which undoubtedly preceded the War) reveal his lack of true understanding of the conflict: the book's epilogue is a meditation about the wrongfulness of the atom bomb, yet Leckie had to know the projected American casualty rates had we invaded Japan itself -- Leckie might have been one of the men on those beaches facing tens of thousands of fanatical emperor-worshipers. His lack of comprehension that the atom bomb saved untold American AND Japanese lives betrays a moral blindness that is the root cause of his many smaller moral failings he so eagerly and definitively recounts in the book.
In addition, HFMP was published more than ten years after the end of WWII and the horror of the atom bomb had kept the peace until then. It still keeps the peace today; our conflicts are sporadic and small. There are no wars anymore where 7000 men die in a fortnight.
True, war still exists and probably always will. I don't believe in the "perfectablility" of man and therefore have little hope he will improve drastically in my lifetime. Leckie and Sledge saw the proof of this in dramatic, unforgettable terms and both lived to tell about it. Both men exhibited courage and honor, but only Sledge proved that War doesn't always bring out the worst in a man as well.
Nevertheless, this book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for the serious student of WWII, or any war for that matter.
Nevertheless, both are truly powerful. The myth of the "greatest generation" has been flogged ad nauseum and I've partaken in it (my own father flew B-24s in the Palaus), but after these two fine books, I see these men more as they truly were: young scared soldiers who were asked to do the most terrible things mankind is capable of (sometimes wilfully, sadly), and they were necessarily scarred thereby. Sledge went on to a quiet life as a college biology professor; Leckie became a prolific novelist (40 or more). Both survived into their 80s and both, from what I've gathered, were fine, upstanding men after the War.
But only Sledge's weaknesses were not hardened by the War. He entered the Marines an honest, good boy, experienced horror, rejected it as best he could, and left it behind when the War was over. He "never put the uniform on again."
From Leckie's book, I wonder: Was he able to do the same? Unless his book is full of hyperbole (which I doubt; he and "Sledgehammer" were in the same conflict on Peleliu), his casual acceptance of the brutality in which they engaged HAD to have devastating longterm consequences for his own life.
There is no GOOD war, from the soldier-on-the-ground's perspective; the only good war is a short war where you survive and Robert Leckie suffered through the entire, endless Pacific campaign. My heart goes out to his suffering, privations, and the inevitable damage he suffered; indeed, Leckie himself wonders in the book who was hurt more: those who died or those who lived. Yet his own moral failings (which undoubtedly preceded the War) reveal his lack of true understanding of the conflict: the book's epilogue is a meditation about the wrongfulness of the atom bomb, yet Leckie had to know the projected American casualty rates had we invaded Japan itself -- Leckie might have been one of the men on those beaches facing tens of thousands of fanatical emperor-worshipers. His lack of comprehension that the atom bomb saved untold American AND Japanese lives betrays a moral blindness that is the root cause of his many smaller moral failings he so eagerly and definitively recounts in the book.
In addition, HFMP was published more than ten years after the end of WWII and the horror of the atom bomb had kept the peace until then. It still keeps the peace today; our conflicts are sporadic and small. There are no wars anymore where 7000 men die in a fortnight.
True, war still exists and probably always will. I don't believe in the "perfectablility" of man and therefore have little hope he will improve drastically in my lifetime. Leckie and Sledge saw the proof of this in dramatic, unforgettable terms and both lived to tell about it. Both men exhibited courage and honor, but only Sledge proved that War doesn't always bring out the worst in a man as well.
Nevertheless, this book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for the serious student of WWII, or any war for that matter.
July 15, 2011
The Pacific Theatre in World War II is not as well known to armchair historians for a number of reasons, among them the much larger collection of works about the war in Europe. Toss in the non-linear aspect of campaigns, which hopped from obscure island to island. On top of that, the brutality of the fighting and the racial/racist dynamic of fighting the Japanese versus Germans who looked just like Uncle Joe make the Pacific War a dark, dark topic.
I came across Leckie's book by virtue of watching HBO's The Pacific series a couple of years back. Leckie is played by the brooding James Badge Dale, if you watched that production. Much of the HBO storyline comes from this book, which is Leckie's story of his life from induction through boot camp at Parris Island and then on to fighting in the Pacific. Leckie is unusual, an intellectual and writer who volunteers for the front-line job of a Marine scout and machine gunner. His book is easy to read yet deeply profound about life as a young marine, struggling among other young men, trying to make sense of the military, of life, and of the hellish jungles of Guadalcanal and Peleliu. It's a war book about killing and patrols and campaigns, but also one about being thrown in the brig, sybaritic shore leave in Australia, and the thievery and corner cutting required to keep the First marines in food and comfort, such as could be had in those awful places.
Leckie had respect for his enemy, and some of the most effective anti-war statements I've ever read are passages in this book where he recalls the cold-stone sadness of dead bodies sprawled about, a man's hand, severed, no longer a divine spark.
This book will allow you to taste, smell, and feel what it was like for the brave young men who beat back the Japanese Empire, fighting atoll to island, far from the hoopla. Bless Robert Leckie, who could have served honorably in the rear echelon, but chose to fight up front: "Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are only fit for intellectual pigs. Keep saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it."
I came across Leckie's book by virtue of watching HBO's The Pacific series a couple of years back. Leckie is played by the brooding James Badge Dale, if you watched that production. Much of the HBO storyline comes from this book, which is Leckie's story of his life from induction through boot camp at Parris Island and then on to fighting in the Pacific. Leckie is unusual, an intellectual and writer who volunteers for the front-line job of a Marine scout and machine gunner. His book is easy to read yet deeply profound about life as a young marine, struggling among other young men, trying to make sense of the military, of life, and of the hellish jungles of Guadalcanal and Peleliu. It's a war book about killing and patrols and campaigns, but also one about being thrown in the brig, sybaritic shore leave in Australia, and the thievery and corner cutting required to keep the First marines in food and comfort, such as could be had in those awful places.
Leckie had respect for his enemy, and some of the most effective anti-war statements I've ever read are passages in this book where he recalls the cold-stone sadness of dead bodies sprawled about, a man's hand, severed, no longer a divine spark.
This book will allow you to taste, smell, and feel what it was like for the brave young men who beat back the Japanese Empire, fighting atoll to island, far from the hoopla. Bless Robert Leckie, who could have served honorably in the rear echelon, but chose to fight up front: "Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are only fit for intellectual pigs. Keep saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it."
December 24, 2020
I wanted a book that would give the story of what it was like being a grunt [that is a ground pounder -- infantry --- the ones who have to close with the enemy on foot and do the worst of the effort to win the ground] fighting in World War 2, and, on this, Robert Leckie's memoir, "Helmet for My Pillow" did not disappoint.
This is not a book on war heroics. Nor is this a history of the South Pacific campaigns. It is Leckie's personal account of his experiences as a Marine assigned to the 1st Marine Division during its battles in Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleilu, starting from basic training to his final battle that would ultimately make him a war casualty.
Basic training was, well, basic. Only 5 weeks. With the nation thrown by Pearl Harbor into WW2, there must have been little time to mobilize millions of volunteers and, later, conscripts from civilians into trained servicemen. Then, with just that, Leckie and his fellow newly minted Marines were assigned to 1st Marine Division which seems to have been activated short notice and given the task of training its new Marines for combat --- a task in today's military that likely would have had more of that done during boot camp. That an entire division of men could be assembled together and become the effective fighting force that the 1st Marine Division became really is a tribute to the quality of men that were in it, its leadership from the NCO level on up --- and, I think, that x-factor --- ethos --- that intangibly can wield men together in a common culture that's cohesive, tough, and motivated.
In Leckie's story, to be a grunt is to be on the lowest level of the totem pole. The officers, in the beginning, seem distant. Even the senior NCOs do. The locus of the world is his squad, and the fellow men in it. They would train, go on liberty, fight, stand the watch, patrol --- and die within this. To be a grunt is to be one who's fate lies very much in the hands of others and where uncertainty about what happens next is common.
Of the three battles in which Leckie experienced, each had its own challenges. At Guadalcanal, there was the isolation and uncertainty --- supplies being cut off, the Marines for some time on their own in a state of siege with respect to the Japanese. A perimeter defense was set up --- and for grunts like Leckie, that meant days and days of manning the perimeter always on guard --- long hours of boredom and hunger with moments of intense combat that, almost seem relief from these.
After Guadalcanal, the Marines were spent, needed rest and refitting --- and Australia was their destination. If there was a paradise, Australia to these young men must have seemed so after the hell of Guadalcanal. It was because of the Aussies. I do think that Australia's hospitality and friendliness did play a significant role in rebuilding Leckie and his exhausted colleagues to the point that they could go out and do it again. [and, for what it's worth, decades later, that hadn't changed --- when I was making ports of call in Australia during my Coast Guard icebreaking days, the Australians were great --- really helped the morale of our crew with the same hospitality and helpfulness!)
After Australia, the First Marines shipped out to New Britain for what would become known as the Battle of Cape Gloucester. In some ways, I think, that, at least from what Leckie's recollections are here, this would resemble, decades later, our experiences in the Vietnam ---- the enemy relatively unseen, skirmishing in squad level actions against Marines in the same numbers --- the thick jungle and its endless rains and heat making itself a daunting and relentless adversary for both sides. It wore men down --- and Leckie doesn't dress it up --- breaking some men beyond what their sanity could bear. Even commonplace items would become prized as the rain forest ate personal items and equipment. Leckie recalls even seriously thinking about killing one of the junior officers over him for taking a war prize --- a modest clothing cabinet he captured from the Japanese --- without asking, then pulling rank on him for having done so. In the end, the Marines would overcome both their foes and the jungle too, but at a price.
The climax of this book is Peleilu. Not taking anything from the other battles, but Peleilu would become a meat grinder --- a horrifying place in which Leckie and his fellow Marines would be forced into charging enemy in prepared, hardened defensive positions with little cover and little in the way of equipment in which they as infantry could combat ---- in 115 degree heat --- and, thanks, to logistical incompetence --- given water contaminated due to being stored in empty gasoline drums. The attack force would rely upon naval gunfire support and attack aircraft to deal with these, but so hardened were they that the Marines were forced to send their men by the thousands to attack them anyway in the effort to take them out. It's a moving account. Men that were close to Leckie, that he'd been with from the beginning through all up to this point --- wounded, killed -- the sacrifice against seemingly hopeless odds. This is what ultimately brought this book up from a 4-star to a 5-star for me.
This is an outstanding book. As the last of our WW2 generation passes from the scene, all the more necessary is that their stories be told --- that we remember those fought against evil so profound. And it's book like "Helmet for My Pillow" that tell that --- what it was like, what it felt like for those at the leading edge of closing with the enemy who did the suffering, deprivation, trauma, fighting, and dying. I highly recommend this book.
This is not a book on war heroics. Nor is this a history of the South Pacific campaigns. It is Leckie's personal account of his experiences as a Marine assigned to the 1st Marine Division during its battles in Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleilu, starting from basic training to his final battle that would ultimately make him a war casualty.
Basic training was, well, basic. Only 5 weeks. With the nation thrown by Pearl Harbor into WW2, there must have been little time to mobilize millions of volunteers and, later, conscripts from civilians into trained servicemen. Then, with just that, Leckie and his fellow newly minted Marines were assigned to 1st Marine Division which seems to have been activated short notice and given the task of training its new Marines for combat --- a task in today's military that likely would have had more of that done during boot camp. That an entire division of men could be assembled together and become the effective fighting force that the 1st Marine Division became really is a tribute to the quality of men that were in it, its leadership from the NCO level on up --- and, I think, that x-factor --- ethos --- that intangibly can wield men together in a common culture that's cohesive, tough, and motivated.
In Leckie's story, to be a grunt is to be on the lowest level of the totem pole. The officers, in the beginning, seem distant. Even the senior NCOs do. The locus of the world is his squad, and the fellow men in it. They would train, go on liberty, fight, stand the watch, patrol --- and die within this. To be a grunt is to be one who's fate lies very much in the hands of others and where uncertainty about what happens next is common.
Of the three battles in which Leckie experienced, each had its own challenges. At Guadalcanal, there was the isolation and uncertainty --- supplies being cut off, the Marines for some time on their own in a state of siege with respect to the Japanese. A perimeter defense was set up --- and for grunts like Leckie, that meant days and days of manning the perimeter always on guard --- long hours of boredom and hunger with moments of intense combat that, almost seem relief from these.
After Guadalcanal, the Marines were spent, needed rest and refitting --- and Australia was their destination. If there was a paradise, Australia to these young men must have seemed so after the hell of Guadalcanal. It was because of the Aussies. I do think that Australia's hospitality and friendliness did play a significant role in rebuilding Leckie and his exhausted colleagues to the point that they could go out and do it again. [and, for what it's worth, decades later, that hadn't changed --- when I was making ports of call in Australia during my Coast Guard icebreaking days, the Australians were great --- really helped the morale of our crew with the same hospitality and helpfulness!)
After Australia, the First Marines shipped out to New Britain for what would become known as the Battle of Cape Gloucester. In some ways, I think, that, at least from what Leckie's recollections are here, this would resemble, decades later, our experiences in the Vietnam ---- the enemy relatively unseen, skirmishing in squad level actions against Marines in the same numbers --- the thick jungle and its endless rains and heat making itself a daunting and relentless adversary for both sides. It wore men down --- and Leckie doesn't dress it up --- breaking some men beyond what their sanity could bear. Even commonplace items would become prized as the rain forest ate personal items and equipment. Leckie recalls even seriously thinking about killing one of the junior officers over him for taking a war prize --- a modest clothing cabinet he captured from the Japanese --- without asking, then pulling rank on him for having done so. In the end, the Marines would overcome both their foes and the jungle too, but at a price.
The climax of this book is Peleilu. Not taking anything from the other battles, but Peleilu would become a meat grinder --- a horrifying place in which Leckie and his fellow Marines would be forced into charging enemy in prepared, hardened defensive positions with little cover and little in the way of equipment in which they as infantry could combat ---- in 115 degree heat --- and, thanks, to logistical incompetence --- given water contaminated due to being stored in empty gasoline drums. The attack force would rely upon naval gunfire support and attack aircraft to deal with these, but so hardened were they that the Marines were forced to send their men by the thousands to attack them anyway in the effort to take them out. It's a moving account. Men that were close to Leckie, that he'd been with from the beginning through all up to this point --- wounded, killed -- the sacrifice against seemingly hopeless odds. This is what ultimately brought this book up from a 4-star to a 5-star for me.
This is an outstanding book. As the last of our WW2 generation passes from the scene, all the more necessary is that their stories be told --- that we remember those fought against evil so profound. And it's book like "Helmet for My Pillow" that tell that --- what it was like, what it felt like for those at the leading edge of closing with the enemy who did the suffering, deprivation, trauma, fighting, and dying. I highly recommend this book.
June 7, 2012
Helmet for my Pillow is quite unlike other biographical accounts of war that I have read. It does not delve into the technical nor does it have the staccato-like narration I usually relate with history, specially war. In using nicknames instead of military rankings the author reminds readers that they who fought bravely were just ordinary men. By chronicling their escapades on the islands and in Australia he showed that their needs did not differ from other men who are not at war.
Robert Leckie was being a poet when he wrote this. The atrocity of war is present in the book but not so much as the sadness that permeates through his descriptive passages. In retrospect I think that was what he wanted the readers to feel. After all the victories have been celebrated, all the losses mourned, it is sadness for a multitude of things that linger on.
One must read this book in order not to forget history. To remember other less popular battles that were waged by equally courageous men. "It is to sacrifice that men go to war. They do not go to kill, they go to be killed, to risk their flesh, to insert their precious persons in the path of destruction." And with Leckie's closing thoughts on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to think about what war means to us.
Robert Leckie was being a poet when he wrote this. The atrocity of war is present in the book but not so much as the sadness that permeates through his descriptive passages. In retrospect I think that was what he wanted the readers to feel. After all the victories have been celebrated, all the losses mourned, it is sadness for a multitude of things that linger on.
One must read this book in order not to forget history. To remember other less popular battles that were waged by equally courageous men. "It is to sacrifice that men go to war. They do not go to kill, they go to be killed, to risk their flesh, to insert their precious persons in the path of destruction." And with Leckie's closing thoughts on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to think about what war means to us.
October 25, 2022
Those of you that are my GR friends or simply follow my reviews know that I have a fondness for those histories that recount the experiences of the common man that lives through the great events that history memorializes. I especially enjoy reading about the exploits of the common frontline soldier in any history of any battle or war. When I found this book I gladly placed it on my TBR shelf expecting it to add to my knowledge of the ordeal that was WWII in the Pacific. Several years ago I read Adam Makos' book, "Voices of the Pacific" and was quite moved by it. I expected this book to do the same and it did but it was also a different perspective of the same experiences and the same events.
"Helmet For My Pillow" is an autobiographical tale about a journalist that volunteers for the Marine Corps shortly after Pearl Harbor. "Voices of the Pacific" is a collection of the stories of several Marines and biographical and anecdotal in scope and far more graphic and, at times, horrific. "Helmet" is very different even though both books detail much of the same experiences and events. You would expect any book written by a Marine veteran about his war time experiences would be written in coarse graphic detail and peppered with profanity but that is not the case with this book and that is one of the things that surprised me about the book and its author. The author's prose is astonishing at times. Parts of this book read like an epic poem and in other portions the author lapses into thoughtful reflections about life and death, war, heroes, victims, and the worth of it all. This is a combat Marine veteran and his words are frequently haunting. I can only speculate that these thoughts and words are the result of Mr. Leckie's experiences and the memories he has of those men with whom he lived those experiences and especially the men that didn't return. This is a very moving book and for reasons I did not expect. If you would like to know what it was like for a civilian to enter the Marines at the beginning of WWII and go through Boot Camp then further training only to then be shipped off to the Pacific to endure a combat experience never before known then this book is something you should pick up and read. Probably the most unsettling difference between the Army's war in Europe and the Marine's war in the Pacific was that in the Pacific there was no safe rear area. In Europe troops could be regularly rotated to the rear for R&R while in the Pacific that wasn't possible. The Marines were on the line and in jeopardy for months at a time without rest and their war was truly a hell on earth ordeal. This book will help the reader understand what we owe those men.
"Helmet For My Pillow" is an autobiographical tale about a journalist that volunteers for the Marine Corps shortly after Pearl Harbor. "Voices of the Pacific" is a collection of the stories of several Marines and biographical and anecdotal in scope and far more graphic and, at times, horrific. "Helmet" is very different even though both books detail much of the same experiences and events. You would expect any book written by a Marine veteran about his war time experiences would be written in coarse graphic detail and peppered with profanity but that is not the case with this book and that is one of the things that surprised me about the book and its author. The author's prose is astonishing at times. Parts of this book read like an epic poem and in other portions the author lapses into thoughtful reflections about life and death, war, heroes, victims, and the worth of it all. This is a combat Marine veteran and his words are frequently haunting. I can only speculate that these thoughts and words are the result of Mr. Leckie's experiences and the memories he has of those men with whom he lived those experiences and especially the men that didn't return. This is a very moving book and for reasons I did not expect. If you would like to know what it was like for a civilian to enter the Marines at the beginning of WWII and go through Boot Camp then further training only to then be shipped off to the Pacific to endure a combat experience never before known then this book is something you should pick up and read. Probably the most unsettling difference between the Army's war in Europe and the Marine's war in the Pacific was that in the Pacific there was no safe rear area. In Europe troops could be regularly rotated to the rear for R&R while in the Pacific that wasn't possible. The Marines were on the line and in jeopardy for months at a time without rest and their war was truly a hell on earth ordeal. This book will help the reader understand what we owe those men.
June 3, 2020
Helmet for My Pillow
This is probably the best WWII memoir that I’ve read. There is a surprising amount of humor, mostly dark, in this book about a Marine’s experiences in Guadalcanal and Peleliu.
Shore leave and the stint in the brig in Australia were exceptionally well drawn.
4.5 stars.
This is probably the best WWII memoir that I’ve read. There is a surprising amount of humor, mostly dark, in this book about a Marine’s experiences in Guadalcanal and Peleliu.
Shore leave and the stint in the brig in Australia were exceptionally well drawn.
4.5 stars.
March 25, 2025
A combination of "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Catch 22".
It's a personal account of the experiences of a U.S. marine in the Pacific Theater of war during WWII.
Beautifully written - if war can be beautiful.
It's a personal account of the experiences of a U.S. marine in the Pacific Theater of war during WWII.
Beautifully written - if war can be beautiful.
May 17, 2020
I am not now, have never been previously, and most likely never will be a big fan of the first-person accounts of any war. At higher ranks, there is always the question of what it is that the individual is trying to gloss over to maintain or improve their reputations. At the lower ranks, there is, sometimes, a great deal of immediacy but at the loss of understanding of what is going on in the overall sense. I have never been one to desire to live my life vicariously through another's actual experiences. That is what Fantasy is for.
So why fives stars? Simple. First off Robert Leckie is unusually honest, not just about others but about himself. Second, he writes at levels far beyond that of other first-person accounts. In fact, sometimes he writes so well that it makes it hard to believe that the author is the one that lived through these experiences. The details though make it clear that he was there, but he has the eye of a poet more than most other soldiers who write about their experiences and that makes this book all the more worth reading.
The epilogue is especially moving. He names friends and others that he knew and then asks...'of all these and the others, dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud.'
So why fives stars? Simple. First off Robert Leckie is unusually honest, not just about others but about himself. Second, he writes at levels far beyond that of other first-person accounts. In fact, sometimes he writes so well that it makes it hard to believe that the author is the one that lived through these experiences. The details though make it clear that he was there, but he has the eye of a poet more than most other soldiers who write about their experiences and that makes this book all the more worth reading.
The epilogue is especially moving. He names friends and others that he knew and then asks...'of all these and the others, dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud.'
June 12, 2025
It is unimaginable what the US Marines had to go through to retake the Pacific Islands that were held by the .formidable Japanese Army.
The heat was hellish. There was a lack of food and clean water. Men succumbed to dehydration.
The thick jungles were impenetrable and were filled with biting insects and vermin.
There were parts in this narrative that made me cry for these men.
Against the odds, they prevailed. The Allied Troops were part of what made the greatest generation.
Anyone who reads of their bravery and endurance will appreciate their sacrifice.
The heat was hellish. There was a lack of food and clean water. Men succumbed to dehydration.
The thick jungles were impenetrable and were filled with biting insects and vermin.
There were parts in this narrative that made me cry for these men.
Against the odds, they prevailed. The Allied Troops were part of what made the greatest generation.
Anyone who reads of their bravery and endurance will appreciate their sacrifice.
August 11, 2019
It’s easy to forget that wars are fought by individuals. Even then, those that are singularly remembered are typically those with sweeping powers and responsibility. Their individuality gets merged with the goals of a battle or the policies of a nation.
But here resides the memoir of Robert Leckie; a private in the US Marine Corps during World War II. Leckie brings forth the perspective of a common soldier. He represents the life of the lowest class of fighter during a time when he and countless others were needed for a singular purpose: to fight the war with body and weapon.
Leckie does a remarkable job in recording his experiences. The pace of the account deliberately follows the pace of the war. He starts with his enlistment and proceeds to tell his experiences with the First Marine Division up to the end of the war. There are invasions, R&R in Australia, smaller missions, and the final fanatic resistance of the Japanese Army during the final months of the war.
My issues with the book stem mostly from Leckie’s style in telling of his experiences. He never quite conveys the feeling of a real cutting truth. It’s like listening to a grandfather telling war stories to his teenage grandchild or a veteran telling of his experiences to his non-military friends. The real truth is masked by a dull edge so that that grandchild or the friends can be saved from the savage, sometimes inexplicable, nature of war. But that’s what I want to hear so that it can at least be known for what it is.
Along these same lines, the non-combat portions of Leckie’s account seem a bit boastful and larger than life. He is the heroic challenger of authority residing in incompetent officers and an uncaring military machine. One has to wonder why every person in the book is referred to by a nickname. Those without real names cannot dispel tall tales.
In total, however, there is truth in Leckie’s account, which makes Helmet for my Pillow a resource for the generations to come. These children of the present and future will be completely detached from the veterans that fought in WWII. Without books like Helmet for my Pillow they may forget that wars of a global scale were ever fought at all, and combat with a somewhat dull blade is still combat.
But here resides the memoir of Robert Leckie; a private in the US Marine Corps during World War II. Leckie brings forth the perspective of a common soldier. He represents the life of the lowest class of fighter during a time when he and countless others were needed for a singular purpose: to fight the war with body and weapon.
Leckie does a remarkable job in recording his experiences. The pace of the account deliberately follows the pace of the war. He starts with his enlistment and proceeds to tell his experiences with the First Marine Division up to the end of the war. There are invasions, R&R in Australia, smaller missions, and the final fanatic resistance of the Japanese Army during the final months of the war.
My issues with the book stem mostly from Leckie’s style in telling of his experiences. He never quite conveys the feeling of a real cutting truth. It’s like listening to a grandfather telling war stories to his teenage grandchild or a veteran telling of his experiences to his non-military friends. The real truth is masked by a dull edge so that that grandchild or the friends can be saved from the savage, sometimes inexplicable, nature of war. But that’s what I want to hear so that it can at least be known for what it is.
Along these same lines, the non-combat portions of Leckie’s account seem a bit boastful and larger than life. He is the heroic challenger of authority residing in incompetent officers and an uncaring military machine. One has to wonder why every person in the book is referred to by a nickname. Those without real names cannot dispel tall tales.
In total, however, there is truth in Leckie’s account, which makes Helmet for my Pillow a resource for the generations to come. These children of the present and future will be completely detached from the veterans that fought in WWII. Without books like Helmet for my Pillow they may forget that wars of a global scale were ever fought at all, and combat with a somewhat dull blade is still combat.
July 31, 2014
If you watched all ten episodes of HBO’s 2010 special, “The Pacific,” you’re most likely already aware that Robert Leckie’s journal, “Helmet for my Pillow” was one of three soldier memoirs Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and the other producers used to create that epic miniseries. Chuck Tatum’s “Red Blood, Black Sand” and Eugene Sledge’s “With the Old Breed,” were the other two, both of which I’ve personally read and reviewed here previously.
If you saw “The Pacific,” you also know that Leckie is played by 36 year-old actor James Badge Dale and has a prominent role in all ten episodes. In fact, in the first scene of the first episode, Leckie meets a next-door-neighbor, Vera Keller in church prior to his departure for the Marine Corps. That reportedly begins an intensive letter-writing campaign displayed prominently throughout the series. There’s just one small problem. The romance by mail didn’t happen. The author’s daughter, Joan Leckie Salvas told North Jersey.com, Her dad is shown "writing letters to my mother all the time, which is interesting, since she's about the only one he never really wrote to," according to Salvas. "They didn't really date until after the war, but in the series, it's really quite lovely the way they have him writing to her." In fact, in his book, Leckie never mentions his Rutherford, New Jersey neighbor. He does imply a steamy sex scene with Sheila while on leave in Australia. That encounter does make the film, but the Aussie woman has another name.
Executive producer Tom Hanks called Leckie’s memoir “a grand and epic prose poem . . . written in graceful imagery.” I have to agree with Hanks. Page 48 is a prime example of Leckie’s writing style. Here he describes the training he experienced on Parris Island, South Carolina. Leckie manages to stretch those “days, days, endless grinding days” into just one sentence containing at least 298 words and just one period. This stream-of-conscience technique is effective in illustrating the endless nature of military basic training in 1940’s America. If you put Leckie’s take on the Pacific war alongside Tatum and Sledge’s versions, you can’t help but notice the difference. Leckie is much more cerebral. Leckie’s tone is much more novelesque. He provides fewer details. Here, you won’t find a lot of military jargon, battle strategy or platoon, company, battalion letters and numbers moving on a map. What really creates a fictionalized feel to these real-life events is Leckie’s penchant for never referring to his fellow Marines by their real names. Instead we meet Sergeant Bellow, Captain High-Hips, Corporal Smoothface, Sergeant Thinface and Lieutenant Ivy-League. These and a host of other characters in Leckie’s world are known to the reader only by their most prominent physical or personality feature. If you want to know the true identity of Leckie’s “trinity of friends” while in the corps, Hoosier, Chuckler and the Runner, you have to find their pictures scattered throughout the 305 pages.
While still in training, Leckie “proposed stealing a case of beer” from a tavern. There on page 43, the author seems to reveal his dark side. That shoplifting episode is followed by the theft of oranges aboard ship on page 58. Twenty-eight pages later, Leckie stripped a dead Japanese soldier of his bayonet and field glasses. Nineteen pages later, we find Leckie applauding his friend Chuckler for the “solid swag” items he stole from retreating U.S. infantrymen. Nineteen more pages later, we find Chuckler and Leckie stealing more food from the U.S. Army. Thirty-five pages later, Leckie goes AWOL. Twenty pages later, Leckie goes AWOL again. Eleven pages later, Leckie is incarcerated in the brig for the second time. The author steals more military food stuffs fourteen pages later. When Leckie is left out of a “stateside lottery,” (awarded to only those Marines who had never been in trouble), he decides to fake an illness so he could be hospitalized and avoid more combat duty. In the HBO series chronicling the author’s role in the battle of Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu and in this book, Leckie may come off as a hero. In my book, morally speaking, he comes off as a big zero.
If you saw “The Pacific,” you also know that Leckie is played by 36 year-old actor James Badge Dale and has a prominent role in all ten episodes. In fact, in the first scene of the first episode, Leckie meets a next-door-neighbor, Vera Keller in church prior to his departure for the Marine Corps. That reportedly begins an intensive letter-writing campaign displayed prominently throughout the series. There’s just one small problem. The romance by mail didn’t happen. The author’s daughter, Joan Leckie Salvas told North Jersey.com, Her dad is shown "writing letters to my mother all the time, which is interesting, since she's about the only one he never really wrote to," according to Salvas. "They didn't really date until after the war, but in the series, it's really quite lovely the way they have him writing to her." In fact, in his book, Leckie never mentions his Rutherford, New Jersey neighbor. He does imply a steamy sex scene with Sheila while on leave in Australia. That encounter does make the film, but the Aussie woman has another name.
Executive producer Tom Hanks called Leckie’s memoir “a grand and epic prose poem . . . written in graceful imagery.” I have to agree with Hanks. Page 48 is a prime example of Leckie’s writing style. Here he describes the training he experienced on Parris Island, South Carolina. Leckie manages to stretch those “days, days, endless grinding days” into just one sentence containing at least 298 words and just one period. This stream-of-conscience technique is effective in illustrating the endless nature of military basic training in 1940’s America. If you put Leckie’s take on the Pacific war alongside Tatum and Sledge’s versions, you can’t help but notice the difference. Leckie is much more cerebral. Leckie’s tone is much more novelesque. He provides fewer details. Here, you won’t find a lot of military jargon, battle strategy or platoon, company, battalion letters and numbers moving on a map. What really creates a fictionalized feel to these real-life events is Leckie’s penchant for never referring to his fellow Marines by their real names. Instead we meet Sergeant Bellow, Captain High-Hips, Corporal Smoothface, Sergeant Thinface and Lieutenant Ivy-League. These and a host of other characters in Leckie’s world are known to the reader only by their most prominent physical or personality feature. If you want to know the true identity of Leckie’s “trinity of friends” while in the corps, Hoosier, Chuckler and the Runner, you have to find their pictures scattered throughout the 305 pages.
While still in training, Leckie “proposed stealing a case of beer” from a tavern. There on page 43, the author seems to reveal his dark side. That shoplifting episode is followed by the theft of oranges aboard ship on page 58. Twenty-eight pages later, Leckie stripped a dead Japanese soldier of his bayonet and field glasses. Nineteen pages later, we find Leckie applauding his friend Chuckler for the “solid swag” items he stole from retreating U.S. infantrymen. Nineteen more pages later, we find Chuckler and Leckie stealing more food from the U.S. Army. Thirty-five pages later, Leckie goes AWOL. Twenty pages later, Leckie goes AWOL again. Eleven pages later, Leckie is incarcerated in the brig for the second time. The author steals more military food stuffs fourteen pages later. When Leckie is left out of a “stateside lottery,” (awarded to only those Marines who had never been in trouble), he decides to fake an illness so he could be hospitalized and avoid more combat duty. In the HBO series chronicling the author’s role in the battle of Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu and in this book, Leckie may come off as a hero. In my book, morally speaking, he comes off as a big zero.
November 3, 2011
Enjoyable but in my opinion has not stood the test of time and seems a touch lightweight by today's more forceful standards.
March 13, 2019
The author,Robert Leckie is a newspaper reporter and in writing books(Hemingway and Ernie Pyle the exceptions), newspaper reporters fall into the trap of stating the who, what, when, where and why in first 2 paragraphs with no heart or emotion in rest of pages. While a few of his pages described the horrors of war that the he was heroically involved in, most of the book described how he stole food from the marines supply cook of how he spent his time in the brig !!
July 22, 2016
Wish I'd read this earlier - many, many years ago. It's a wonderful book about one individual Marine's (rifleman's) experience in WWII. The entire book is worthwhile, but I found I was particularly fascinated and enamored by the lengthy passage recalling the Marines' extraordinary efforts during the Guadalcanal campaign. Great stuff!
OK, OK, it's not light reading, and it's a WWII memoir - it's brutal and sad and graphic and poignant and, all too often, frightening and depressing. My guess is the reason the book stood the test of time is that the author, before he enlisted (and paid a, um, steep price of admission for doing so), he was a writer/reporter/journalist. The book is extremely well constructed, the prose is tight, the descriptions are vivid, and the voice comes across, nay resonates, as extremely genuine.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the book is how consistently the author keeps the first person narrative bounded by personal experience. This is one Marine's experience and, with a minor exception in the conclusion (which, frankly, did not move me as much as many other passages in the book), the author rarely broadens the perspective. In other words, it's not intended as a grand or all-encompassing history, it's a memoir, and an effective, convincing, and compelling one. I admit that (personally), I was least amused by the author's (and his colleagues) liberty (or leave) experiences, particularly with regard to the great debauch. But full points to the author for chronicling his missteps, transgressions, and failures in addition to his finest hours, his learning curve, the monotony and frustration of service, the transcendence of battlefield friend/companionship, anger, hunger, and, yes, his fear and discomfort and despair.
One can't help but compare this (much older) work with the relatively recent (and sublime) fictional (but not entirely fictional) Vietnam bestseller and award winner, Matterhorn, which I've heard folks describe as a GoPro/helmet-cam tour of Vietnam (before GoPro/helmet-cams were invented).... Part of me is inclined to re-read Matterhorn for comparison's sake ... but I won't - alas, too many books, never enough time....
One theme that it hard to ignore in the book is the element of sacrifice, and - for my money - here is where the author is most eloquent, whether speaking of the issue directly or indirectly. Jaded as the author may have been (or have become), it's still a different time and place and culture than ... well ... war in the new Millennium, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's very little in this book in common with the popular recent books about (overnight celebrity) Navy SEALs or snipers or ... or ... even the excellent vignettes by embedded reporters such as Finkel's excellent work in The Good Soldiers or Thank You For Your Service. It's not just a different time and place. It's a different voice and culture and worldview and .... Well, you'll have to decide for yourself.
A terrible tale told by a talented writer. There's a reason some books stand the test of time. This is a good reminder of (or introduction to) our ancestor's service and sacrifice. Well worth reading.
OK, OK, it's not light reading, and it's a WWII memoir - it's brutal and sad and graphic and poignant and, all too often, frightening and depressing. My guess is the reason the book stood the test of time is that the author, before he enlisted (and paid a, um, steep price of admission for doing so), he was a writer/reporter/journalist. The book is extremely well constructed, the prose is tight, the descriptions are vivid, and the voice comes across, nay resonates, as extremely genuine.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the book is how consistently the author keeps the first person narrative bounded by personal experience. This is one Marine's experience and, with a minor exception in the conclusion (which, frankly, did not move me as much as many other passages in the book), the author rarely broadens the perspective. In other words, it's not intended as a grand or all-encompassing history, it's a memoir, and an effective, convincing, and compelling one. I admit that (personally), I was least amused by the author's (and his colleagues) liberty (or leave) experiences, particularly with regard to the great debauch. But full points to the author for chronicling his missteps, transgressions, and failures in addition to his finest hours, his learning curve, the monotony and frustration of service, the transcendence of battlefield friend/companionship, anger, hunger, and, yes, his fear and discomfort and despair.
One can't help but compare this (much older) work with the relatively recent (and sublime) fictional (but not entirely fictional) Vietnam bestseller and award winner, Matterhorn, which I've heard folks describe as a GoPro/helmet-cam tour of Vietnam (before GoPro/helmet-cams were invented).... Part of me is inclined to re-read Matterhorn for comparison's sake ... but I won't - alas, too many books, never enough time....
One theme that it hard to ignore in the book is the element of sacrifice, and - for my money - here is where the author is most eloquent, whether speaking of the issue directly or indirectly. Jaded as the author may have been (or have become), it's still a different time and place and culture than ... well ... war in the new Millennium, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's very little in this book in common with the popular recent books about (overnight celebrity) Navy SEALs or snipers or ... or ... even the excellent vignettes by embedded reporters such as Finkel's excellent work in The Good Soldiers or Thank You For Your Service. It's not just a different time and place. It's a different voice and culture and worldview and .... Well, you'll have to decide for yourself.
A terrible tale told by a talented writer. There's a reason some books stand the test of time. This is a good reminder of (or introduction to) our ancestor's service and sacrifice. Well worth reading.
April 30, 2016
I down loaded this as an audio book so that I could learn more about some of the infantry battles on Guadalcanal and some of the other islands. I wanted to hear/read some more first had accounts from members of the front line rifle companies. Other than a fine account of the battle of the Teneru on Guadalcanal, I really didn't get what I expected. The details of the battle are a little more sparse. What I did learn about was Leckie's experience as a private. I thought after what these boys had been through, the Marine Corp seemed to get a little petty with the troops after they had left the front and they were sent to the rear to recuperate and rest. I also thought that Leckie's platoon leaders did not treat him fairly. In Quantico at OCS and PLC we were taught to use a little different tact than Lieutenants Ivy League and Big Picture. I really think tha this is a good book to read becasue it shows another side of what soldiers had to put up with. I also think that young platoon leaders should read this as well.
I really think if you want to read a better first hand account of the fighting read E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed.
Thank you for your service Mr. Leckie. Semper Fi.
I really think if you want to read a better first hand account of the fighting read E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed.
Thank you for your service Mr. Leckie. Semper Fi.
June 3, 2016
After reading Eugene Sledge's book on his experiences in WWII, I finally picked up Robert Leckie's book as well, these two were a majority of the basis used for the Pacific series that was on HBO several years go.
I have read several of Leckie's other military histories and already enjoyed his writing.
Here, Leckie was writing a first person narrative that truly portrayed the dogie dog days being a Marine in the jungles of the Pacific, fighting, clawing and, surviving each day. His narrative and writing flowed so naturally that it transported me to these sites.
Knowing that my father was in these same places during these battles while in the Navy dropping these men on the beaches, brought it home for me.
If you are interested in a true portrayal of the war experience read this.
I have read several of Leckie's other military histories and already enjoyed his writing.
Here, Leckie was writing a first person narrative that truly portrayed the dogie dog days being a Marine in the jungles of the Pacific, fighting, clawing and, surviving each day. His narrative and writing flowed so naturally that it transported me to these sites.
Knowing that my father was in these same places during these battles while in the Navy dropping these men on the beaches, brought it home for me.
If you are interested in a true portrayal of the war experience read this.
March 21, 2016
So many HIGH marks for this book, however - not me. Too many flowery words used in this true WW2 story.
September 29, 2020
This is a memoir of Leckie's experiences after joining the Marine Corps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. It starts with boot camp at Parris Island and ends on his return to the US at the conclusion of the war. The reader relives the battles in the Pacific islands, shore leave in Australia, and even a stint in the brig. Prior to the war, Leckie was a newspaper sports reporter, and after the war he continued working for various publications and the AP. In addition he wrote history and children's books. According to his wife, Leckie was inspired to write his war memoirs after walking out of a Broadway production of 'South Pacific', stating that war isn't a musical.
One of my favorite quotes from the book. Leckie inadvertently ends up in a psych ward due to overcrowding in the regular recovery section. He is being interviewed by a psychologist. The psychologist finds out how well read he is, then is appalled that his assignment was first as a machine gunner, and then a scout, and what a waste of intelligence that is. "Intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. Keep it up America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it."
One of my favorite quotes from the book. Leckie inadvertently ends up in a psych ward due to overcrowding in the regular recovery section. He is being interviewed by a psychologist. The psychologist finds out how well read he is, then is appalled that his assignment was first as a machine gunner, and then a scout, and what a waste of intelligence that is. "Intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. Keep it up America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it."
October 14, 2022
A huge fan of the hit series "The Pacific!, I knew I had to read this book and "With The Old Breed by E.B Sledge.
HBO's epic series " The Pacific " took it's inspiration from the lives of three men, John Basilone, Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie. Basilone died in action on Iwo Jima but Sledge and Leckie both survived the war to record their experiences on paper and it's interesting to compare Sledge's " With the Old Breed " with this, Leckie's memoir.
“Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war’s fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense of their country.
From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie’s hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.”
Robert Leckie was born on December 18, 1920 in Philadelphia. After enlisting in the United States Marine Corps shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour, he worked in the 1st Marine Division as a machine gunner and as an intelligence scout during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He was later awarded the Purple Heart. Helmet for My Pillow received the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents' Annual Award in 1957. He died in December 2001.
Robert Leckie's book is full of detail, which sometimes makes for heavy and dark reading if not sometimes slow, but pure detail and honesty but perhaps it suffers - it was published in the late 1950's and is may have undergone more editorial censorship than Sledge's memoir which was written in 1981.
Overall a fully detailed recording of some of the heaviest fighting during WW11
HBO's epic series " The Pacific " took it's inspiration from the lives of three men, John Basilone, Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie. Basilone died in action on Iwo Jima but Sledge and Leckie both survived the war to record their experiences on paper and it's interesting to compare Sledge's " With the Old Breed " with this, Leckie's memoir.
“Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war’s fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense of their country.
From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie’s hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.”
Robert Leckie was born on December 18, 1920 in Philadelphia. After enlisting in the United States Marine Corps shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour, he worked in the 1st Marine Division as a machine gunner and as an intelligence scout during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He was later awarded the Purple Heart. Helmet for My Pillow received the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents' Annual Award in 1957. He died in December 2001.
Robert Leckie's book is full of detail, which sometimes makes for heavy and dark reading if not sometimes slow, but pure detail and honesty but perhaps it suffers - it was published in the late 1950's and is may have undergone more editorial censorship than Sledge's memoir which was written in 1981.
Overall a fully detailed recording of some of the heaviest fighting during WW11
January 7, 2025
"A Bullet or a mortar fragment had torn a hole in these frail vessels and the substance had leaked out."
❤️ So many everyday anecdotes, made the men feel even more real - as well as boyish. Made me realise that many of them were really just big boys.
❤️ The writing was sometimes very poetical, which I liked.
March 28, 2015
I thought Robert Leckie was brave to recall his story when committing it to print. I'm sure the memories must have haunted him terribly.
Collecting war souvenirs from fallen enemies ... gold teeth pulled from mouths of dead men, wading through swampy waters with gun between teeth, to keep it dry .... in search of trophy weapons ... Never minding the dangerous alligator infested waters ...so hungry a salt sandwich was "good eating" ... faking illness to stay in a mental ward and keep from having to go back to fighting ... These are among a few of the scenes that I remember most. Like Robert I'd have to agree that losing one's mind would be worse than losing an arm or leg. His prose-like style made the horrors of war more profound and thought-provoking.
This scene was so visual to me and left my mind pondering ...
I got up and made for the airfield. . . . I turned to go, and as I did, nearly stepped on someone’s hand. “Excuse me,” I began to say, but then I saw that it was an unattached hand, or rather a detached one. It lay there alone – open, palm upwards, clean, capable, solitary. I could not tear my eyes from it. The hand is the artisan of the soul. It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart. A man has no faculty more human than his hand, none more beautiful nor expressive nor productive. To see this hand lying alone, as though contemptuously cast aside, no longer a part of a man, no longer his help, was to see war in all its wantonness; it was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending, and it was to see men at their eternal worst, turning upon one another, tearing one another, clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride-possessed.
... once "beautiful and expressive" hands had to have been at fault, or should I say controlled by ugliness of war, when minutes before they were busy at dismembering Robert's discovery.
Feeling sad is a good way to describe the effects of reading this memoir, and at the same time knowing sadness is probably a huge motivator for writing it.
Collecting war souvenirs from fallen enemies ... gold teeth pulled from mouths of dead men, wading through swampy waters with gun between teeth, to keep it dry .... in search of trophy weapons ... Never minding the dangerous alligator infested waters ...so hungry a salt sandwich was "good eating" ... faking illness to stay in a mental ward and keep from having to go back to fighting ... These are among a few of the scenes that I remember most. Like Robert I'd have to agree that losing one's mind would be worse than losing an arm or leg. His prose-like style made the horrors of war more profound and thought-provoking.
This scene was so visual to me and left my mind pondering ...
I got up and made for the airfield. . . . I turned to go, and as I did, nearly stepped on someone’s hand. “Excuse me,” I began to say, but then I saw that it was an unattached hand, or rather a detached one. It lay there alone – open, palm upwards, clean, capable, solitary. I could not tear my eyes from it. The hand is the artisan of the soul. It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart. A man has no faculty more human than his hand, none more beautiful nor expressive nor productive. To see this hand lying alone, as though contemptuously cast aside, no longer a part of a man, no longer his help, was to see war in all its wantonness; it was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending, and it was to see men at their eternal worst, turning upon one another, tearing one another, clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride-possessed.
... once "beautiful and expressive" hands had to have been at fault, or should I say controlled by ugliness of war, when minutes before they were busy at dismembering Robert's discovery.
Feeling sad is a good way to describe the effects of reading this memoir, and at the same time knowing sadness is probably a huge motivator for writing it.
December 25, 2016
This is one of the books on which Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks based their miniseries The Pacific. I have already read Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed. It is equally as riveting, but the style and content are vastly different. Robert Leckie is a joker and a ratbag. He draws elaborate recollections of events, often where he himself temps trouble, or instigates pranks and evasive operations. Being a journalist, he has a colourful vocabulary and a sharp wit. He gives affectionate nicknames to all his characters, and although they are real people, their identities are concealed.
A large portion of the book is devoted to what happened in between combat campaigns and how the marines entertained themselves in these times. Being Australian, I enjoyed reading about his fondness of Australia and there is about a hundred pages devoted to what the marines did in and around Melbourne during WWII. I'm left with the amusing image of thousands of inflated condoms floating on the water between the docks and Leckie's ship departing out of Port Melbourne following the “Great Debauch!”
A large portion of the book is devoted to what happened in between combat campaigns and how the marines entertained themselves in these times. Being Australian, I enjoyed reading about his fondness of Australia and there is about a hundred pages devoted to what the marines did in and around Melbourne during WWII. I'm left with the amusing image of thousands of inflated condoms floating on the water between the docks and Leckie's ship departing out of Port Melbourne following the “Great Debauch!”
January 22, 2024
Listened to this on audible after listening to Sledge's 'With the Old Breed,' both read extremely well by the actors who played the corresponding man in 'The Pacific.' Would highly recommend both, and it makes for a very interesting comparison. Where Sledge is more candid, I found that Leckie (no surprise, given his career as a writer) to be more lyrical/stylistic in his account. While I might slightly prefer Sledge, both are fantastic memoirs and should be read together. I thought Leckie's discussion of R&R in Australia very interesting and the final chapter on Peleliu to be a masterpiece of prose.
October 26, 2013
This book is actually more memoir than a history. Mr. Leckie has written some of my favorite histories, especially military history. He served during WWII.
From his entry into the service through each deployment...and leave you get the stories of his life. The book doesn't emphasize military actions (though they are described) but on his day to day life. Living and waiting on Guadalcanal and later deployments along with "more scintillating activities" between deployments.
This is a good insight into the background of an American Marine and a historical writer.
Recommended.
From his entry into the service through each deployment...and leave you get the stories of his life. The book doesn't emphasize military actions (though they are described) but on his day to day life. Living and waiting on Guadalcanal and later deployments along with "more scintillating activities" between deployments.
This is a good insight into the background of an American Marine and a historical writer.
Recommended.
October 13, 2015
Robert Leckie writes of his experiences as a US Marine fighting in the Pacific during World War II. The book unfolds like he is sitting down and talking directly to you.
July 11, 2022
Muy entretenido.
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