DEVIL DOGS EB

Saul David

• Publisher: William Collins
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780008395773
• eBook ISBN: 9780008395780
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

A Times History Book of the Year 2022

From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last.

The 'Devil Dogs' of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were part of the legendary first Marine Division. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942 – the first US ground offensive of the war – and were present when Okinawa, Japan's most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the 'Green Hell' of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a campaign described by one K Company veteran as 'thirty days of the meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict on each other.'

Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most effective soldiers in world history – and defeat it. This is the story of how they did just that and, in the process, forged bonds of brotherhood that still survive today.

Remarkably, the company contained an unusually high number of talented writers, whose first-hand accounts and memoirs provide the colour, emotion, and context for this extraordinary story. In Devil Dogs, award-winning historian Saul David sets the searing experience of K Company into the broader context of the brutal war in the Pacific and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne.

Gripping, intimate, authoritative and far-reaching, this is a unique and incredibly personal narrative of war.

Saul David's previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Maps
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 ‘I would’ve followed him anywhere’ Southwest Pacific, 6 August 1942
• 2 ‘Where I’m going will either make or break me’ Southwest Pacific, 6 August 1942
• 3 ‘Will I run? Will I be afraid?’ British Solomon Islands, 7 August 1942
• 4 ‘You think we’ll ever get off this damned island?’ Guadalcanal, 8–11 August 1942
• 5 The Goettge Patrol Guadalcanal, 12 August 1942
• 6 ‘Boy, they were a sight for sore eyes!’ Guadalcanal, 18 August–14 September 1942
• 7 ‘A pesthole that reeked of death, struggle and disease’ Guadalcanal, September 1942
• 8 ‘Thirty hours of pure hell’ Guadalcanal, October 1942
• 9 ‘It was just a crazy thing to do’ The Battle of Point Cruz, 1–4 November 1942
• 10 ‘We’ve got the bastards licked!’ Guadalcanal, 7 November–9 December 1942
• 11 ‘Saviours of Australia’ Brisbane and Melbourne, December 1942–January 1943
• 12 ‘The trick is to run just fast enough’ Camp Balcombe, January–March 1943
• 13 New Arrivals Camp Balcombe, March–June 1943
• 14 Planning for Action Southwest Pacific, March–December 1943
• 15 Green Hell Cape Gloucester, 26 December 1943–2 January 1944
• 16 Suicide Creek Cape Gloucester, 3–4 January 1944
• 17 ‘So long, Dutch’ Cape Gloucester, 3–8 January 1944
• 18 Walt’s Ridge Cape Gloucester, 9–10 January 1944
• 19 Seek and Destroy New Britain, January–February 1944
• 20 Operation Appease Talasea, March 1944
• 21 ‘The sickness, the rain, the spider’ New Britain, March–May 1944
• 22 ‘Whose bright idea was this anyway?’ Pavuvu Island, May 1944
• 23 Changing Places Pavuvu Island, May–June 1944
• 24 Operation Stalemate Southwest Pacific, June–July 1944
• 25 Sledgehammer Pavuvu Island, June 1944
• 26 ‘They really put on a show’ Pavuvu Island, June–August 1944
• 27 ‘This is going to be a short one, a quickie’ Southwest Pacific, July–September 1944
• 28 ‘This is it, boys!’ Palau Islands, 14–15 September 1944
• 29 ‘Move it! Move it!’ Peleliu, 15 September 1944
• 30 ‘They’re Nip tanks!’ Peleliu, 15 September 1944
• 31 ‘Everywhere shells flashed like giant firecrackers’ Peleliu, 16–17 September 1944
• 32 ‘I never saw such agonized expressions’ Peleliu, 20–25 September 1944
• 33 ‘I’m hit! Christ, I’m hit!’ Sniper’s Alley, 25–26 September 1944
• 34 ‘Put the man out of his misery!’ Ngesebus Island, 28–29 September 1944
• 35 ‘Shit, they’re behind us!’ Umurbrogol Pocket, 1–4 October 1944
• 36 Hillbilly and Ack-Ack Umurbrogol Pocket, 5–12 October 1944
• 37 The Lucky Few 13–29 October 1944
• 38 ‘We were worn down and sobered’ Pavuvu Island, October–November 1944
• 39 Where Next? Southwest Pacific, December 1944–February 1945
• 40 ‘The Road to Certain Victory’ Okinawa, March 1944–February 1945
• 41 ‘In some ways it was bigger than D-Day’ From the Solomons to the Ryukyus, March 1945
• 42 Love Day Okinawa, 1 April 1945
• 43 ‘We were euphoric, undisciplined, and stupid’ Okinawa, 2–10 April 1945
• 44 ‘I burned the whole village to the ground’ Okinawa, 13–26 April 1945
• 45 ‘Hit the deck and dig in!’ North of the Asa River, 1–3 May 1945
• 46 ‘We gotta get the hell outta here’ Death Valley, 4–9 May 1945
• 47 ‘Hell’s own cesspool’ Wana Draw and Half Moon Hill, 11–24 May 1945
• 48 ‘Wild-eyed expressions of shock and fear’ Maggot Ridge to Shuri Castle, 25–29 May 1945
• 49 The Final Stretch Tsukazan to Kunishi Ridge, 3–18 June 1945
• 50 End Game Kiyan Peninsula, 18–30 June 1945
• 51 ‘We sure have a lot to be thankful for’ Motobu Peninsula, 27 June–17 August 1945
• Postscript: ‘We’d forged a bond that time would never erase’ Returning home, summer 1944–July 2020
• Picture Section
• Footnotes
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Also by Saul David
• About the Publisher