Devil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan

By Saul David, author
Publication date: 13 September 2022 by Pegasus Books. 604 pages, hardcover.
Highly recommended: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Reviewed by Scott Lyons

Fans of HBO's miniseries The Pacific will immediately recognize marines Eugene "Sledgehammer" Sledge, Merriell "Snafu" Shelton, R.V. Burgin, Elmo "Gunny" Haney, Edward "Hillbilly" Jones, Andrew "Ack-Ack" Haldane and others in Saul David's 2022 book Devil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan. David's work is not a complete history of the Pacific War or of the 1st Marine Division, but of select marines who fought in K/3/5 from the first steps ashore on Guadalcanal to the final steps on Okinawa. This book is required reading not only for those fond of HBO's The Pacific, but also those who study the ground war in the Pacific.

Saul David's Devil Dogs is a captivating account of these K/3/5 marines who fought in some of the fiercest battles across the Pacific during World War II. The book meticulously documents their journey from Guadalcanal, through Cape Gloucester and Peleliu, to Okinawa with intermittent stops on Pavuvu for rest, refit and training and to add replacements. Historian Saul David's research has delved into primary source material such as personal letters, memoirs, unit histories, Marine Corps records and more to bring to life the stories of these K/3/5 marines.

Readers will find that 98 pages are dedicated to the Battle of Peleliu; that just over 18% of the book's text (excluding Acknowledgements, Notes, Bibliography, and Index) is devoted to this fight, a battle that would be devastating for the marines of King Company, 3/5. At the loss of their beloved company commander Andy "Ack-Ack" Haldane, Eugene Sledge wrote of the loss:

"Captain Andy Haldane wasn't an idol. He was human. But he commanded our destinies under the most trying condiitons with the utmost compassion. We knew he could never be replaced. He was the finest Marine officer I ever knew. The loss of many close friends grieved me deeply ... But to all of us the loss of our company commander at Peleliu was like losing a parent we depended on for security--not our physical security, becuse we kew that was a commodity beyond our reach in combat, but our mental security." (David, Devil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan. p. 359)

The history of these marines has all the space needed to flourish without HBO's story compression and alteration of facts inherent to screenwriters and their script writing. Unlike these adaptations which often compress or alter historical events to fit their story arcs, readers can count on David's Devil Dogs to provide an accurate and true representation of what the K/3/5 faced during their War in the Pacific. Having read both books authored by Eugene Sledge himself, along with Sid Phillips' You'll be Sor-riee: A Guadalcanal Marine Remembers The Pacific War and R.V. Burgin's Islands of the Damned: A Marine at War in the Pacific, I already knew that the HBO miniseries had to make edits to the actual history. Saul David puts the autobiographical work from Sledge, Phillips and Burgin together with his own extensive research and bibliography to make Devil Dogs a valuable addition to the body of writings on the Pacific War.

The book's "Postscript 'We'd forged a bond that time would never erase'" gives the book its final salute to the marines who made it home and most poignantly to those who gave their all on those miserable and unforgiving islands: