Devil Dogs: First In, Last Out - King Company from Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan by Saul David - Paperback - WWII Pacific History

Details: Condition: BRAND NEW Format: Paperback ISBN: 9780008395797 Publisher: William Collins (HarperCollins) Age Range: Adult Overview: Devil Dogs: First In, Last Out is Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David's searing account of K Company, 3/5 Marines, the first American ground troops to take the fight to Japan and the last to see them surrender. Drawing on first-hand letters, memoirs and interviews, David traces this single company's extraordinary four-year odyssey across the Pacific, delivering a Band of Brothers-style narrative that is intimate, authoritative and unforgettable for readers of Second World War history. About the Book: In May 1942 the newly formed 1st Marine Division shipped out for the Pacific, and among its ranks was K Company, 3/5 Marines — soon to be nicknamed the 'Devil Dogs'. They were the first American ground troops to go on the offensive in the Second World War, storming ashore at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in August 1942. From there their war took them through the notorious 'Green Hell' of Cape Gloucester on New Britain, across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands — a campaign one veteran described as unrelenting, close-quarters slaughter — and finally to Okinawa, Japan's most southerly prefecture, which fell only after a bitter, months-long struggle in June 1945. Remarkably, K Company contained an unusual concentration of gifted writers among its ranks, and it is their vivid first-hand testimony that gives this history its extraordinary colour, emotion and immediacy. Saul David weaves these personal accounts into the wider strategic picture of the brutal island-hopping war against Japan, producing a single-company history that stands alongside the finest Second World War narratives. It is a story of endurance, camaraderie and horror, following ordinary young Americans from their first taste of combat through to the final, exhausting months of the Pacific campaign. Gripping, first-hand narrative history in