Brotherhood of Heroes

May 2, 2005
The battle of Peleliu, though certainly not the bloodiest of the Pacific war, was a ghastly ordeal. The rugged hills of the tiny coral island were honeycombed with caves and bunkers whose determined Japanese defenders had to be pried from every nook and cranny at the cost of nearly 10,000 American casualties. Sloan, author of Given Up for Dead: America's Heroic Stand at Wake Island, delivers an engrossing grunt's-eye-view of the fighting, structured around personal reminiscences by the Marines who bore the brunt of it. By day, they inched forward with tanks, machine guns, grenades and flame-throwers; by night, they grappled in their foxholes with knife-wielding enemy infiltrators. The author repeatedly salutes the Marines' bravery but allows the horror of war-the loss of friends, the stench of the dead, the torment of thirst and sleep deprivation-to make itself felt: "I had resigned from the human race... I just wanted to kill," recalls one soldier. Sloan maintains enough perspective that the shape of the battle isn't lost amid the action, and he critiques American commanders' conduct of the campaign, which many historians consider a tragic waste of lives on an island that should have been bypassed. His regrettably one-sided account says little about the Japanese experience, and his focus on slogging foot soldiers somewhat distorts the character of the American effort, which relied on massive artillery and airstrikes. Still, he tells a gripping story, full of excitement and pathos, about one of the more hellish struggles of the Second World War. Photos. Agent, Roger Labrie.