Manchester finds a unique way to tell his story Other war books have pondered death and the meaning of war without any real conclusions, but Manchester’s company, with their Ivy League educations, tackle these questions in between fights. By the time Manchester the Marine enters the scene, the reader has a detailed picture of the engagement.ĭespite their name, the “Raggedy Ass Marines” are competent and courageous fighters. Manchester gives more than a summary of each campaign he starts at the top, explaining why the battle was fought, who the leaders were, what mistakes they made, and how the Japanese prepared their defences. No battle held the same difficulties and dangers as the previous conflict. Manchester spent the rest of the war with them, even escaping from a hospital to rejoin his company. These men, christened the “Raggedy Ass Marines” for their military sloppiness and disregard of protocol, each left prestigious East Coast colleges. Okinawa was the final major battle of the war, and resulted in nearly 50,000 American casualties.Īfter washing out of officer training, Manchester received the rank of sergeant and commanded of 15-man company. He fought in nearly every major land battle, from Bataan to Guadalcanal to Tarawa to Saipan to Guam to Peleliu to, the final and most terrible battle, Okinawa. The Pacific War through the eyes of a MarineĪs a United States Marine, William Manchester lived the full experience of the Pacific Theater in WWII.

He still became an accomplished author, but his book Goodbye, Darkness highlights the lessons that war, not college, teaches a person. Like 16 million other Americans who joined the US armed forces following December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor changed the course of Manchester’s life. To stay in college and keep his passion for writing alive, he worked 84-hour weeks between semesters.

An outcast since elementary, Manchester read Shakespeare rather than play football. They grew up in a world scarred by WWI, tempered by the Great Depression, and as teenagers and college students, joined a fight against an unprecedented evil.īefore Pearl Harbor, William Manchester, author of Goodbye, Darkness and 17 other books, never imagined himself becoming a soldier.

Today, America idolizes the Greatest Generation, and rightly so. On December 7, 1941, the United States was attacked by Imperial Japan at Pearl Harbor.

Goodbye, Darkness by William Manchester