Eugene Sledge
Writing
Biography
Eugene Bondurant Sledge (November 4, 1923 – March 3, 2001) was a United States Marine, university professor, and author. His 1981 memoir With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa chronicled his combat experiences during World War II and was used as source material for the Ken Burns PBS documentary The War (2007), as well as the HBO miniseries The Pacific (2010), in which he is portrayed by Joseph Mazzello.
Known For
Track the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines – Robert Leckie, John Basilone, and Eugene Sledge – across the vast canvas of the Pacific Theater during World War II. A companion piece to the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers.
The Pacific
The men of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment describe the ferocious battle for the Island of Peleliu, "an island on fire." In conditions that tested the sanity of each man, 9,000 Marines attacked 10,000 battle hardened Japanese soldiers dug into hundred of fortified and reinforced coral and limestone caves. Twenty-eight days of unrelenting battle with no quarter being given or taken. Brutal, harrowing, but heart-rending, the stories of these soldiers truly speak to the horror of war.