Another 5-star Winner from the late Mr. Manchester!

books:

	• Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War William Manchester Back Bay Books, 2002 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 75 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Glimpse Into Hell

This memoir of fighting in the Pacific Theater was as personal and compelling as I have ever read. Manchester masterfully uses feel, touch, smell, sight, and sound, to capture the imagery of war-making in the Pacific. He combines a superb overview of the history with the very personal touches of his own experiences, so that the reader gets both historical perspective and a powerful sensual effect. He discusses candidly issues of war that are seldom talked about in straight historical discussion. He writes this memoir after returning to the islands in 1978, attempting to restore something lost after fighting there. When finished, you get the feeling you've made the journey with him, experienced something of his pain, and found something also.

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Great Book

Not the typical WW2 memoir. Comes at things a little sideways, but the writing is suberb. One of the finest memoirs I have ever read, and I've read a ton of them. To have a writer of Manchester's caliber relate his personal experiences is truly unique. Highly recommended. And a great overview of the Pacific Theatre.

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From naive to educated...

First off I'm going to quote: "No infantryman fought on all, or even many, of the Pacific islands. Deployment of troops, casualty figures, and tropical diseases laid down impossible odds against that". That being said, the author does a very good job of describing living and dying in the jungles and battlefields of the Pacific. There is no definite timeline, dates and battles move around as the author travels island to island recalling or retelling events that happened. His own action was in Okinawa, of which the horrors are recalled toward the end of the book.
Let me also mention he is not the poster boy for the Marine Corp. If you want the "U-Rah: Gung Ho" version from a solider, look elsewhere. That's not to say he's a coward, just educated and placed in a small outfit of misfits with other intellectuals. You'll read no stories of him pulling grenade pins with his teeth and throwing them while Thompson blazing down Jap's all the while yelling preposterous things. Nope. Courageous actions of others - absolutely. Not only that, you get a great dose of geography, history, weapons, tactics, and anecdotes. Very light on the comedy, as some other veterans have wrote absolutely hysterical lines (Bloody Skies: Melvin McGuire).
There is lot of death, let me restate that - there is more death here than in any other book of war I have read. Here I thought Iwo was the bloodiest conflict - nope. There are countless stories of friends and other Marines who met their end. You think you know what war's like - wrong (Unless of course you were there - and I salute you if you were, on any front). Manchester gives you the gritty and awful scope of a battlefield. 250 Men charge up a hill and two come back. That was Okinawa. Until I read this book I never had any idea just how many men met their fate on those islands -abhorring by today's standards. Okinawa was 52X as costly as 9-11. Well he was there and he's not over it yet - that's to say he's definitely bitter and although he never mentions it, he certainly has PTSD. That being said, I can't say it's exactly a good read, or you'll really like the author, but it is his story. Bitter always and himself complicated to the core, it is at least a noble course to read and understand history.

Four Stars - Everyone loves a Hero.

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Literary Memoir

This book struck me as more than just another war rememberance. Manchester is a definite wordsmith who tells the story of his life through the use of literary beauty. I can never imagine being a young man of this time. Maybe that is why I keep reading these type of books. These men were amazing citizen soldiers. This book is one of the best memoirs bar none I have read. It is not just about his war in the Pacific, it is about how he has fared since then. Great book!

Another 5-star Winner from the late Mr. Manchester!

First, there is nothing by the late,great Mr. Manchester that is not absolutely top of the line! This is his most personal book, a memoir remembering the tragedies and horrors of his experience fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, and in the Philippines. There is some autobiography here in the beginning, when the author remembers his father and his early life. This is pleasant enough, but the harrowing sections after about page 40 are real shockers, including some unbelievable horrors committed by Japanese soldiers in the Philippines (including atrocities against babies), and mass suicides by the natives on Tarawa. Mr. Manchester also tells of a certain movie actor who played soldier roles getting booed off the stage in a Honolulu theatre by hundreds of hard-bitten marines (relevent today!). His essays on death rituals in most world religions are worth the price of the book! So another grand slam by this great author, among the very best popular historians ever!

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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