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Islands of the Damned: A Marine at War in the Pacific Hardcover – March 2, 2010
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See R.V. Burgin in the award winning documentary film Peleliu 1944: Horror in the Pacific. Click here for more information.
This is an eyewitness-and eye-opening-account of some of the most savage and brutal fighting in the war against Japan, told from the perspective of a young Texan who volunteered for the Marine Corps to escape a life as a traveling salesman. R.V. Burgin enlisted at the age of twenty, and with his sharp intelligence and earnest work ethic, climbed the ranks from a green private to a seasoned sergeant. Along the way, he shouldered a rifle as a member of a mortar squad. He saw friends die-and enemies killed. He saw scenes he wanted to forget but never did-from enemy snipers who tied themselves to branches in the highest trees, to ambushes along narrow jungle trails, to the abandoned corpses of hara kiri victims, to the final howling banzai attacks as the Japanese embraced their inevitable defeat.An unforgettable narrative of a young Marine in combat, Islands of the Damned brings to life the hell that was the Pacific War.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNAL
- Publication dateMarch 2, 2010
- Dimensions6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100451229908
- ISBN-13978-0451229908
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-Tom Hanks
"[A] well-written, excellently detailed personal narrative....A taut, engrossing, haunting book."
-The Dallas Morning News
"An honest, straightforward memoir by an honest, straightforward man. Burgin has written an unforgettable, moving description of his experiences as an infantry Marine, from New Britain to Okinawa. The result is a classic combat account. I highly recommend this book."
-John C. McManus, author of Alamo in the Ardennes and The Deadly Brotherhood
About the Author
William Marvel is a retired features writer for the Dallas Morning News.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I believed I was going to come back in one piece. There were guys I knew, Marines I fought alongside, who got a feeling their time was up. Once they got it you couldn’t talk them out of it. When we had been fighting to hang on to Walt’s Ridge on New Britain, Lonnie Howard said, “Burgin, if anything happens to me, I want you to take my watch.”
“You’re crazy,” I told him. “You’ll be okay. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
That night one of our artillery shells hit nearby. The shrapnel killed Howard and another Marine, Robert McCarthy.
Me, I was anxious and wary that morning off Peleliu. But I never thought for a minute I wouldn’t make it.
[We were in] one of the older amtracs, the ones without a drop-down back end. When we rolled up on the beach we’d have to scramble over the sides. That’s when the Japs would have a clear shot at us.
There were about twenty of us, plus the driver, probably a Navy man, all jammed together like toes in a shoe. While we waited, sailors topside looked us over, giving us the thumbs-up and shouting encouragement that we couldn’t hear over the noise. Finally the big clamshell doors of that LST—Landing Ship, Tank—cranked open. Number 13 shuddered, and we followed the other amtracs down the ramp, nosed into the water, and floated out into the bright morning sun.
It was a little past eight o’clock.
An amtrac at sea wallows like a buffalo. The flat-bottomed Higgins boats could do twelve knots. We barely managed four and a half, which is about as fast as a man can walk. Think of us walking to shore under fire. We circled for half an hour until the beach master dropped his red flag, the signal to form up and head for shore. Our battleships and cruisers had been working over the island since dawn, guns cracking like thunder. They paused long enough for the Dauntless dive bombers and TBMs to sweep in and dump their bombs. Then they started up again. After our wave got under way, a couple LSTs that were parked out on our flanks sent swarms of rockets screeching over our heads. I’d never heard a sound like that before. Something like cloth ripping. A curtain of black smoke hung over the whole beach. It looked like the island was on fire.
Somewhere along our way in Jap artillery found the range and started working us over. The last thousand yards we were under fire the whole way. Over the general racket I couldn’t hear bullets dinging Number 13, but we kept our heads down anyway. Shells were smacking the water all around us, raising big spikes of foam. Here and there other LSTs and Higgins boats would disappear in a roar of flame. The first bodies floated by. We’d see many more.
About seven hundred yards out, [our amtrac] lurched and halted, pitching us into each other. Treads flailed and something went grinding and scraping beneath our hull. We’d struck a reef. Now the Jap shells were landing closer—left, right and behind us. We sat there churning the water, and minutes seemed to drag by, though I’m sure only seconds were passing.
Our sergeant, Johnny Marmet, leaned forward and stuck his .45 in the driver’s face.
“If you don’t get this son of a bitch moving, I’m going to by God shoot you in the head!” he shouted. “We’re sitting ducks out here!”
The driver was pushing and pulling controls, like a mad man trying to rock a car out of the mud. Treads were spinning, kicking up spray. Then something gently lifted us and we were moving again.
The instant we broke free, an explosion ripped the water right in front of us, dousing us with spray.
I made a quick mental calculation. All that time we’d been moving toward the shore, some Jap gunner was watching us, leading his target. When he figured the trajectory of his shell would intersect our path, he fired. The seconds we’d hung up on that reef were just long enough. If we’d been plowing forward we’d have ended up just where he calculated. That shell would have landed in our laps.
None of us talked about it afterward. We were busy with other things. But I honestly believed it then, and I believe it today. That was a God thing that hung us up on that reef.
Product details
- Publisher : NAL; 1st edition (March 2, 2010)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0451229908
- ISBN-13 : 978-0451229908
- Item Weight : 1.18 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #611,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #460 in United States Military Veterans History
- #1,273 in Deals in Books
- #1,282 in WWII Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
As a Marine in World War II, R.V. Burgin was awarded a Bronze Star for his actions in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
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My first introduction to R.V. Burgin was while watching the prologue to each episode of "The Pacific" that included brief but somber interviews with nameless grandfatherly men telling us what they experienced during the war. One gentleman in particular spoke of Peleliu in a stern and quiet manner that I found particularly mesmerizing. It wasn't until the end of the 10th and final episode that he was finally named: R.V. Burgin. He'd been portrayed in the series all along, as E.B. Sledge's sergeant and had more prominent roles in the final few episodes. When the credits revealed his "Islands of the Damned" as contributing to the miniseries, I had to buy it.
More often than not, the fighting in the Pacific takes a back seat to the glory of Allied soldiers liberating historic European cities. However, the Pacific theatre arguably includes some of the most savage and intense combat of the entire war, including the Eastern Front. R.V. Burgin's personal account of his war experience echoes the brutal nature of the Pacific War as well as the misery the Marines endured and the bond that kept them together through it all. His story starts from childhood and carries on through the war to his current life in Texas (a perspective that the Leckie and Sledge books do not offer). His book reads exactly like he spoke in "The Pacific" prologues ... short, simple and effective sentences with no superfluous artistic drama added ... not that any is needed. Reading Burgin's book created an aura of sitting on a couch and listening to my grandfather tell stories of his youth. We're not only presented with the chaos, death and misery on places like Peleliu and Okinawa; we get a glimpse of his experience before and after the combat, aboard troopships and on the infamous island of Pavuvu. A major presence throughout the book is that of Florence, the woman he met while on leave in Australia (before he shipped off to Peleliu) who would become his wife after the war. The angst and pain experienced during a two-year courtship that ultimately depended on Burgin surviving Peleliu and Okinawa adds a point-of-view not common in many of the memoirs I've read. Additionally, I was left with the impression that Burgin's wartime experience had a less traumatizing effect on his life after the war (unlike E.B. Sledge), but then again, different people process horrible events in different ways.
"Islands of the Damned" is a lot like the books that veterans of Easy Company wrote following "Band of Brothers" in that Burgin adds clarity and a different perspective to the miniseries storyline (such as Burgin being wounded on Okinawa). His recollection of events are presented clearly and in a humble fashion ... even the action on Okinawa that earned him a Bronze Star is somewhat downplayed. As with most of these World War II veterans' recollections, the credit is always given to the men serving with them ... Burgin upholds this tradition. I see value in most veteran's memoirs, especially now that so few are left to tell us about their role in such an amazing historical event ... R.V. Burgin's story is definitely one that holds value.
Islands of the Damned is the excellent book, R.V. Burgin is a man of the ground and a tired and true Texan through and through. It is that natural richness that comes through in his writing style that is so grounded and matter-of-fact. I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet, speak and listen to Mr. Burgin on two recent occasions, once at the National Museum of the Pacific at the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, TX and at the Navy League in Austin, TX. Reading Islands of the Damned is like sitting on the front porch of Mr. Burgin's home in central Texas and hearing him tell you his story.
A simple style of a solider that experienced some of the most horrific battles that any US soldiers have faced in the history of our country. Being in a battles, confined to a very small area, against an enemy that was trained to be very brutal, had a fanatic sense of duty to die for the honor of his family and the emperor, was like a cage match were only one comes out alive. Mr. Burgin writing style is that salt-of-the earth of a boy who grew up in rural Texas, worked the land and did what he had to do to stay alive. The leadership and wisdom that won him the respect of his fellow Marines, those who served under him as well as above.
Burgin's storytelling presents a soldier who tells us, " I lead others, I fought, I slit other mens throats, and wanted to survive to marry the girl of my dreams and live the America life". Sledge provides a different maybe more emotional, internalized, self analysis and refined story of the life of the solider, confined for over month's long time in battles more savage than anything experience before or after by American troops.
Read both this summer.... thank every veteran you meet... and if you have the chance to visit with anyone who served in WWII.... well you will be better for the experience.
Top reviews from other countries
Also, it's fuzzier on the details and a bit more "mitigated" on some things, in comparison... possibly because of a difference on views and characters (or possibly editors).
Still, it was amazing to recognise happenings and little details that occured with both men there to see, and how the two different account matched the same events, despite describing them with different eyes.
It really brings you in on these mostly untold stories; and it gave me even more awareness and respect of the times and lives described.