More than 8,000 men served in the Fifth Marine Regiment during World War I and the occupation of Germany. Marine units were among the first to arrive in war-torn Europe in 1917, and they sustained greater casualties than other American units. This book tells the story of the "Devil Dogs" in World War I and the years after through the recollections of veterans recorded over the past century. The influenza epidemic that raged during the war is discussed. An annotated roster of the regiment lists each Marine, with service details provided where known.

More than 8,000 men served in the Fifth Marine Regiment during World War I and the occupation of Germany. Marine units were among the first to arrive in war-torn Europe in 1917, and they sustained greater casualties than other American units. This book tells the story of the "Devil Dogs" in World War I and the years after through the recollections of veterans recorded over the past century. The influenza epidemic that raged during the war is discussed. An annotated roster of the regiment lists each Marine, with service details provided where known.

Photo-rich firsthand accounts of the month-long battle in June 1918 that turned the tide of WWI.

In the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front, Elton E. Mackin’s memoirs are a haunting portrayal of war as seen through the eyes of a highly decorated Marine who fought in every Marine Brigade battle from Belleau Wood to the crossing of the Meuse on the eve of the Armistice. Praise for Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die “This beautifully written and truly gripping war memoir is a significant addition to battlefield literature. A minor classic . . . An altogether remarkable job [comparable] to Crane, Remarque and Mailer. Deserves the widest possible audience.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer “This immediate, eloquent report merit[s] comparison with Thomas Boyd’s Marine Corps [1923] classic Through the wheat.”—Publishers Weekly “A real curiosity: a highly mannered World War I diary, published nearly 80 years after being written and 20 years after its author’s death. Bright snapshots abound…sometimes a young man’s lyricism takes over [but] the horror of war never departs. The diary has the faults one expects, and the promise one prays for. A fine addition to WWI literature.”—Kirkus Reviews “A forthright, eloquent, and powerful memoir certain to become an enduring testament to the drama and tragedy of World War I. Threaded with no small measure of poetry, this superb memoir is sure to become a classic.”—Great Battles “A plain but powerful tale . . . [in] vivid prose loaded with details that bring the horrors of World War I to life, he tells an exceptional new version of the old story of battle transforming a boy into a veteran.”—American Library Association Booklist “To the ranks of Erich Maria Remarque, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos and Siegfried Sassoon, we must now add Elton Mackin . . . who, in a terse style reminiscent of Hemingway, [succeeds] in making someone unfamiliar with war truly now the frightfulness of the trenches and the greatness of the many men who fought in them.”—Marine Corps Gazette

"The U.S. Marines entered World War I as a small force of seagoing light infantry that had rarely faced a well-armed enemy. On a single faced day, in their initial assault "through the wheat" on Belleau Wood against German machine guns and poison gas shells, the Marines suffered more casualties than they had experienced in all their previous 142 years. Yet at Belleau Wood, Soissons, Blanc Mont, St. Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne the Marines proved themselves to be hard-nosed diehards with an affinity for close combat. Nearly a century later Belleau Wood still resonates as a touchstone battle of the Corps." "Two retired Marines, well known for their achievements both in uniform and with the pen, have recorded this rich history in a way that only insiders can. Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons and Col. Joseph H. Alexander recount events and colorful personalities in telling detail, capturing the spirit that earned the 4th Marine Brigade three awards of the French Croix de Guerre and launched the first pioneering detachments of "Flying Leathernecks." Here, hand-to-hand combat seen through the lenses of a gas mask is accompanied by thought-provoking assessments of the war's impact on the Marine Corps."--Jacket.

In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horror McErery’s Rifle Company—the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific—fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnery’s story is a no-holds-barred, grunt’s-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.

Award-winning historian Saul David reveals the searing experience of the Devil Dogs of World War II and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne. The “Devil Dogs” of King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines—part of the legendary 1st Marine Division—were among the first American soldiers to take the offensive in World World II—and also the last. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in August 1942—the first US ground offensive of the war—and were present when Okinawa, Japan’s most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the “Green Hell” of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a campaign described by one King Company veteran as “thirty days of the meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict on each other.” Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most effective, “utterly ruthless and treacherous” soldiers in world history—and defeat it. This is the story of how they did just that and, in the process, forged bonds of brotherhood that still survive today. Remarkably, the company contained an unusually high number of talented writers, whose first-hand accounts and memoirs provide the color, emotion, and context for this extraordinary story. In Devil Dogs, award-winning historian Saul David sets the searing experience of the Devil Dogs into the broader context of the brutal war in the Pacific and does for the U.S. Marines what Band of Brothers did for the 101st Airborne.