Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country.From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it's really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow is a gripping account from an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived - Tom Hanks

    First published in 1957 to critical and popular acclaim, his memoir has become a cult favorite in intelligence circles. He chronicles his experiences from his time as a junior officer fleeing a tedious training assignment in Louisiana to his rigorous OSS training rituals in the United States, England, and Scotland for its Special Operations unit. Quick to pick up on the skills necessary for behind-the-lines intelligence work, Hall became an expert instructor, but was only reluctantly given operational duties because of his reputation as an iconoclast. In his droll storytelling style, Hall describes his first parachute jump in support of the French resistance as a comedy of errors that terminated prematurely. His last assignment in the war zone came when then Capt. William Colby, the future head of the CIA, handpicked him to lead the second section of a Norwegian special operations group into Norway via Sweden.

    But as Japan’s deadly torpedoes suddenly rained down on the Pacific fleet, soldiers, generals, and civilians alike felt shock, then fear, then rage. From the chaos, a thousand personal stories of courage emerged. Drawn from hundreds of interviews, letters, and diaries, Walter Lord recounts the many tales of heroism and tragedy by those who experienced the attack firsthand. From the musicians of the USS Nevada who insisted on finishing “The Star Spangled Banner” before taking cover, to the men trapped in the capsized USS Oklahoma who methodically voted on the best means of escape, each story conveys the terror and confusion of the raid, as well as the fortitude of those who survived.

    He volunteered for special service in SOE and then found himself set down one dark night on the Isle of Vis, off the Dalmatian Coast. His job was to work as a surgeon among Yugoslav partisans; to fight with them, to tend the wounded and to act as an unofficial liaison officer between them and the Allied troops. For many months to come, in caves and deep in the forests, up mountains, he brought his skill as a surgeon, his staunchness and bravery as a serving soldier to his strange job.In Guerilla Surgeon he tells his story.

    A lavish and sumptuous work, it combines vivid narrative with valuable and unique uniform illustrations, including 74 full color plates, to make one of the most magnificent books on military history ever published.

    Its tactics were unconventional, extempore and swift. The patrols moved with disconcerting speed from point to point, attacking forts, petrol dumps, aerodromes and convoys. They were able to cross thousands of miles of desert and arrive with uncanny accuracy at predetermined rendezvous, possibly marked visually by only a pile of stones. By the end of the war in North Africa, they had won themselves a reputation out of all proportion to their short existence.This is the story of Y2 patrol of the LRDG, told by its leader, Captain (now Colonel) Lloyd Owen, who joined the group in 1941, soon after its inception. Graphically he tells of the lightening-fast attacks, the nerve-wracking and often tedious intelligence work. He had a lively collection of men, too, and these he brings to life – likeable, sardonic, capable and always utterly dependable,But it is also the fascinating story of an officer learning a new kind of war, a man learning a new job of work. Lloyd Owen knew little of the desert and its ways when he volunteered, and his story traces, incidentally, the widening of his knowledge, experience, and, as a result, his confidence and determination.