Noted author Robert Leckie's first book, "Helmet For My Pillow", is rightly lauded as a stand out in war experience narratives. What sets Leckie's work apart from many others is the literary style in which the story of survival by front line troops in the atrocious battles of Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu are drawn.
Leckie volunteered for the Marine Corps the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was part of a large group of enlistees who swelled the rolls of an unprepared military. Training was hard and dreary with the enlarged ranks living in tents upon marshy fields at New River and Paris Island. But battle and life in the South Pacific was an ordeal through which both Leckie's Marines as well as their Japanese foes lived, suffered and died in the most trying circumstances.
Leckie's regiment, part of the 1st Marine Division, was early into Guadalcanal and would be on the front for four for five months straight. This was during the period in which the Japanese controlled the sea around the landing area forcing Americans on half rations and captured Japanese rice. Fighting was brutal and Marines faced a long period in which they were on the defensive before being able to advance and eventually be withdrawn as Army reinforcements were introduced. Leckie also experienced the Battle of Cape Gloucester before his final fight at Peleliu. Peleliu is described as hell on earth with the Japanese emplaced into a series of tunnel connected bunkers which they had had years to establish. And from which they had to be driven or killed by direct assault. Marine casualties were high, including Leckie who was withdrawn to a hospital after a close hit by an artillery shell. He would miss his division's fight on Okinawa, which may be the reason we are all able to read this very fine work.
The 1st Marine Division also recuperated between battles, the most memorable being in Melbourne, Australia after Guadalcanal. With Australians believing the Marines had saved their continent from invasion (which they probably had along with the forces successfully holding New Guinea), Melbourne joyously welcomed their deliverers to their city and into their homes. With no Australian young men to be had, they quickly became the boyfriends, sons and spouses that were otherwise occupied in North Africa or New Guinea fighting with the Commmonwealth. His stories of drinking (constant), womanizing (frequent) and high-jinx are entertaining and add terrific color to this war story.
Leckie is a gifted writer and his highly descriptive style breathes a literary quality into his story without ever seeming overdone. This is not a book that tells unit lines of advance and casualty rates in clipped recaps of battle history but rather the war and waiting between battles through the eyes of a front-line fighter in possession of a sharp wit, and great powers of observation and description. No character is addressed by anything other than his nickname in the story. Thus we read of The Chuckler, Souvenir, Hoosier, Runner and Captain High-Hips and Lt. Ivy-league. Leckie himself is the not-as-imaginative "Lucky." He also is brutally honest and the book does not spare Leckie, who almost broke in one battle and spent time in the brig as well as off-island in a mental ward (though the book does leave it up in the air as to whether or not this was a "not-enough-space in the medical ward" issue or Leckie was truly in need of psychiatric help). Souvenir has his nickname because of the scores of gold fillings he keeps in a bag tied around his neck, courtesy of dead enemy (except in one case where a wounded son of Nippon contributed), a pair of pliers and his dental flashlight. Leckie and some of his patrol come across a dead Marine who had the part of his arm tattooed with the Marine Corps shield ripped from his flesh and stuffed in his mouth. The repetitive brutality of war and misery are not spared.
While winter in Bastogne was hard and the fighting dangerous everywhere American troops fought in World War II, Leckie's book describes service in the Pacific that seemed more miserable on a daily basis than that had in other theaters of the war. Because of the nature of the Japanese soldier, fighting was frequently to the end with no quarter given and none expected. Field torture of our captured soldiers was more than an occasional occurrence as was the same treatment meted the other way. Leckie's brutal, honest and descriptive book provides an excellent picture of the war through one Marine's eyes.
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Reviews with images
Helmet For My Pillow Robert Leckie
I purchased a new hardcover and there are grayed out pages that seem to be redacted photos or script. Can anyone please tell me why?
Top reviews from other countries
Adam J.
An understated but gripping account of one man's Pacific war
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2022Tutankhamen
Highly recommended to anyone interested in Pacific War
Reviewed in India on April 12, 2017