''Helmet for My Pillow'' is the personal narrative written by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

veteran, author, and military historian Robert Leckie. First published in 1957, the story begins with Leckie's enlisting in the United States Marines shortly after the 1941

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

. According to his wife Vera, Leckie was inspired to write the book in 1951 after seeing '' South Pacific'' on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and walking out halfway through it. He said, "I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical." The

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

mini-series ''The Pacific'' (2010) was adapted in large part from ''Helmet for My Pillow'', along with

Eugene Sledge Eugene Bondurant Sledge (November 4, 1923 – March 3, 2001) was a United States Marine Corps, United States Marine, university professor, and author. His 1981 memoir With the Old Breed, ''With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'' chroni ...

's '' With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'', and the personal story of Medal of Honor recipient Gunnery Sergeant

John Basilone John Basilone (November 4, 1916 – February 19, 1945) was a United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who received the Medal of Honor for actions during the Battle for Henderson Field in the Guadalcanal campaign, and the Navy Cross posthumou ...

Synopsis

Beginning with boot camp in

MCRD Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island (often abbreviated as MCRD PI) is an military installation located within Port Royal, South Carolina, approximately south of Beaufort, the community that is typically associated with the installation. ...

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

, the story follows Leckie through basic training and then to New River,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

where he is briefly stationed, and follows him to the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Leckie is assigned to the

1st Marine Division The 1st Marine Division (1st MARDIV) is a Marine division of the United States Marine Corps headquartered at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. It is the ground combat element of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF). It is the ...

and is deployed to

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...

, Melbourne Australia,

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, Cape Gloucester, before being evacuated with wounds from the island of

Peleliu Peleliu (or Beliliou) is an island in the island nation of Palau. Peleliu, along with two small islands to its northeast, forms one of the sixteen states of Palau. The island is notable as the location of the Battle of Peleliu in World War II. H ...

. ''Helmet for My Pillow'' is told from an enlisted man's point of view; a reprint edition stated the book was about "the booze, the brawling, the loving on 72-hour liberty, the courageous fighting and dying in combat as the U.S. Marines slugged it out, inch by inch, across the Pacific."

Adaptations

E.B. Sledge's '' With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'', along with ''Helmet for My Pillow'', formed the basis for the

miniseries '' The Pacific'', the successor to '' Band of Brothers''.

References

Sources

External links

Full text In text retrieval, full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full-text database. Full-text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts ...

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Full text
at

Scribd Scribd Inc. is an American e-book and audiobook subscription service that includes one million titles. Scribd hosts 60 million documents on its open publishing platform. The company was founded in 2007 by Trip Adler, Jared Friedman, and Tikhon ...

*
Book review
by C. Peter Chen, 2010. WW2DB.com. {{DEFAULTSORT:Helmet For My Pillow World War II memoirs Non-fiction books about the United States Marine Corps 1957 books American memoirs Random House books