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Helmet for My Pillow

From Parris Island to the Pacific: A Young Marine's Stirring Account of Combat in World War II

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À propos de cet audio

The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries. James Badge Dale (who portrayed Robert Leckie) and Joseph Mazello (who played Eugene Sledge) bring all the passion and emotion of their riveting television performances to these new audio productions.

In Helmet for My Pillow, Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This riveting first-person account follows his odyssey from basic training 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 sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense 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 war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie's hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight.

BONUS AUDIO: Tom Hanks, one of the executive producers, has written and narrated an original introduction to Helmet for My Pillow, where he describes his appreciation for the book's author, the narrators, and the soldiers who had fought in the cauldron of the Pacific Theater during World War II.

©1957 Robert Hugh Leckie. "The Battle of the Tenaru" c. 2001 by Robert Hugh Leckie. (P)2013 Audible, Inc. Armée et guerre Guerres et conflits Militaire Seconde Guerre mondiale Vétéran Guerre Biographie War Combat

Ce que les critiques en disent

“Robert Leckie's unvarnished 1957 memoir paints a vivid picture of his experiences as a Marine on the frontlines of the Pacific Theater in WWII. Using the unadorned demeanor of a tough Marine, narrator James Badge Dale delivers Leckie's eloquent text with intensity and respect. He adopts a touch of humor when describing the occasional raucous camaraderie of the men but mostly employs a hard-boiled, sturdy veneer for Leckie's revealing and sometimes shocking narrative. Dale's unrelenting pronunciation of long "a"s (such as "a gun") is at first distracting but eventually comes to feel like the unyielding backbone of a young warrior facing the brutal action of battle. A brief introduction from Tom Hanks helps the listener anticipate the significance of this powerful American chronicle.” ( AudioFile)
“ 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)
“One hell of a book! The real stuff that proves the U.S. Marines are the greatest fighting men on earth!” (Leon Uris, author of Battle Cry)
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amazing book and the reason I joined the military thank you and I recommend it to all of you.

this is an amazing book

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This Remembrance Day, given the imposed isolation of the pandemic, I decided it would be a good thing to re-watch things I haven’t seen for some time, including Saving Private Ryan & Band of Brothers, before shifting to The Pacific. For both precursor films, I had read Steven Ambrose’s work, and when first viewing The Pacific, I had meant to look up its source material. I finally got to it this year, and have blasted through Helmet For My Pillow in 24 hours, along with the first part of Sledge’s memoir, detailing his take on Pelilau.

I commented while 2/3 through listening to this audiobook, ably performed by the actor playing the author in The Pacific, that I felt it deserves a Pulitzer, as much as Norman Mailer’s The Naked & The Dead or James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific. Perhaps it is the lengthy delay in Leckie’s getting it published that altered the focus on work deemed worthy of the prize.

There is a great gift that the additional time has given this work; contemplation on what makes young men so adaptable to destruction, and what forces move civilization to allow such horrors to persist. This is something I can sense underly those earlier mentioned prize-winning works, but here Leckie elevates the prevailing zeitgeist of civilized savagery to an unignorable question. Are humans savages, or saints?

I’m very glad I read this. It has helped me understand situational stressors much better, and far more viscerally than I expected. This book is under-rated in the interested public’s awareness.

Timeless Insights to Human Conflict

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Being in the shoes of a marine during WW2, James Badge Dale recounts Robert Leckie's memories of his time through the war in immersive delivery, gripping story that won't let you easily forget about the book, and the experience of the war. Emotional, personal, and a great listen.

Engaging Read, Transports You Through Time

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The content as well as the writing and delivery of this book is superb. would highly recommend to anyone interested in WW2.

Amazing

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Listening to this, I truly felt the pain, the anger, the honesty and the comedic realities of the war in the pacific. Having seen “The Pacific” on HBO, I was interested to find the source material and learn more about these men. James Badge Dale continued a wonderful performance from the show and I have truly come to appreciate the way the war effected not only Robert Leckie, but also the men he served with.

I would recommend this to anyone with even the faintest interest in the pacific theatre during World War II. It was informative, entertaining and felt like an honest recount of the most influential, memorable and traumatic experiences of the war.

A fantastic historical read

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