Anyone who enjoyed the HBO television series The Pacific or Eugene Sledge’s memoir With the Old Breed will want to read Saul David’s new book, Devil Dogs: first in, last out – King Company from Guadalcanal to the shores of Japan. All three are closely linked: they describe K ‘King’ Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, United States Marine Corps; abbreviated to K/3/5. Sledge’s memoir came first, in 1981, becoming a classic and drawing praise from historian John Keegan among many others. HBO then told Sledge’s story as a television series. Now, Saul David has told the history of the company that Sledge fought in.
Written in the same style as Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers and James Holland’s Brothers in Arms, Devil Dogs follows the marines through the trials and tribulations of active service. For K/3/5, their battles were Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa. Four more-traumatising battles would be hard to find. Since marines were rotated home after three major campaigns, and considering that some marine formations suffered casualties higher than their original strength, there are no men who fought in all four campaigns.
Crucially for a book of this type, the reader becomes emotionally attached to the men. We come to know their nicknames, families, and sweethearts. If you are standing in a bookshop deliberating over buying this book, read chapter 36, as the descriptions of the deaths of Edward ‘Hillbilly’ Jones and Andrew ‘Ack-Ack’ Haldane are David’s finest work to date.
