1980 "First Edition" stated; Little, Brown and Company publishers, Boston; hardbound in sand and black boards with gilt lettering along spine and gilt Wm. Manchester signature embossed on cover; many black and white photos and illustrations; very good condition with unmarked pages; pictoral dust jacket has minor edge turning, but not distracting to book.
 
Description -
William Raymond Manchester (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004)[2] was an American author, biographer, and historian. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages.[3] He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award.
 
In this intensely powerful memoir, America's preeminent biographer-historian, who has written so brilliantly about World War II in his acclaimed lives of General Douglas MacArthur (American Caesar) and Winston Churchill (The Last Lion), looks back at his own early life. This memoir offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific: of what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and most of all, what it felt like to one who underwent all but the ultimate of its experiences. It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written. -Los Angeles Times
 
Manchester speaks of the awesome heroism and hideous suffering of the Marines he lived with and fought with. -Baltimore Sun