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Eugene Sledge | |
|---|---|
 Sledge in 1946 | |
| Birth name | Eugene Bondurant Sledge |
| Nickname(s) | Sledgehammer |
| Born | (1923-11-04)November 4, 1923 Mobile, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | March 3, 2001(2001-03-03) (aged 77) Montevallo, Alabama, U.S. |
| Place of burial | Pine Crest Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service | United States Marine Corps |
| Years of service | 1942–1946 |
| Rank | Corporal |
| Unit | K Company,3rd Battalion, 5th Marines,1st Marine Division |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 2 |
| Other work | Professor ofbiology,author |
Eugene Bondurant Sledge (November 4, 1923 – March 3, 2001) was aUnited States Marine, university professor, and author. His 1981 memoirWith the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa chronicled his combat experiences duringWorld War II and was used as source material for theKen BurnsPBS documentaryThe War (2007), as well as theHBO miniseriesThe Pacific (2010), in which he is portrayed byJoseph Mazzello.[1]
Eugene Bondurant Sledge was born on November 4, 1923, inMobile, Alabama, to Edward Simmons Sledge, a physician, and Mary FrankSturdivant Sledge, dean of women students atHuntingdon College. In 1935 his family moved toGeorgia Cottage in Mobile. He graduated fromMurphy High School in Mobile in the spring of 1942. His older brother, Edward Simmons Sledge II, was born on September 10, 1920, and was commissioned as an officer in theUnited States Army after graduating as a cadet fromThe Citadel. He went on to serve on the Western European Front, and left the Army with the rank of Major.
Eugene was a sickly child and lost two years of schooling due torheumatic fever which left him with aheart murmur. However once the condition subsided, his family encouraged him to enroll in college rather than join the military. His close childhood friendSidney Phillips also wrote to Sledge fromGuadalcanal and urged him not to join anything.[2]
In the fall of 1942, Sledge enrolled in theMarion Military Institute, inMarion, Alabama, but then he chose to volunteer for the U.S. Marine Corps in December 1942. He was placed in theV-12 officer training program and was sent to theGeorgia Institute of Technology, where he and half of his detachment "flunked out" so they would be allowed to serve their time as enlistees and not "miss the war".[3]
Once he was out of school, he was assigned duty as an enlisted man in K Company,3rd Battalion, 5th Marines,1st Marine Division (K/3/5), where he served with CorporalR.V. Burgin and Private First ClassMerriell "Snafu" Shelton.[4] He rose to the rank ofcorporal in thePacific Theater and saw combat as a60 mm mortarman[5] atPeleliu andOkinawa. When fighting grew too close for effective use of the mortar, he served in other duties such as stretcher bearer[5] and as a rifleman.[6]
During his service, Sledge kept notes of what happened in his pocket-sizedNew Testament. When the war ended, he compiled these notes which would, many years later, become the memoirWith the Old Breed. After being posted toBeijing after the war,[7] he was discharged from the Marine Corps in February 1946 with the rank ofcorporal.[8]
After the war ended, Sledge attendedAuburn University (then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute),[9] where he was a member of thePhi Delta Theta fraternity.[10] He received aBachelor of Science degree inbusiness administration in the summer of 1949.[11]
Sledge had a hard time readjusting to civilian life:
As I strolled the streets of Mobile, civilian life seemed so strange. People rushed around in a hurry about seemingly insignificant things. Few seemed to realize how blessed they were to be free and untouched by the horrors of war. To them, a veteran was a veteran—all were the same, whether one man had survived the deadliest combat or another had pounded a typewriter while in uniform.[12]
Once an avid hunter, Sledge gave up his hobby. He found that he could not endure the thought of wounding a bird and said that killing a deer felt like shooting a cow in a pasture. His father found him weeping after a dove hunt in which Sledge had to kill a wounded dove, and in the ensuing conversations he told his father he could no longer tolerate seeing any suffering. A key turning point in his life and career followed when his father advised him that he could substitutebird watching as a hobby. Sledge started to assist the conservation department in its banding study efforts,[13] the origin of his well-known passion for the science ofornithology.[citation needed]
When he enrolled at Auburn University, the clerk at the Registrar's office asked him if the Marine Corps had taught him anything useful. Sledge replied:
Lady, there was a killing war. The Marine Corps taught me how to kill Japs and try to survive. Now, if that don't fit into any academic course, I'm sorry. But some of us had to do the killing—and most of my buddies got killed or wounded.[14]
Sledge married Jeanne Arceneaux in 1952 and the couple had two sons,John (born 1957) and Henry (a military historian, born 1965). He returned to Auburn in 1953, where he worked as a research assistant until 1955. That same year he graduated from API with aMaster of Science degree inbotany.[15]
From 1956 to 1960, Sledge attended theUniversity of Florida and worked as a research assistant. He published numerous papers onhelminthology and in 1956 joined the Helminthological Society of Washington.[16] He received hisdoctorate in biology from the University of Florida in 1960.[17] He was employed by the Division of Plant Industry for the Florida State Department of Agriculture from 1959 to 1962.[18]
In the summer of 1962, Sledge was appointed assistant professor of biology at Alabama College (now theUniversity of Montevallo). In 1970, he became a professor, a position he held until his retirement in 1990. He taughtzoology,ornithology,comparative vertebrate anatomy, and other courses during his long tenure there. Sledge was popular with his students, and organized field trips and collections around town. In 1989, he received an honorary degree and rank of colonel from Marion Military Institute.[19]
Sledge died after a long battle withstomach cancer on March 3, 2001.[20]
At the urging of his wife, Sledge began to compile a memoir of his war experiences as a way to better help him cope. In 1981, he publishedWith the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, a memoir of hisWorld War II service with theUnited States Marine Corps.With the Old Breed was reprinted in 1990 (with an introduction byPaul Fussell) and again in 2007 (with an introduction byVictor Davis Hanson). In 1992, Sledge was featured in the documentary filmPeleliu 1944: Horror in the Pacific.[21] In April 2007, it was announced thatWith the Old Breed, along withRobert Leckie'sHelmet for My Pillow, would form the basis for theHBO seriesThe Pacific.[22]
A second memoir,China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II, was published posthumously. Its initial hardbound edition, with a foreword byStephen E. Ambrose, was published without a subtitle on May 10, 2002, by theUniversity of Alabama Press.[7] In 2003,Oxford University Press republished it as a paperback edition with the full title, including the subtitle. The book discussed his postwar service in Peking (now known asBeijing), his return to Mobile, and his recovery from thepsychological trauma of warfare.[23]
Sledge was entitled to campaign participation credit ("battle stars") for Capture and Occupation of the Southern Palau Islands (Peleliu), and Assault and Occupation of OkinawaGunto.[citation needed]
His decorations and medals include:
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