They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942 - the first US ground offensive of the war - and were present when Okinawa, Japan's most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. Saul David’s previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. David has a claim to be our finest living military historian, with a string of highly acclaimed books about a range of conflicts behind him.

For this work he has combed American government papers and, more importantly, accounts written by the men themselves both at the time (even though it was against regulations to keep a diary) and afterwards.

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A harrowing account of the USMC King Company as they fight the Imperial Japanese Army from Guadalcanal to Okinawa 1942 - 1945.

Saul David's previous book SBS -Silent Warriors was in the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart in the 35th and 36th week of 2021. Specialising as they did in amphibious operations, the US Marines played a vital part in taking the fight directly to the enemy, as one heavily fortified and unforgiving island after another had to be flushed clean of Japanese soldiers as the Americans made their advance towards the home islands of Japan. On some islands it hardly stopped raining, men and materiel had to be moved through roads of mud, and jungle had to be cleared. A Times History Book of the Year 2022 A Daily Telegraph History Book of the Year From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last.

Although their own bravery is conspicuous – officers and men will expose themselves in the open to try to flush out snipers, for example – there remains a sense of astonishment that the enemy continues to go on its own suicide missions when it knows the battle is lost.It does not take long for the Marines to gauge the bestiality to which this equates: on Guadalcanal they come across a river awash with body parts of their slaughtered comrades, hacked to pieces for the gratification of the Japanese who have killed them. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. Absolutely frightening account of how these men became embroiled in the intense fight with the Japanese military forces to reconquer all the territory lost.

In between they fought in the 'Green Hell' of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands, a campaign described by one K Company veteran as 'thirty days of the meanest, around-the-clock slaughter that desperate men can inflict on each other. Ordinary men from very different backgrounds, and drawn from cities, towns, and settlements across America, the Devil Dogs were asked to do something extraordinary: take on the victorious Imperial Japanese Army, composed of some of the most effective soldiers in world history - and defeat it. Sledge and his NCO comrade RV Burgin are the two threads that run more or less through the whole book: they were lucky enough to survive (Burgin sustained a minor wound to his neck on Okinawa; Sledge was a rare marine to see years of fighting and come home without a Purple Heart).The narrative is one of attritional, sickening fighting, but all the time the Japanese are being pushed back, and Japan itself is coming into the Americans’ sights.