Customer Reviews

Iwo Jima: Red Blood, Black Sand--Pacific Apocalypse

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Published in 1995 to obviously coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Iwo Jima landings, Red Blood Black Sand is a classic WWII gyrene book. While I don't think it's in the same class as Sledge's "With the Old Breed," (then again, what can be?) Mr. Tatum is himself, a good storyteller and his book has a nice conversational tone to it and it flows really well. There's a reason Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg selected this book to use as a basis for their superb "Pacific" series. What makes "Red Blood, Black Sand" unique is that while there are lots of books on Iwo Jima, there are precious few memoirs about it at the infantryman level. Allen R. Matthews, a 4th Mar. Div vet published his Iwo memoir "The Assault," in 1947 and to be honest, that's the only one I know of (if there are more, please let me know). So Chuck Tatum did WWII Pacific students a massive favor with the publication of this book.
Mr. Tatum was a very spirited Marine. While not a malingerer, he had a knack for trouble. Yet, he was the kind of Marine you'd want in your squad. He was brave, a good gunner, his youth gave him lots of stamina, he kept going beyond when most of us would have hit the wall long before. Mr. Tatum self published this book and while there are a lot of typos it never got in the way of my enjoyment of his story. The only bad typo in on pages 126-127 where the introductory sentence on pg. 127 seems to have been cut off. Other than that, if you want to read a great story of courage and sacrifice, and what it was like to take part (albeit as a sometimes bewildered participant) in one of the bloodiest and certainly most violent battles of the Pacific War then this is the book to read.
Semper Fi, Mr. Tatum!