Book Review: Helmet For My Pillow - Robert Leckie

Part of the source material for the superb Pacific, this also makes a great companion to HBO's landmark series.

If you liked HBO's Pacific mini-series, built for the most part around the memoirs of marine corps privates Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie, you'll almost certainly enjoy this book. Sledge's book is almost dry in its clarity, and his language spare. Leckie, a professional writer both before and after his WWII service, is more self-consciously 'literary'. Both are, a slightly strange thing, to my mind, assiduously polite: so much horror and suffering but, please, no cuss-words!

Leckie in wartime.

Despite his training, Leckie is a wilful and even sometimes rebellious character, and where Sledge always uses full rank and proper name, Leckie favours nicknames. Such small differences give the two memoirs very different flavours. There are moments where Leckie's self-consciously prosey style seems overdone - to me, at any rate - but sometimes it really works, as when he evokes the paranoid flesh-crawling fears of sitting in a jungle foxhole in the dark of night, his floridly evocative description contrasting with the bald conclusion: 'I know now why men light fires.'

Where Sledge's detached coolness might be said to foreshadow his later vocation of biology professor, Leckie's wilful nature and flighty language might be also said to have the zest and poetry properly becoming a sports writer turned author. It's certainly interesting to see the differing nature of their responses. In the end these differences make the two books excellent complimentary companions: they cover much the same ground but feel different. Leckie took part in Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester and Pelelieu, whereas Sledge saw action at Pelelieu and Okinawa, so their stories overlap, together building a fuller picture of the Pacific theatre.

On TV in 2001, the year of his death.

Whilst I think it should be noted that the visceral impact of the audio-visual experience is very different from reading about the conflict, nevertheless, as with the HBO series, one marvels at the sheer unrelenting horror of it all. It seems to me good that we have such writings from the 'common soldier'. Both Leckie and Sledge profess horror at the waste of war, and shock at the nature of their Japanese foe. Quarter is never asked for nor given, the Japanese cult of Emperor worship combining with what was, at that time, an insular and deeply ingrained patriotism, along with a cult of 'death before dishonour' that makes Europe's medieval knights look positively lily-livered.

Leckie says some interesting things about irrationality and courage: 'How much less forbidding might have been that avenue of death that I was about to cross had there been some wholly irrational shout - like 'Vive l'Empereur,' or 'The Marine Corps Forever!'' And several times throughout the book he laments a lack of contemporary American songs or music that would generate courage and esprit d' corps, all of which makes for an interesting reflection on the workings of the human mind in extremis.

After the war Leckie resumed his journalistic career, embarking on these memoirs in 1951. According to his wife Vera he did so in response to seeing the film adaptation of the Broadway musical South Pacific, saying 'I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn't a musical.' [1] Definitely a good companion to the Pacific series, and nothing if not interesting!

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NOTES:

[1] Source of quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Leckie_(author)

WWII Media: HBO Pacific Tin Box

Powerful, compelling, moving. You thought Band of Brothers was good? This is even better.

Having acquired the Band Of Brothers 'tin box' some years ago, I finally got around to getting this. And boy am I glad I did. Band of Brothers is excellent, but this is - in my view - even better. I've now watched both series numerous times, and will doubtless watch them again in the future.

The series follows the 1st Marine Division into battle in several key actions in the Pacific theatre - Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa. Chiefly, we follow the action via the experiences of Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge (whose memoirs formed the basis of the series, and which I have reviewed here on this blog). There’s also a smaller thread concerning the fate of gunnery sergeant John Basilone, whose actions at Guadalcanal lead to decoration and adulation, as he's cast as an all-American hero, sent home to raise war-bonds back in the U.S, before returning to combat at Iwo Jima. 

Decorated war hero John Basilone, wearing his Medal of Honor. Sent back to the U.S. to raise war bonds, Basilone starts to feel alienated and out of place, and yearns to return to his buddies, and ... combat.

Jon Seda as Basilone, rushing towards his destiny.

Pretty much all aspects of the campaign - leaving home, time en-route, combat, time behind the lines, home leave, injury and recuperation, etc, - are depicted, and the range of settings and scenarios is complemented by an equally diverse range of atmospheres, ranging from tender romance to brutal combat.

As is so well depicted here, the Pacific theatre could clearly be just as terrifying and intense as the European one: whilst Nazi racial policy in Europe was as extreme as such things can be, particularly on the Ostfront, it was being carried out predominantly against civilians, and with particular virulence in the East.

Obviously there was plenty of horrific brutality, even in the Western European combat theatre as well, but there was also a certain degree of fellow-feeling between some of the ordinary soldiery. I'm making these comments in relation to how both sides of this coin are portrayed in Band of Brothers.

Assault on Peleliu beach pinned down.

But, sadly, the Japanese had their own form of racial extremism, which appears to have run right the way through their military culture, such that not only was the 'death before dishonour' idea pursued  with ferovious intensity by all ranks, but also their contempt for both enemy soldiers and civilians was made frequently and appallingly manifest.

The Japanese fought rabidly, and were infamously brutal to their foes, frequently manifesting the same type of ferocious brutality that made the rape of Nanking so infamous. These traits were pretty common, it seems, amongst all levels of their soldiery, all over this theatre of combat.

The acting and direction, the scene-setting and special effects, the script and the overall arc of the narrative, all are superlatively well done. As well as obvious concern for historical accuracy, and, despite the brutality of the war, a clear intent to be even-handed, all make for a very, very good piece of long-form war-time storytelling. I was absolutely captivated, and riveted - albeit occasionally rather jumpily - to my seat. 

Leckie during the war.

Actor James Badge Dale as Leckie, in the series.

Sledge during the war.

Joseph Mazello, as Sledge.

This is compulsive viewing. I liked it so much I even watched some of the extras, which I don't normally bother with. I've also subsequently read a couple of the memoirs that formed the basis of the action: as with Band of Brothers, the series follows the fortunes of several key protagonists, chiefly Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie.It's their memoirs I read, and they are well worth reading, but the reading experience doesn't convey the visceral impact that this series achieves so spectacularly well.*

Truly brilliant watching this. I just wish someone would approach the Napoleonic Wars with a similar budget and seriousness of intent! When I bought this, at Amazon UK, it cost just £15. At this point (having just checked back on Amazon at the time of posting this) it's just £15.99... bargain!

* I'll be posting my short reviews of both books here ASAP).