Eugene Sledge

{{Short description|United States Marine}} {{Use American English|date=November 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2025}} {{more citations needed|date=August 2019}} {{Infobox military person | image = Eugene sledge.jpg | caption = Sledge in 1946 | nickname = Gene<br>Sledgehammer<br>E.B. (pen name) | birth_name = Eugene Bondurant Sledge | birth_date = {{Birth date|1923|11|4}} | birth_place = {{nowrap|Mobile, Alabama, U.S.}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|2001|3|3|1923|11|4}} | death_place = {{nowrap|Montevallo, Alabama, U.S.}} | burial_place = Pine Crest Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama | burial_label = Place of burial | allegiance = United States | branch = United States Marine Corps | service_years = 1942–1946 | rank = Corporal | unit = K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division | battles = '''World War II''' *Battle of Peleliu *Battle of Okinawa '''Chinese Civil War''' *Operation Beleaguer | awards = | spouse = {{marriage|Jeanne Arceneaux|1952}} | children = {{flatlist| * John Sledge * Henry Sledge }} | other_work = Professor of biology, author }}

'''Eugene Bondurant Sledge''' (November 4, 1923 – March 3, 2001) was a United States Marine, university professor, and author. His 1981 memoir ''With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'' chronicled his combat experiences during World War II and was used as source material for the Ken Burns PBS documentary ''The War'' (2007), as well as the HBO miniseries ''The Pacific'' (2010), in which he is portrayed by Joseph Mazzello.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Pacific |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/ |website=IMDB |publisher=IMDB.com |access-date=18 April 2019}}</ref>

==Biography==

===Early life=== Eugene Bondurant Sledge was born on November 4, 1923, in Mobile, Alabama, to Edward Simmons Sledge, a physician, and Mary Frank ''Sturdivant'' Sledge, dean of women students at Huntingdon College. In 1935 his family moved to Georgia Cottage in Mobile. He graduated from Murphy 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 the United States Army after graduating as a cadet from The Citadel. During World War II, he served on the Western Front as part of the 741st Tank Battalion, fighting at Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge. Edward II was awarded three Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, and a Silver Star during his service, and left the Army with the rank of Major. He also provided an interview to Cornelius Ryan while Ryan was writing the script for ''The Longest Day''.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7JKUQvyZkA&t=459s</ref>

Eugene was a sickly child, and lost two years of schooling due to rheumatic fever which left him with a heart murmur. However, once the condition subsided, his family encouraged him to enroll in college rather than join the military, believing that he would become "cannon fodder" as he described it. His close childhood friend Sidney Phillips also wrote to Sledge from Guadalcanal, and urged him not to enlist.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Zobenica |first1=Jon |title=Getting Their Guns Off The books that shaped HBO's The Pacific give the lie to the notion of generational exceptionalism. |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/getting-their-guns-off/308030/ |website=The Atlantic |access-date=25 February 2021 |date=May 2010}}</ref>

===Military career=== In the fall of 1942, Sledge enrolled in the Marion Military Institute, in Marion, Alabama, but then chose to volunteer for the U.S. Marine Corps in December 1942. As a compromise with his parents, who requested he seek out a technical officer's position, Sledge was placed in the V-12 officer training program and was sent to the Georgia Institute of Technology. However, he and half of his detachment intentionally flunked out by their first semester so they would be allowed to enter immediate service as enlistees and not "miss the war".<ref name="Oldbreed5-6">{{Cite book| last = Sledge| first = Eugene| title = With the Old Breed| publisher = Presidio| year = 1981|pages = 5, 6|oclc = 12197607 }}</ref>

Once he was out of school, he was assigned to duty as an enlisted man in K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (K/3/5), where he served with Corporal R.V. Burgin and Private First Class Merriell "Snafu" Shelton.<ref name="Movie Line">{{cite web |date=May 10, 2010 |first1=Kyle |last1=Buchanan |url=http://www.movieline.com/2010/05/the-verge-rami-malek.php?page=2 |title=The Verge: Rami Malek |access-date=January 6, 2011 |work=Movie Line |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130129215650/http://movieline.com/2010/05/10/the-verge-rami-malek/ |archive-date=January 29, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He and Phillips briefly reunited with each other when Sledge was transported to Pavuvu two weeks before Phillips returned home via a lottery draw.

Sledge rose to the rank of corporal in the Pacific Theater and saw combat as a 60 mm mortarman<ref name ="Alexander1996">{{cite book|author=Joseph H. Alexander|title=The Final Campaign: Marines in the Victory on Okinawa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P7ltVv2_p-wC|year=1996|publisher=DIANE Publishing|isbn=978-0-7881-3528-6}}</ref> at Peleliu and Okinawa. When fighting grew too close for effective use of the mortar, he served in other duties, such as stretcher bearer<ref name ="Alexander1996"/> and as a rifleman.<ref name="Oldbreed116">{{Cite book| last = Sledge| first = Eugene| title = With the Old Breed| publisher = Presidio| year = 1981|pages = 116–117|oclc = 12197607 }}</ref>

During his service, Sledge kept notes of what happened in his pocket-sized New Testament. When the war ended, he compiled these notes which would, many years later, become the memoir ''With the Old Breed''. After being posted to Beijing after the war,<ref name="China1">{{Cite book| last = Sledge| first = Eugene| title = China Marine| publisher = University of Alabama Press| date = May 2002|pages = 1, 17, 19, 20, 23, 27, 32, 35, 42, 44, 49, 51, 72| isbn = 0-8173-1161-0 }}</ref> he was discharged from the Marine Corps in February 1946 with the rank of corporal.<ref>[http://content.lib.auburn.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ebsledge&CISOPTR=209&REC=16 USMC discharge certificate]</ref>

===Post-war=== After the war ended, Sledge attended Auburn University (then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute),<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://content.lib.auburn.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/ebsledge&CISOPTR=143&CISOBOX=1&REC=4 |title=Eugene B. Sledge, Auburn University Student |website=Auburn University Digital Library |access-date=2010-04-13}}</ref> where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.phideltatheta.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1028&Itemid=9 |title=Upcoming Miniseries on HBO Tracks Real-Life WWII Story of Auburn Phi}}</ref> He received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration in the summer of 1949.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Trehub |first=Aaron |date=2024-09-19 |orig-date=Originally published 2008-09-30 |title=Eugene B. Sledge |url=https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/eugene-b-sledge/ |access-date=2025-11-08 |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |publisher=Alabama Humanities Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref>{{Reference page|location=|quote=He entered the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) and earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration in 1949.}}

Sledge had a hard time readjusting to civilian life:

<blockquote>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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_war_battle_aftermath.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011145917/http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_war_battle_aftermath.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 11, 2007 |title=The War—Face of Battle |publisher=PBS |access-date=2010-04-04}}</ref></blockquote>

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 substitute bird watching as a hobby. Sledge started to assist the conservation department in its banding study efforts,<ref name="China153">{{Cite book| last = Sledge| first = Eugene| title = China Marine| publisher = University of Alabama Press| date = May 2002|pages = 153–157| isbn = 0-8173-1161-0 }}</ref> the origin of his well-known passion for the science of ornithology. <ref name="ChinaMarine">{{cite book |last=Sledge |first=Eugene B. |title=China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II |publisher=University of Alabama Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8173-1161-2 |pages=153–155}}</ref>

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:

<blockquote>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.<ref>{{Cite book |title=China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II, by E.B. Sledge, page 135 |isbn=0195167767 |last1=Sledge |first1=E. B. |year=2003 |publisher=Oup USA }}</ref></blockquote>

Sledge married Jeanne Arceneaux (died December 2023<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq26Q1T12L0</ref>) in 1952 and the couple had two sons, John (born 1957) and Henry (a military historian, born 1965). Henry published his book expanding on his father's work, entitled, ''The Old Breed... The Complete Story Revealed: A Father, A Son, and How WWII in the Pacific Shaped Their Lives'' in 2025.{{Citation needed|date=November 2025|reason=A reliable source is needed to support the claim that Henry's book furthered the work of his father; Henry's book is not mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Albama article on Eugene B. Sledge referenced throughout this paragraph.}} Eugene Sledge returned to Auburn in 1953, where he worked as a research assistant until 1955.{{Citation needed|date=November 2025|reason=A reliable source is needed to support all information in the second half of the sentence; the Encyclopedia of Alabama article on Eugene B. Sledge verifies that "Eugene Sledge returned to Auburn" but does not provide details, including years and the research assistant role.}} That same year he graduated from API with a Master of Science degree in botany.<ref name=":0" />{{Reference page|quote=Sledge married Jeanne Arceneaux of Mobile in 1952. The couple would have two sons: John (born 1957) and Henry (born 1965). On his father's advice, Sledge returned to Auburn and earned a master of science degree in botany, writing his thesis on parasitic worms (nematodes) and their effect on varieties of corn.}}

===Doctorate and later work=== From 1956 to 1960, Sledge attended the University of Florida and worked as a research assistant.{{Citation needed|date=November 2025|reason=A reliable source is needed to support entire sentence; the Encyclopedia of Alabama article on Eugene B. Sledge does not discuss his role as a research assistant at the University of Florida.}} He published numerous papers on helminthology and in 1956 joined the Helminthological Society of Washington.<ref name=":0" />{{Reference page|location=|quote=He joined the Helminthological Society of Washington in 1956 and published numerous articles on nematodes in scientific journals.}} He received his doctorate in biology from the University of Florida in 1960.<ref name=":0" />{{Reference page|location=|quote=In 1960, Sledge graduated from the University of Florida with a doctorate in zoology.}} He was employed by the Division of Plant Industry for the Florida State Department of Agriculture from 1959 to 1962.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thewareaglereader.com/2009/11/war-is-hell-eugene-b-sledge-1923-2001/|title=War is Hell: Eugene B. Sledge (1923-2001)|website=www.thewareaglereader.com|date=11 November 2009 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-16}}</ref>

In the summer of 1962, Sledge was appointed assistant professor of biology at Alabama College (now the University of Montevallo). In 1970, he became a professor, a position he held until his retirement in 1990. He taught zoology, 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://content.lib.auburn.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ebsledge/id/127 |title=Marion Military Institute honorary rank for Eugene B. Sledge |access-date=2017-09-16 |website=Auburn University |last=Eugene B. Sledge Collection }}</ref>

===Death=== Sledge died after a long battle with stomach cancer on March 3, 2001.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1796|title=Eugene B. Sledge |last=Trehub |first=Aaron |date=30 September 2008 |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |publisher= Alabama Humanities Foundation }}</ref> He is buried at Pine Crest Cemetery in Mobile.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-03-24 |orig-date=Originally published 2008-10-02 |title=Grave of Eugene B. Sledge |url=https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/media/grave-of-eugene-b-sledge/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240304192315/https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/media/grave-of-eugene-b-sledge/ |archive-date=2024-03-04 |access-date=2025-11-08 |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |publisher=Alabama Humanities Foundation |quote=Eugene B. Sledge died on March 3, 2001, and was buried in Pine Crest Cemetery in Mobile, the city of his birth.}}</ref>

==Bibliography==

===''With the Old Breed''=== {{Main|With the Old Breed}} At the urging of his wife, Sledge began compiling a memoir of his wartime experiences as a way to help him cope. In 1981, he published ''With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'', a memoir of his World War II service in the United States Marine Corps. ''With the Old Breed'' was reprinted in 1990 with an introduction by Paul Fussell and again in 2007 with an introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. In 1992, Sledge appeared in the documentary film ''Peleliu 1944: Horror in the Pacific''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://americanherofilm.com/eugene-sledge/ |title=Eugene Sledge in ''Peleliu 1944: Horror in the Pacific'' }}</ref> In April 2007, it was announced that ''With the Old Breed'', along with Robert Leckie's ''Helmet for My Pillow'', would form the basis for the HBO series ''The Pacific''.<ref name=HBO1>{{Cite web|access-date=2008-02-06 |url=http://www.hbo.com/films/news/ |date=2007-08-16 |title=Production Begins on 'The Pacific' |publisher=HBO }}</ref>

===''China Marine''=== {{Main|China Marine (memoir)}}

A second memoir, ''China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II'', was published posthumously. Its initial hardbound edition, with a foreword by Stephen E. Ambrose, was published without a subtitle on May 10, 2002, by the University of Alabama Press.<ref name="China1"/> 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 as Beijing), his return to Mobile, and his recovery from the psychological trauma of warfare.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryOther/MilitaryHistory/WWII/?view=usa&ci=9780195167764 |title=China Marine listing and review in the Oxford University Press catalogue |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |access-date=2010-04-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604151835/http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryOther/MilitaryHistory/WWII/?view=usa&ci=9780195167764 |archive-date=2011-06-04 }}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-old-breed-the-complete-story-revealed-w-henry-sledge/1146419031

==External links== {{Commons category}} *{{Cite web|access-date=February 6, 2008 |url=http://www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/find-aid/096.htm |title=Guide to the Eugene B. Sledge Papers, RG 96 |author=Ullrich, Dieter C. |date=August 2003 |publisher=Auburn University}} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://ww2db.com/read.php?read_id=21 |title=''With the Old Breed—at Peleliu and Okinawa'' review by Bryan Hiatt for the World War II Database}} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/ebsledge |title=Eugene B. Sledge Collection in the Auburn University Digital Library}} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/find-aid/096.htm |title=Finding aid to the Eugene B. Sledge Papers in the Auburn University Special Collections & Archives Department}} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://www.studsterkel.org/gwar.php |title=Studs Terkel audio interview with E.B. Sledge (6 parts) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100329024759/http://www.studsterkel.org/gwar.php |archive-date=March 29, 2010 }} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://www.alabamaliterarymap.org/author.cfm?AuthorID=18 |title='E. B. Sledge' in ''This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape'' |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100914081637/http://www.alabamaliterarymap.org/author.cfm?AuthorID=18 |archive-date=September 14, 2010 |url-status=dead }} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson072507.html |title=Victor Davis Hanson's introduction to the 2007 edition of ''With the Old Breed'' |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100103045651/http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson072507.html |archive-date=January 3, 2010 }} *{{Cite web |access-date=March 18, 2010 |url=https://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_224.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501015712/http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_224.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 1, 2009 |title=Photograph of EB Sledge – PBS Media Gallery|website=PBS }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sledge, Eugene}} Category:1923 births Category:2001 deaths Category:20th-century American memoirists Category:20th-century American biologists Category:United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II Category:American military writers Category:Georgia Tech alumni Category:Auburn University alumni Category:Deaths from stomach cancer in Alabama Category:Marion Military Institute alumni Category:Military personnel from Mobile, Alabama Category:United States Marine Corps non-commissioned officers Category:University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni Category:University of Montevallo faculty Category:Writers from Mobile, Alabama Category:Memoirists from Alabama Category:War memoirists

Eugene Sledge

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