Millions of readers have been swept away by W. E. B. Griffin's novels of
the Marine Corps, a series that has only grown stronger and more popular
with each volume. And now Close Combat - Volume VI - brings the saga of
The Corps during World War II into ever more dramatic arenas. As the
Japanese forces close in for an all-out effort to recapture Guadalcanal
from the American forces occupying the island, many fates converge and
intertwine. First Lieutenant William Dunn, twenty-one years old but
already one of only two pilots remaining from his fighter squadron's
original sixteen, must learn what it is like to lead men - and to lose
them....Hot-tempered Sergeant Thomas McCoy finds he has a hero's welcome
waiting stateside - if he can avoid a court-martial first....On a bloody
island, Major Jake Dillon discovers just how much combat is involved in
a combat correspondent's life....First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, a
consummate bully, is put on a War Bond tour so he will not endanger his
own men....General Fleming Pickering, on a ticklish diplomatic mission,
attempts to balance the hot and mighty temperaments of Douglas
MacArthur, OSS chief Bill Donovan and Secretary of the Navy Frank
Knox....Corporal Robert Easterbrock, still wet behind the ears,
discovers that the price of success in wartime may be uncomfortably
high.... From the Solomons to Australia to Washington, D.C., old faces
and new - generals, captains, privates, wives and sweethearts - find
themselves faced with the challenge of their lives. This is the story of
the men of the Marine Corps, their loves and loyalties, of an elite
fraternity united by courage and honor. Filled with crackling realism
and adventure, rich characters, realheroes, and that special flair for
the military heart and mind that make Griffin's novels so loved, Close
Combat is a dramatic, captivating novel, further proof, in the words of
Tom Clancy, that "W. E. B. Griffin is a storyteller in the grand
tradition."
