In the late summer of 1942, more than ten thousand members of the First
Marine Division held a tenuous toehold on the Pacific island of
Guadalcanal. As American marines battled Japanese forces for control of
the island, they were joined by war correspondent Richard Tregaskis.
Tregaskis was one of only two civilian reporters to land and stay with
the marines, and in his notebook he captured the daily and nightly
terrors faced by American forces in one of World War II's most legendary
battles--and it served as the premise for his bestselling book,
Guadalcanal Diary.
One of the most distinguished combat reporters to cover World War II,
Tregaskis later reported on Cold War conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. In
1964 the Overseas Press Club recognized his first-person reporting under
hazardous circumstances by awarding him its George Polk Award for his
book Vietnam Diary. Boomhower's riveting book is the first to tell
Tregaskis's gripping life story, concentrating on his intrepid reporting
experiences during World War II and his fascination with war and its
effect on the men who fought it.