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Full Description
Harvey Ball, communications sergeant in Company L, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, served on the front lines in the Pacific during World War II. His memoir recounts the division's training, and the horrific conditions endured during months of brutal fighting on Leyte and Okinawa. Three comrades were killed by a wayward shell as they stood beside him. Ball himself was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism.
Blending battlefield detail with personal reflection, his account contrasts the official record with the infantryman's lived reality—exhaustion, terror, and the camaraderie that sustained men through jungles, caves, and mountains. Moments of humanity shine through, from poetry shared in the mud to rare R&R breaks, even as the war closed with the atomic bomb and Japan's surrender.
A gifted artist whose best-known creation is the iconic smiley face, Ball also sketched life at the front. He drew portraits of comrades for their families and captured scenes of wartime chaos. These sketches, alongside his memoir, offer a deeply personal insight into the Pacific War.
Contents
I MacArthur's Return to the Philippines
1. Our War Begins
2. Never Seen a Jap. I Never Want to See One
3. The War at the Front
4. The War in the Rear
5. The Mountain War
6. Warfare
7. Holiday at War
8. End of Leyte's War
9. R&R
II Advance Toward Japan
10. Coming: Another Campaign
11. To the Enemy's Ground
12. Our New War
13. Advance to Battle
14. The Enemy's Time, The Enemy's Place
15. Our War Continues
16. Bloody Kakazu
17. On-Borrowed-Time Acres
18. The Lame, The Halt, The Sick
19. Europe's War Ends, Ours Goes On
20. Return to Battle
21. The Wall Crumbles
22. Climax to War
23. Our War Ends
