The 2010 edition paperback edition
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa is a famous first-person account written by Eugene Sledge during and after the war. Decades later, the memoir would become one of the main sources of the HBO series, The Pacific.
History
The book started as various notes that Sledge had written throughout his time in combat, starting from Pavuvu. After the war, he would compile the notes, and write his memoirs with the support of his wife and editors.
Working titles included A Marine Mortarman in World War II and Into the Abyss. It was released under it's final title in 1981 by the Presidio Press.
Differences from the book
- In the series, Sledge gets his nickname from "Snafu" just after the Marines capture the airfield. In the book, Sledge gets his nickname way back to at least when he was in New Caledonia, some time before his initial arrival in Pavuvu.
- Events preceeding Pavuvu (excluding a brief look at Sledge's mortar training) are omitted entirely, meaning that there is no counterpart to Cpl. Doherty in the series.