The Old Breed

<br><br><b>One Marine's World War II</b><br><br>THE OLD BREED . . . is the saga of a naive high school graduate long hoping to become a Marine who enlisted in the dark gloomy days immediately following the overwhelming Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.<br><br>The memoir details Dana T. Hughes' traumatic experience overcoming the challenges of Marine boot camp at Parris Island SC. It then follows him through advanced combat training in both barrage balloons as well as special weapons before his outfit was shipped across the Pacific in mid-1942. After a short but idyllic tour in New Zealand Hughes' unit was quickly detailed north into harms way.<br><br>This included seven months combat in the malaria-infested starvation islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi followed months later by transfer to a new outfit in New Zealand for advanced 90 mm AAA gun training.<br><br>Hughes soon found himself on his way back to the Solomon Islands and was quickly immersed in the heavy fire of the Marine Corps' 1 November '43 landing on Bougainville where he campaigned for another seven months.<br><br>Finally by Fall 1944 Hughes had put in the time overseas required by the Marine Corps for rotation Stateside so that--in his words--in early November he was surprised to reach My front door in '44.