Island Victory: The Battle of Kwajalein Atoll (review)

The search for truth on the battlefield may ever elude the military historian. Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, a newspaper journalist who became a widely read historical writer, is best known for his pioneering efforts to record "truth-in-battle" oral histories shortly after the shooting stopped. Island Victory, originally published in 1944 and recently republished by Bison Books with an insightful introduction by Joseph G. Dawson III, was the first of many Marshall books to utilize this methodology to present a collective narration of a specific battle.

Marshall died in 1977, and his reputation suffered from subsequent re-examinations of his 1947 book, Men Against Fire, a seminal analysis that claimed only 15 to 25 percent of U.S. soldiers ever fired their rifles in battle in World War II. While his research into ratios of fire remains controversial, his compilation of open-forum oral histories from the battlefields of three wars retains its value.

Island Victory presents Marshall at his best, unobtrusively weaving together the testimonies of several hundred infantrymen of the 7th Division during the battle for Kwajalein Atoll, 31 January-5 February 1944. Kwajalein, located in the heart of the Marshall Islands, was the strategic objective of Admiral Raymond Spruance's Central Pacific Force in Operation Flintlock. The campaign receives short shrift in many histories of the Pacific War—a brief, economical operation sandwiched between the bloodbaths of Tarawa and Saipan—which makes this new edition of Marshall's detailed focus on one overlooked battle most welcome.

Marshall's style in Island Victory reflects his background as a reporter, a penchant for detail, and a tendency towards favorable propaganda for the folks at home. Sometimes this style produced lapses of objectivity, as in the unabashed claim, "we learned more of the truth of battle through these company interviews on Kwajalein than had ever been learned before in the history of armies and war." Yet Marshall allowed the real story of Kwajalein to be told in the words of those who did the fighting, the enlisted men and junior officers. Nor did Marshall censor the low points of the six-day battle: a unit landing on the wrong island in the darkness, a platoon running away from a surprise Japanese counterattack. In time, the troops adapted to both the jungle and the Japanese, determinedly swept forward against the pillboxes and spider holes, and won a significant victory. This was good news to the American public, still concerned after two years of war whether American fighting men could prevail against the Japanese in close combat.

The real value of Island Victory lies in the unadorned words of these soldiers, recorded so openly and methodically by Marshall after the battle. Oral histories are a common resource today, but many tend to be recorded decades after the action, reflect selective memories and the absence of peer corroboration, and originate from senior officers. The Kwajalein victors interviewed so painstakingly by Sam Marshall provide a priceless candor and authenticity, the emotional testimonies of young men still flushed with adrenalin, guilt, and relief.