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I just finished up this book, and I would recommend it to my fellow campers. John B. George was a Army rifleman at Guadacanal. He had been a civilian marksman before the war, and took up sniping before there was a formal program for it. The first half of the book is his account of his days on Guadacanal. The last half of the book is a commentary on the Japanese and American arms that were were available to the combatants. The memoir is a slow starter, but heats up wonderfully after he gets off the beach. The last half is a gem if you are a rifle looney.

This was the first book about Guadacanal that was not about the Marines. What I did not realize was that after the Marines started to pull out was when the real killing of Japanese began under the auspices of the US Army and its vast resources of infantry and artillery. George doesn't try to minimalize the Marine's contribution or sacrifice. It's just that, after the tide turned, the Japanese were blasted and shot wholesale. This was the part that constituted George's experience.

George gets down in the weeds on descriptions and comparisons-- right down to which side had better ammunition crates.

One of the issues he covers is the M1 Carbine vs the Garand. His assessments of both weapons is lengthy and inciteful. Bottom line: the Garand was able to do far more damage and was able to penetrate the Japanese concealment much better than the Carbine. The carbine was superior to the 45 pistol in all but its use in foxholes at night.

The 1911 was too heavy. He wished he'd had a revolver to protect himself in the foxholes.

His beefs with the M1 Garand: needlessly heavy and the gas system lost is finish too easily. Once it was down to bare metal, it stuck out like a sore thumb in the jungle. It also was hard to top off prior to an assault.

His biggest peave was with the 1903 Springfield. It was too fragile, and too easy to jam. It should have never been sent to the Pacific. The sniper version of this rifle was a joke.

George left Guadacanal and went on to be part of Merril's Mauraders in Burma.

Since 2013, I've been carrying an Android tablet loaded with the Amazon Kindle app and other various reader apps. I started off reading the free stuff off Gutenberg, but gradually gravitated to Kindle, because of the selection of Military History available for next to nothing. The Kindle version of this book sold for $.99. The paperback version was $9.99.

One thing I've noticed recently is that I can get free 2-day delivery on Amazon purchases, but if I let them delay for a few days, I often get a free $1 chit for digital purchases. Whenever I buy things, I try to get that deal, and so I'll get what I want, PLUS a free military history book.

Thanks for posting.

I would tend agree with the the heavy part. But I bet that weight helped when bulging some little bastardized fanatic.

It wasn't just heavy. George found it needlessly heavy. That is, weight could have been reduced, but they deliberately kept it heavy. His complaint was similar in the 1911. On those long nights in the foxholes, it would make your wrist ache waiting for the next infiltrator.

His one big over-arching beef was that there was no way to get info like this back home, and that WWII was over before the Establishment started to listen on a lot of these things. The list was long too: our grenades were inferior to the Japanese. So were our mortars.

What killed Japanese? A lot of it was their own tactics. Top of the list were the Banzai charges. Next? They wasted countless lives on attempting to infiltrate the front lines at night. It kept us sleepless, but all the Japs got killed doing it. They also had no concept of what to do when faced with artillery of the kind we poured on them. They could send over a couple at a time. We could respond with hundreds of rounds and turn the target into mulch.

My hardback edition is well worn (worn out and all to pieces, actually) after being loaned out to other LE types, It's now with my son in law He likes the older military stuff and has suffered from living too close to CMP at Anniston.

It's a great read-written by a fine patriotic American. You don't have to agree with his technical view on every topic, but his view of the M1 carbine, based on his personal application of it in combat is noteworthy.

Thanks for posting this up, shaman.

Thanks for posting, good book, I read it a while back, you're right about the detail George went into regarding firearms. As I recall he was a shooter and before the war was a member of the Illinois rifle team and I think he shot at Camp Perry.

He really liked the 30 Carbine because of it's light weight for jungle fighting when he was with Merrill's Marauders and thought it was plenty adequate for close combat. He said it had no problem penetrating Japanese helmets or body armor and had practical combat accuracy out to 200 yards.

another good one on kindle, cheap, is guadacanal diary by richard tregaskis.

he was a correspondent on the island, book based on his notes.

My dad was one of Merril's Marauders.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Yes, where he gave the Garand an edge was in the collateral damage it created. If you shot at a Japanese and the bullet didn't hit, it still might throw splinters and dirt in his face.

Also, the 30 Carbine was not good at getting through vines and leaves where the M1 Garand succeeded and then some.

If you are buying this book dont buy the first edition Samworth book. It does not have the CBI stuff that is in the 2nd edition and later. The 2nd edition NRA book is undervalued.

Well that's one I've got to get.

Shaman, I hope you're getting a commission, you just sold a book.

Thanks for mentioning it, looks like an interesting read.

Well there goes a dollar.
Thank you

What's one more Kindle book... Thanks.

Thanks, just ordered a hardcover copy

So who had better ammo crates?

The only rifle match that I ever won was with a Garand. I like it!

I have the NRA reprint in a hard cover. I started it a long time ago and put it down because I thoug
ht it was going to be dull due to the start. Methinks I'll read it just as soon as I finish reading he book I'm on now.
Paul B.