Marine Combat Correspondent: World War II in the Pacific

I have just finished reading the book, "Marine Combat Correspondent" WW2 War in the Pacific, by Samuel E. Stavisky.This is an Excellent book, I recommend it to anyone interested in the War in the Pacific. Savisky does a Great job of telling his personal accounts during his tour. Starts off with basic training and goes through most of the Solomon Islands to Hollandia.One of the things that I liked the best was when he would tell about a story or an account of certain patrols, he would name most of the men and their hometown. Kind of neat to find one in your own state, or even a town close to you.Stavisky did every thing that the Marines did, all the hardships, struggles and pain that they when through.This is one of those books that is hard to put down once you start. I always said just a few more pages and then it turn into chapters.

As a member of Marine Corps Combat Correspondents for many years, and as a survivor of the battle for Guadalcanal, I can say that Sam's book is an authentic account of how it was. Over 50 years is a long time to remember details, but Sam is smart,and kept his notes which now jogs his memory. Considering the short time Stavisky was in the Marine Corps he had an opportunity to see just about every phase of combat during those months. I congratulate him on a well done effort in behalf of my beloved Corps.

Sam Stavisky was one of the first professional reporters recruited for a new World War II Marine Corps program which enlisted professional reporters, put them through boot camp, promoted them to sergeant, and sent them out into the field as combat correspondents who would chronicle the on-the-scene experiences of Marines in combat. In writing this story, Stavisky based it for the most part on the carbon flimsies of all the stories he sent to Headquarters Marine Corps from the field. These combat correspondents, known as "Denig's Demons," in honor of BGen Robert L. Denig, who was head of Marine Corps Public Affairs in the war and the originator of the program, covered the activities of Marines on land, in the air, and on the seas. Stavisky's story is very evocative of the times many of us World War II Marines experienced in the Pacific War, and Sam tells it well. Benis M. Frank, Retired Chief Historian of the Marine Corps.

The sacrifices of ordinary men have never been captured more poignantly than in Sam Stavisky's first-hand accounts culled from his own notes first recorded over 50 years ago. This is not an old vet's reminiscences of a time long-passed and fondly reconstructed. Rather, this book provides stunning first-person testimony assembled from contemporaneous notes that places the reader - uncomfortably at times- directly in a foxhole next to Marines who shiver from the rain and attacks of malaria while they await the night in terror of a surprise attack. What emerges is an eyewitness account of the Marines incredible fealty to one another, a steeliness of commitment to a cause and an esprit de corps that those of us born after the war can only weakly admit that we have never experienced. There is a lesson here, too, for adventurers who would send Americans into battle armed with anything less than the clear vision borne by the Marines during the Solomon campaigns. This is an important and eminently readable historic document written by a man who is obviously no stranger to powerful descriptions. I commend Sgt. Stavisky for his foresight in saving his notes and providing a fine sourcebook for those of us who didn't catch his stories the first time around. (Note to Ken Burns: This book is a veritable road map for a series on the war against the Japanese.)

Author Sam Stavisky was where WWII combat action in the Pacific was happening. It was for him to report these happenings back to the homefront. As a professional, experienced civilian journalist, he enlisted in the Corps and endured Marine Corps recruit training at Parris Island, SC, to qualify him as a full-fledged Marine first and a Marine combat correspondent second. Among other things, his book is a wonderful collection of eye-witness accounts, mostly about the combat deeds of individual Marines, which he wrote (and retained over 50 years) over his 34 months in the Pacific, beginning at Guadalcanal, and what it took to get these hometown stories back to where they would be read by the Marines' families.Stavisky is an excellent journalist and his true experiences make for delightful reading about combat actions not published at the time they occurred because of strict WWII censorship.