Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War

I've wanted to read GOODBYE, DARKNESS (1980) for a long time, ever since reading that cover blurb from the LA Times, saying, "It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written." Unfortunately I don't agree, because I found it to be a frustrating mix of too much of history and not nearly enough of the personal. In fact it didn't seem to fit comfortably into the memoir category at all, and this in spite of the way Manchester framed his story with a narrative of his trip back to the scenes of the most horrific battles of the Pacific theater - Guadalcanal, Guam, Corregidor, Okinawa and more - thirty-plus years later. And maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all the facts, figures and history crammed in here, since Manchester is, first show more an foremost, an historian-biographer (MacArthur Mencken, Churchill). And the personal parts here were indeed very good, both the humorous and the horrific, like his failed attempt to lose his virginity in San Diego before shipping out, or the memory of the first time he killed an enemy soldier, close up and very personal. Or accounts of how he was wounded, or carried an injured comrade to safety under fire. These parts, sprinkled here and there between all the historical data were really quite riveting. But they were rare and other parts could be a hard slog. But I got through it all, and it was a pretty impressive read, albeit, to my mind, not a real "memoir."

And then, wondering if/when William Manchester had died, I Googled him. He died in 2002. And after he died, numerous fact checkers learned that most of the personal parts of GOODBYE, DARKNESS were grossly exaggerated or complete fabrications, including his boasts of having been awarded the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Nope. Manchester was a Marine cartographer. He did not receive those distinguished decorations.

Stolen valor. Sad. Why didn't he just write a novel? Because he really can write! I find it all kinda depressing. Because I LOVED his MacArthur biography, AMERICAN CAESAR, when I read it back in the early eighties. Ah, well ...

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER show less

This is a raw and brutally vivid memoir by a US marine who fought in the Pacific in World War 2. He also happens to be an accomplished author and biographer, so the prose is beautiful. The story itself is not - it is rough and disturbing - but it feels accurate. It is a close-up view of the absurity and stupidity of war - in clear and extremely personal terms. The story is told via the author's trip back to those islands 33 years after the events that took place. The effect is at once haunting and hopeful....we learn about the scars of the author, the landscapes and the islanders. All in all a heavy read, but an important one.

This one will stick with you. The author, who would go on to a career as historian with biographies of Churchill, MacArthur, and several other works, first survived the Pacific Theater as an enlisted Marine. It is as bad as you think, if not worse. He received his 'million dollar' wound on Okinawa, with this memoir remembering his fallen colleagues, his lost self. I grate a bit at the 'greatest generation' moniker but this memoir makes a solid case for the honorific.

William Manchester, one of the premier writers of the post-war era, was a combat Marine in the Pacific theater. He, along with other members of his unit, wase among the comparatively few college students, many from Ivy league schools, who served as enlisted soldiers in the Marines.

Manchester writes a deeply moving memoir of his experiences. He describes the lives of common soldiers who were part of the island-hopping campaigns from Guadalcanal through Okinawa. (He states in the afterword that he was not present at all the engagements he writes about.) His narrative of the incredibly vicious combat that both sides endured is vivid and horrific. The magnitude of casualties, dead and wounded, is staggering. The Marines would just not back show more down despite the desperate tactics utilized by the Japanese defenders of these priorly unknown islands. The Japanese war ethic was one of resistance to the last man; death was the only honorable option open to them in the face of inevitable loss. In the face of such fanaticism, one marvels at the bravery of the Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen, most of whom a short time before had been civilians.

Manchester writes on the big picture strategy employed by US leaders, where he points out the many errors that occurred along the way. (He admires MacArthur's bold and innovative strategy, although much about the man was otherwise flawed.) Campaigns like that for Guadalcanal and Tarawa were uncoordinated and poorly supported. Peleliu was a utter waste of lives as it could have been bypassed without any ill effect on US strategic aims. Iwo Jima was expected to be taken in a few days, but the fighting lasted for months. Iwo Jima saw the beginning of a shift in tactics by the Japanese. Abandoning fierce resistence at the beach heads, the Japanese instead built unassailable redoubts and labyrinth-like fortified caves and tunnels from which they forayed against advancing Americans. The time of the banzai charge by Japanese troops determined to die was over, replaced by deadlier means of combat.

The fullest realization of the Japanese tactical shift was Okinawa. Manchester's principal combat experiences were there. Okinawa is about 500 miles from the Japanese islands. It became clear that the intention of Japanese military leaders was to make the taking of Okinawa so costly that the Americans might shrink from an invasion of the home islands. Perhaps they envisioned a negotiated peace overture, although I am not aware that any was made. In any event, the determination of the US was so strong, and the sacrifices to date were so great, that no partial surrender terms would ever have been entertained. The fighting on Okinawa, told in riveting detail by Manchester, was so awful that one can barely absorb it. The loss of friends who had been with Manchester for the duration is astounding and heartbreaking to read.

Probably there are many books on the Pacific war that provide a grander overview and deeper analysis of military strategy, but this is the book to read if you want to grasp the experience of the common soldier. Manchester, writing often in a philosophical vein of the gestalt of young men facing horror and death, gives penetrating insights into what everyday life was like for these brave men -- the seemingly unbearable effects of boredom, anxiety, fear, and loss. show less

In this intensely powerful memoir, America's preeminent biographer-historian, who has written so brilliantly about World War II in his acclaimed lives of General Douglas MacArthur (American Caesar) and Winston Churchill (The Last Lion), looks back at his own early life. This memoir offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific: of what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and most of all, what it felt like to one who underwent all but the ultimate of its experiences. It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written. -Los Angeles Times Manchester speaks of the awesome heroism and hideous suffering of the Marines he lived with and fought with. -Baltimore Sun
The nightmares began for William Manchester 23 show more years after WW II. In his dreams he lived with the recurring image of a battle-weary youth (himself), "angrily demanding to know what had happened to the three decades since he had laid down his arms." To find out, Manchester visited those places in the Pacific where as a young Marine he fought the Japanese, and in this book examines his experiences in the line with his fellow soldiers (his "brothers"). He gives us an honest and unabashedly emotional account of his part in the war in the Pacific. "The most moving memoir of combat on WW II that I have ever read. A testimony to the fortitude of man...a gripping, haunting, book." --William L. Shirer show less

Ground warfare in the Pacific during World War II was brutal. It was fought by men who had a different sense of place and purpose in the world than what we would commonly find in our culture today. At some point in time the American's who fought during that war came to be characterized as "the greatest generation." William Manchester's war memoir, Goodbye Darkness, carries a reader a long ways toward understanding what it was that forged that generation.

Manchester wrote his memoir about 35 years after the war, as he tried to process and say good-bye to memories that have long haunted his dreams. The overall purpose is summed up as he returns to the battlefield of Tarawa: "So I have nightmare, and so I have returned to the islands to show more exorcise my inner darkness with the light of understanding."

Drawing on a combination of his own combat experience on Okinawa, a number of months he spent on Guadalcanal, and the combat reports of other islands, he writes a compelling account of the journey of the US Marine Corps through the island battlefields of the Pacific. In each case he weaves stories of the war with the islands as they are today, having taken a trip to visit each of them in 1978, prior to writing this book.

Manchester is an author with an accomplished track record. I have not read any of his other works but he demonstrates great skill here in weaving together threads of complex stories, showing both the micro and macro view. I highly recommend this book, both for the story told as well as to read the work of a master storyteller. show less

This is my favorite World War II book. I have a hard time lumping it together with other battle diaries, and memories. Manchester is more lyrical, introspective, more litereary. This book is in a category all itself. Manchester brings to life the horrors of war in bloody, piss-caked, reality. The fear, the chaos, the gore, all those things missing in typical war diaries. Manchester puts it in, as it should be. It disgusts me that many people glorify war. (I put almost ten years in the army and i saw men glorify it a hundred times, and here at home the ignorant too quickly resort to it). I think everyone who ever suggets war should have thier faces rubbed in its stink. Manchester can help with that. But, on top of that manchester's show more insisghts and thoughts as he looks back on those days are poignant and i'll say again literary...marvelous. This is a commentary on the war in the Pacific covering battles that Manchester never saw as well as ones that he did participate in. It's different...its great. show less