American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941-1951Events on the battlefields of the Pacific War were not only outgrowths of technology and tactical doctrine, but also the products of cultural myth and imagination. A neglected aspect of the history of the Marine Corps operation against Imperial Japan has been any close study of how the marines themselves shaped the landscape of the battlefields on which they created new institutional legends. Marines projected ideas and assumptions about themselves and their enemy onto people, situations, and events throughout the war, and thereby gave life to formerly abstract ideas and molded their behavior to expectations. Focusing specifically on the First Marine Division, this study draws on a broad range of approaches to its subject. The book begins with a look at the legacy of the Marine Corps on the eve of Pearl Harbor, and then turns to gender studies to shed light on the methods of "making" marines. At the heart of the book are close examinations of how three broad categories of myth and imagination directly affected the First Division's campaigns on Guadalcanal, Peleiu, and Okinawa. The study concludes by considering what happened to the myths and images of the Pacific War in the Korean War, and how they have been preserved in American Society up to the present. |
Contents
Mythic Images of the Marines before Pearl Harbor | 21 |
Creating Marines and a Masculine Ideal | 49 |
Images of the Japanese Other Defined Guadalcanal and Beyond | 89 |
Devil Dogs and Dogfaces Images of the Self on Peleliu | 130 |
Okinawa Technology Empowers Ideology | 166 |
Other editions - View all
American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First ... Craig M. Cameron No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
1st Marines 7th Marines American amphibious amphibious warfare Army troops assault attack attitudes Banana Wars Battalion battle battlefield behavior campaign captured casualties Chinese civilian combat command cultural dated duty enemy enlisted Eugene Sledge experience fighting Final Report fire forces Fussell German ground Guadalcanal Guadalcanal campaign Ibid ideological indoctrination infantry institutional interview island Iwo Jima Japan Japanese Japanese soldiers jungle Kennard killed Korean Korean War landings Leckie lines MacArthur Marine Corps Gazette Marine Division MCHC ment military myths and images naval Navy officers Official History Okinawa Old Breed operations Pacific Pacific War Papers patrol Pavuvu Pearl Harbor Peleliu prisoners Puller realities recruits Regiment replacements rine role Rupertus Saipan Second World Second World War Semper Fidelis September served sexual Sledge Smith Special Action Report tactics traditional University Press Vandegrift veterans violence Wana warfare warrior wartime women wounded Yellow Peril York