Review: HERO OF THE PACIFIC: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone

HERO OF THE PACIFIC: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone.
By James Brady. Published by John Wiley & Sons Inc. 272 pages.
Stock #0470379413. $23.36 MCA Members. $25.95 Regular Price.

We knew from conversations just prior to his sudden death in January 2009 that Parade Magazine’s James Brady was working on a book covering the life of the legendary Marine, “Manila John” Basilone. What we did not know was how Brady would approach his subject. Brady followers, me among them, thought he would fictionalize Marine history as he did in various novels, including “Marine,” “Warning of War” and “The Marines of Autumn.”
What we have in “Hero of the Pacific” is more akin to Brady’s “Why Marines Fight,” only with a sharper eye on the actual fiction that surrounded this Marine hero. Brady had this sharper eye. After all, as a decorated Marine platoon leader who fought in the cold of the second Korean winter, he had some insight as to what an infantry platoon and, more importantly, what a machine-gun section could and should do. As a veteran newsman, he also knew how to “mine” a story.

First and foremost, Brady does not question Basilone’s heroism. Winner of the Medal of Honor for his legendary actions on Guadalcanal, and awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry in action on Iwo Jima where he was mortally wounded, Basilone, in most Marines’ eyes, Brady included, rated everything he got.

As a former platoon leader, Brady does question much of what we might call the myth behind the man created by family members and the several hundred Marines who claim they knew and saw Manila John go down on Iwo and how he actually died.
Basilone went ashore in the early waves on Iwo Jima and, as his citation claims, stood atop a block house occupied by Japanese machine-gunners, and using many hand grenades, and waving his Ka-Bar, wiped out the emplacement. He also is credited for guiding a tank through an enemy minefield.

Brady asks what any experienced Marine platoon leader or anyone who had been in combat would ask: Why would a machine-gun platoon sergeant be armed with so many grenades? Why would he contemptuously be waving a knife on top of the blockhouse when he should be directing the fire of his gunners? And, how would he, who had just gone ashore, know the whereabouts of enemy mines? Again, Brady is not attempting to denigrate Basilone. He just asks the questions that any experienced Marine or newsman might ask.

Brady spent much of his time tracking down Basilone’s boyhood chums, and others in Raritan, N.J., who grew up with Basilone some 80 years before—no mean feat considering that most who remembered the man were either very old or dead. His piecing together of Basilone’s boyhood is painstakingly thorough and a tribute to Brady’s research skills.

We get to follow Basilone as he is brought home for a hero’s welcome after Guadalcanal and an ensuing War Bond tour that he no doubt chafes under—the canned speeches that he is asked to make. He falls in love with film actress Virginia Grey and is touted as having bedded one of the Andrews Sisters. He ultimately marries a Marine sergeant he meets at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., before heading back to the Pacific and his death.

Some readers might think Brady is out to destroy the legend. If you knew Jim Brady and followed his writings, you would quickly know that this is not the case. Brady approached this book as he did life itself. You can almost hear the Irish sarcasm as he asks, simply: “C’mon guys, we’ve been there and done that.”

There is no sarcasm in his ending tribute to Basilone: “But this is what makes him a legend and an American icon. Maybe we should just embrace the colorful lore, memorialize John Basilone as a Marine and honor his service, take him on faith, forget the disputation and the skeptical theories, mine and others, and just love the guy, saluting him with a well-earned and final Semper Fidelis. Always faithful. Perhaps we should leave it just as simple and as wonderful as that.”

— Capt Jack T. Paxton, USMC (Ret)
Courtesy of Leatherneck Magazine,  Now available in MCA Bookstores