Audiobooks by Robert Leckie

Okinawa: A Decorated Marine’s Account of the Last Battle of World War II

Penguin delivers you to the front lines of The Pacific Theater with the real-life stories behind the HBO miniseries. Former Marine and Pacific War veteran Robert Leckie tells the story of the invasion of Okinawa, the closing battle of World War II. Leckie is a skilled military historian, mixing battle strategy and analysis with portraits of the men who fought on both sides to give the listener a complete account of the invasion. Lasting eighty-three days and surpassing D-Day in both troops and material used, the Battle of Okinawa was a decisive victory for the Allies, and a huge blow to Japan. In this stirring account, Leckie provides a complete picture of the battle and its context in the larger war.

Robert Leckie (Author), Preston Geer (Narrator)

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Challenge for the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War

From Robert Leckie, the World War II veteran and New York Times bestselling author of Helmet for My Pillow, whose experiences were featured in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, comes this vivid narrative of the astonishing six-month campaign for Guadalcanal.

Robert Leckie (Author), Kevin Foley (Narrator)

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Strong Men Armed: The United States Marines Against Japan

A classic, firsthand account of the U.S. Marines' relentless drive from Guadalcanal to Okinawa during World War II. Written by Robert Leckie, whose wartime exploits are featured in the Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg HBO miniseries The Pacific, Strong Men Armed is the perennial bestselling classic account of the U.S. Marines' relentless drive through the Pacific during World War II. As scout and machine-gunner for the First Marine Division, Leckie fought in all its engagements until his wounding at Peleliu. In Strong Men Armed, Leckie uses firsthand experience and impeccable research to re-create the nightmarish battles of the Pacific campaign—from Guadalcanal to Okinawa—as ships, men, and guns moved over vast distances to fight an enemy that was willing to defend to its last man. Here is the whole sweeping epic of the Marines who battled—and won—on the bloody beaches at Guadalcanal, the unforgiving reefs at Tarawa, the rain-soaked mud of New Britain, the dark gray soil and deadly caves of Mount Suribachi, and the muddy slopes of Shuri Castle on Okinawa. It is a masterful narrative by a writer the New York Times praised as possessing the "rare gift of capturing all that is human in the most inhuman of man's activities."

Robert Leckie (Author), Johnny Heller (Narrator)

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Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow, we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense of their country. From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie's hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no one untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come. Now producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, the men behind Band of Brothers, have adapted material from Helmet for My Pillow for HBO's epic miniseries The Pacific, which will thrill and edify a whole new generation.

Robert Leckie (Author), John Allen Nelson (Narrator)

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