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Goodbye, Darkness
- A Memoir of the Pacific War
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
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Publisher's summary
This memoir offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific - 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.
Critic reviews
"It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written." (Los Angeles Times)
"A strong and honest account." (The New York Times Book Review)
"When Manchester speaks of the awesome heroism and hideous suffering of the Marines he lived with and fought with, he is reverent before the mystery of individual courage and gallantry." (Baltimore Sun)
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Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the most powerful accounts of warfare ever published. Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely fought - and whose outcome was in greater doubt - than one might imagine. This is the war that Americans on the home front would have read about had they had access to previously censored testimony.
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INCREDIBLE! WELL-RESEARCHED, COMPLETE & UNBIASED!
- By The Louligan on 07-15-14
By: Donald L. Miller, and others
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The Ultimate Battle
- Okinawa 1945: The Last Epic Struggle of World War II
- By: Bill Sloan
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ultimate Battle is the full story of the largest land-sea-air battle ever waged by the United States, a battle whose staggering casualties and take-no-prisoners ferocity led Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. From April through June 1945, more than 250,000 American and Japanese lives were lost, including those of nearly 150,000 civilians who either committed suicide or were caught in the crossfire. This book tells a gripping story of heroism, sacrifice, and death.
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Takes you into the mud and death
- By Ron on 02-02-08
By: Bill Sloan
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Strong Men Armed
- The United States Marines Against Japan
- By: Robert Leckie
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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The best book on the subject
- By j on 12-10-13
By: Robert Leckie
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With the Old Breed
- At Peleliu and Okinawa
- By: E. B. Sledge
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Joe Mazzello, Tom Hanks (introduction)
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.
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This is the second audio book of Sledge's work
- By Richard on 10-21-13
By: E. B. Sledge
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Ghost Soldiers
- The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: James Naughton
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
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At once a gripping depiction of men at war and a compelling story of redemption, Ghost Soldiers joins such landmark works as Flags of Our Fathers and The Greatest Generation Speaks in preserving the legacy of World War II for future generations.
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Ghost soldiers
- By Zach on 09-07-03
By: Hampton Sides
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Flags of Our Fathers
- By: James Bradley, Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.
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awesome
- By Thomas on 11-29-06
By: James Bradley, and others
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On Desperate Ground
- The Marines at the Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Hampton Sides' superb account of this epic clash in the Korean War relies on years of archival research, unpublished letters, declassified documents, and interviews with scores of marines and Koreans who survived the siege. While expertly detailing the follies of the American leaders, On Desperate Ground is an immediate, grunt's-eye view of history, enthralling in its narrative pace and powerful in its portrayal of what ordinary men are capable of in the most extreme circumstances.
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typical armchair critic armed with hign site
- By Brent on 10-03-18
By: Hampton Sides
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D-Days in the Pacific
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Gary Dikeos
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Although most people associate the term D-day with the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, it is military code for the beginning of any offensive operation. In the Pacific theater during World War II there were more than one hundred D-days. The largest - and last - was the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, which brought together the biggest invasion fleet ever assembled, far larger than that engaged in the Normandy invasion. D-Days in the Pacific tells the epic story of the campaign waged by American forces to win back the Pacific islands from Japan.
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Terrific one volume history of the Pacific war.
- By Bill on 12-01-12
By: Donald L. Miller
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The Americans at D-Day
- The American Experience at the Normandy Invasion
- By: John C. McManus
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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June 6, 1944, was a pivotal moment in the history of World War II. On that day the climactic and decisive phase of the war in Europe began. Those who survived the intense fighting on the Normandy beaches found their lives irreversibly changed. That day ushered in a great change for the United States as well, because on D-day America began its march to the forefront of the Western world. By the end of the Battle of Normandy, almost one out of every two soldiers involved was an American.
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Great Book
- By Byron Sarchet on 01-15-21
By: John C. McManus
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Helmet for My Pillow
- From Parris Island to the Pacific: A Young Marine's Stirring Account of Combat in World War II
- By: Robert Leckie
- Narrated by: James Badge Dale, Tom Hanks (introduction)
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.
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Should be required reading in high school
- By Randall on 04-03-19
By: Robert Leckie
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Red Blood, Black Sand
- Fighting Alongside John Basilone from Boot Camp to Iwo Jima
- By: Chuck Tatum
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When Chuck Tatum began Marine boot camp, he was just a smart-aleck teenager eager to serve his country. Little did he know that he would be training under a living legend of the Corps - Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone, who had almost single-handedly fought off a Japanese force of three thousand on Guadalcanal.
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not as good as helmet or old breed
- By C. Kenny on 01-21-17
By: Chuck Tatum
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The Fighting Season
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This fine biography of H. L. Mencken tells of how he rose to his unique position as comic genius and pre-eminent critic of American culture. It is the story of a man whose massive power of invective inspired and infuriated his contemporaries and whose popularity and unpopularity mounted with the frenzied pace of the 1920s.
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A Revelation
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What listeners say about Goodbye, Darkness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Doug
- 05-31-07
The best war memoir ever
Manchester fought as a marine in the Pacific in WWII, and he returned there to visit and to drive out the demons of black memory in 1978. His memoir of the trip and of the gruesome horrific events of the 1940's island warfare is the best war memoir I have read in 50 years of reading. The oral presentation in this audiobook is equally well done. The listener begins to think that the speaker himself experienced what Manchester wrote about. Surperlative, simply superlative.
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- Michael Bowen
- 11-10-13
Essential
What did you like best about this story?
William Manchester sounds to be the source of much of today's ambivalent confusion about war, and is writing a fact filled, yet soppy emotional memoir / history of compelling stuff. Writing in 1978 or thereabouts, he illustrates perfectly a Me Generation dream sequence which is absent the conviction of necessity. Manchester writes as if, and clearly you can hear it in his articulation, the war was a great revelation to him and thus to everyone. In this regard he displays a kind of shocked naiveté, as if the two World Wars were something just invented for his father and himself, custom-made to drive him to madness. So he deals with repressed memories, and the shock of being amidst the random chaos and violence, and the amazement of how empty such places were after the war.
Manchester plays the role of the callow youth experiencing war, trying to deal with cowardice and bravado, and how neither of these simple expressions of manhood seem to have much to do with who dies and who survives the brutalities of the Pacific theater. A sergeant trying to lead men, who develops through sheer luck, an ability to survive the horrors of jungle warfare on extremely remote inhospitable islands.
The book serves as my first look into the complexities and the battles of the Pacific. Ask me yesterday and I might have said, Iwo Jima, Midway and Pearl, but now my understanding has been extended a great deal. Recognizing how close the Japanese came to Australia was a great revelation of the book, as well as the parallel drives northward of McArthur and Nimitz. The change in tactics by the Japanese and their all-consuming drive for victory as Dai Nippon has given me a new appreciation for why they were so hated by the Chinese. The devotion of many Pacific island natives to the Americans was something you never hear about, nor the primitive manner in which they lived and how Dai Nippon forced them into labor. The Solomons, the Marianas.
It may be because he also wrote extensively about McArthur and Churchill that his own experience as recounted in this book seems to define so well many of the anti-war sentiments of the a man who clearly absorbed the import of the counterculture in American life. He ends the book describing the traditional values of the America he grew up in as if they were long gone and never to return. He so concludes that he fought for the equivalent of an instinct for his fellow soldiers, all of whom possessed a logic in defense of things that no longer exist in the modern world, which only goes to demonstrate how mashed up in the illusory narrative he became, all the while railing against its ignorance through the book. It is this tension between the personal in the context of
Manchester is nothing if not an intelligent and articulate master of languages and betrays the kind of respect for it that makes all of his descriptions of dialect and war era terminology quite a treasure. Terms erased by polite and cowardly conventions spell truths that defy historical revisionism stand out everywhere in Manchester's writing. In reading this book you are submerged in a way of speaking American English that has all dried up into today's yuppy-speak. It's useful just to read the book aloud to experience something genuine. Manchester thus is at war with Hollywood and American ahistorical ignorance as well as with his former self.
This book is an absolute necessity.
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21 people found this helpful
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Overall
- S. Gilford
- 01-20-10
At least one in a hundred
Of the more than 100 books I have listened to at Audible, months later, this one sticks out in my mind. I have read all of Manchester's books. He is a fine historian but this autobiographical telling of one Marine's experience in the Pacific war is exciting, insightful and above all honest. It is not a romanticized view of war. This is an extraordinary piece of writing with a lot to be learned from it about the experience of courage, fear, and friendship.
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Overall
- Wandering
- 12-15-10
Goodbye, dullness
There are many good memoirs of war, and many great memoirs of the Pacific War. This is not one of them. The reminsiscence of Manchester's war in Okinawa, at the end of the book, would be worth reading if there were no other accounts of this tragic battle But, despite the title, this book is largely concerned with two topics that go beyond his reminiscences of the Pacific War. The greater part of the book are not his reminiscences of battles he fought in, but popular histories of battles he has only read about. This part is filled with pedantic quotes in several languages that appear intended to impress us with Manchester's learning. The other main topic are dubious anecdotes about Manchester's personal life in and around the time of the war. Many are either of suspicious authenticity or are completely tactless. I strongly doubt his account for why he was thrown out of officer candidate's school. In one anecdote he tells us how honourable his comrades were, to the point that a man who described having "made it" with a sweet heart was shunned by Manchester's squad; in another anecdote he his boasting of the size of his Johnson, and his anatomical description of making out with a girl in a movie theatre, makes one cringe.
If you are inclined to give Manchester a chance, by and read the book. The narrator of this book has two very different, but equally grating styles. The main style is a forced flat delivery like someone reading announcements on a public address system in a 1930s movie. When Manchester quotes someone else, the narrator adopts a cartoon voice that is seldom appropriate for the person quoted.
I supposed die-hard students of the Pacific War will read this anyway, but if they are real students they will not learn anything except Bill Manchester's self-regard.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Dale
- 12-09-10
Moving and haunting
I'm a relative novice to the history of the pacific war in WWII and I purchased this book for 2 reasons: I wanted a basic overview from a soldier's point of view and I've read one of Mr. Manchester's other books and liked it. It's excellent on many fronts and several scenes and images will stick with me forever. From a historical perspective, it's probably a bit light. The overview of the war is in broad strokes but it works for this book. He frequently and fluidly moves from broad historical overview to his specific experiences although I did occasionally lose track of his specific experiences and those he was recounting from his fellow marines. The audiobook reader is overall good.
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7 people found this helpful
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- michael
- 11-25-13
Powerful and Honest
Would you listen to Goodbye, Darkness again? Why?
Yes. Mr. Manchester shares his own experience, and accurately reveals the the history of several Pacific campaigns. He does so with literary skills few before him have. I have read many books on the Pacific campaign, and rarely was the veteran also a renowned author. Mr. Manchester's command of the language makes the history even more powerful. Although no author can give full life to any battle, Mr. Manchester comes as close as any I have read. In addition, his description of death is unabashed and brutal, but accurate.
What did you like best about this story?
The history and his literary skills. It draws you in and grips you.
Which character – as performed by Barrett Whitener – was your favorite?
The author's own experiences
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
yes
Any additional comments?
Some audible critics found it venturing too afar from the battlefield. In other words, delving too deeply into the author's own experiences before and after the war. Guilty as charged. If someone wants only the battle, only the simple facts, then I doubt they have any experience as a soldier, or want the whole story. War and soldering by definition is such a human experience, or inhumane experience, that to divorce the two is impossible. If the story can be told with honesty, with honest reflection and self-reflection, not to mention incredible literary skills, so much better for the reader. I'm sorry I had not read this years before.
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- Yennta
- 01-12-12
A Stunner
William Manchester is a brilliant writer who just happened to have been there in the thick of it, the war in the Pacific. I usually have a hard time understanding descriptions of battles, but this is clear, devastating writing which puts you right there.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Chris Nagel
- 05-01-11
Manchester is a great writer.
The author is almost always worth reading or listening to. This book is no exception. He really is passionate here as it is biographical.
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- Cheryl
- 09-08-07
Goodbye, Darkness
I have listened to many audiotapes over the past couple of years and this was definitly the worst. There was some interesting and worthwhile information about the war. Most of the story was disconnected ramblings about himself, which was annoying and of little interest. This was especially disappointing since it cost two credits.
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- livy111us
- 08-09-19
Bleh
If you're looking for a story of his pre-war life and a historical look at the war, then you'll like this book. There is *very* little of his actual combat experience and. I can read about what the overall picture of the Pacific war was like from historians but can only get an eyes on the ground view from very few people. I was hoping to learn about his war experience but, sadly, it was not written about.
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3 people found this helpful