num_pages: 352
description: A straightforward, gripping tale from the Marines that stormed ashore on Guadalcanal in World War IITold with humor and honesty in a no-holds-barred approach that only a Marine who was there could tellExcerpt on firing a rifle grenade: "I jammed the rifle stock tight against my shoulder, raised myself up off the ground to a kneeling position, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle went bang! and the recoil jarred it loose from my grip. The rifle smacked me hard in the jaw. With that, I went down on my face while the little bluebirds started going tweet, tweet, tweet around my head.--'Did I hit it?' I asked.--'Yeah, you hit it, ' Flash said. 'The damn thing just didn't work.'--We finally ran into somebody from another unit, a guy who really understood how the new style grenade was supposed to work. We explained our misfortune to him, and he asked us did you pull the firing pin out . . . The god damn pin!"
language: English
title: On the Canal: The Marines of L-3-5 on Guadalcanal, 1942
titlecomplete: On the Canal: The Marines of L-3-5 on Guadalcanal, 1942 (Stackpole Military History Series)
genres: World War II, Nonfiction, History
ratings_count: 26
publisher: Stackpole Books