Guadalcanal Diary is a memoir written by war correspondent Richard Tregaskis

Richard Tregaskis

Richard William Tregaskis was an American journalist and author whose best-known work is Guadalcanal Diary , an account of just the first several weeks of the U.S. Marine Corps invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands during World War II. This was actually a six-month-long campaign...

 and published by Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

. The book recounts the author's time with the United States Marine Corps on Guadalcanal

Guadalcanal

Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...

 in the early stages of the pivotal months-long battle there starting in 1942.

Narrative style

Tregaskis relates combat and conversation in an immediately accessible vernacular, taking care to cite the full name, rank, and hometown of each of the Marines he encountered over the weeks he was on the island.

Legacy

The book was so well received at home upon publication, and spoke such volumes on the camaraderie amongst the Marines, that the USMC still makes Guadalcanal Diary required reading for all officer candidates.

In 1943

1943 in film

The year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....

 the memoir was made into a film

Guadalcanal Diary (film)

Guadalcanal Diary is a 1943 World War II war film starring Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn and the film debut of Richard Jaeckel...

 of the same name starring William Bendix

William Bendix

William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...

, Richard Conte

Richard Conte

Richard Conte was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films from the 1940s through 1970s, including I'll Cry Tomorrow and The Godfather.-Life and career:...

, Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

, and John Archer

John Archer (actor)

John Archer was an American movie and television actor.-Biography:Born Ralph Bowman in Osceola, Nebraska, Archer moved to California at the age of five...

, marking the film debut of Richard Jaeckel

Richard Jaeckel

Richard Hanley Jaeckel was an American actor of film and television.-Life and career:Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters during his fifty years in movies & television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors...

.