SMITH, Holland M.; Percy Finch.
Coral and Brass.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949.
$650.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-152924
+$500
First Edition of Coral and Brass; Signed by Marine General Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith
First edition of the memoir of General Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith, the fiery Marine commander known as the father of modern amphibious warfare, his outspoken account of the Marines' island-hopping campaign across the Pacific in the Second World War. Octavo, original publisher's cloth, with a frontispiece portrait of Smith from a painting by Commander Albert K. Murray. Boldly signed by the author on the front free endpaper, "H.M. Smith, General USMC Ret." Additionally laid in is a photocopy of an autograph letter signed by General Smith, written from La Jolla, California in February 1949, expressing his admiration for a Red Cross worker, Mary Kay Zolnick, who had served under his command in the Pacific. Very good in a good dust jacket with wear to the extremities. Written with Percy Finch. Uncommon in the original dust jacket and signed.
Coral and Brass is the blunt and controversial memoir of General Holland M. Smith, the United States Marine Corps commander widely regarded as the father of modern amphibious warfare. Known throughout the Corps as Howlin' Mad Smith, he trained and led the Marine forces that stormed ashore across the central Pacific, from Tarawa and Saipan to Iwo Jima, in the bloody island campaigns that carried the war to Japan. Written with the journalist Percy Finch, the book caused a sensation on its publication for its scathing criticism of the Army's performance at Saipan and of interservice rivalry, and it remains a candid and combative first-person account of the Pacific War from one of its most forceful commanders.
Coral and Brass.
$650.00
In Stock