I've wanted to read GOODBYE, DARKNESS (1980) for a long time, ever since reading that cover blurb from the LA Times, saying, "It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written." Unfortunately I don't agree, because I found it to be a frustrating mix of too much of history and not nearly enough of the personal. In fact it didn't seem to fit comfortably into the memoir category at all, and this in spite of the way Manchester framed his story with a narrative of his trip back to the scenes of the most horrific battles of the Pacific theater - Guadalcanal, Guam, Corregidor, Okinawa and more - thirty-plus years later. And maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all the facts, figures and history crammed in here, since Manchester is, first an foremost, an historian-biographer (MacArthur Mencken, Churchill). And the personal parts here were indeed very good, both the humorous and the horrific, like his failed attempt to lose his virginity in San Diego before shipping out, or the memory of the first time he killed an enemy soldier, close up and very personal. Or accounts of how he was wounded, or carried an injured comrade to safety under fire. These parts, sprinkled here and there between all the historical data were really quite riveting. But they were rare and other parts could be a hard slog. But I got through it all, and it was a pretty impressive read, albeit, to my mind, not a real "memoir."

And then, wondering if/when William Manchester had died, I Googled him. He died in 2002. And after he died, numerous fact checkers learned that most of the personal parts of GOODBYE, DARKNESS were grossly exaggerated or complete fabrications, including his boasts of having been awarded the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Nope. Manchester was a Marine cartographer. He did not receive those distinguished decorations.

Stolen valor. Sad. Why didn't he just write a novel? Because he really can write! I find it all kinda depressing. Because I LOVED his MacArthur biography, AMERICAN CAESAR, when I read it back in the early eighties. Ah, well ...

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER ( )

This is Manchester's personal account of his experiences as a Marine Sergeant in WW II. He fought in the Pacific specifically on Okinawa. His narrative does follow the route of the Marine Corps as it fought its island hopping way from Guadalcanal to Okinawa.

The book is structured by having Manchester describe the battle fought on each island in the war and then he returns in 1978 to pay a visit to the battle sites. Some of the islands are now difficult to reach or because of security out of bounds to tourists but because of his connections Manchester is able to visit and speak to the military personnel who serve on them.

As in most of these memoirs, there is the humour and the horror of war and Manchester is well able to express it. ( )

This one will stick with you. The author, who would go on to a career as historian with biographies of Churchill, MacArthur, and several other works, first survived the Pacific Theater as an enlisted Marine. It is as bad as you think, if not worse. He received his 'million dollar' wound on Okinawa, with this memoir remembering his fallen colleagues, his lost self. I grate a bit at the 'greatest generation' moniker but this memoir makes a solid case for the honorific. ( )

In this intensely powerful memoir, America's preeminent biographer-historian, who has written so brilliantly about World War II in his acclaimed lives of General Douglas MacArthur (American Caesar) and Winston Churchill (The Last Lion), looks back at his own early life. This memoir offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific: of 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. It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written. -Los Angeles Times Manchester speaks of the awesome heroism and hideous suffering of the Marines he lived with and fought with. -Baltimore Sun
The nightmares began for William Manchester 23 years after WW II. In his dreams he lived with the recurring image of a battle-weary youth (himself), "angrily demanding to know what had happened to the three decades since he had laid down his arms." To find out, Manchester visited those places in the Pacific where as a young Marine he fought the Japanese, and in this book examines his experiences in the line with his fellow soldiers (his "brothers"). He gives us an honest and unabashedly emotional account of his part in the war in the Pacific. "The most moving memoir of combat on WW II that I have ever read. A testimony to the fortitude of man...a gripping, haunting, book." --William L. Shirer ( )