Description
First edition of With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, inscribed by E.B. Sledge to a fellow soldier at Okinawa and by his commanding officer, Sergeant Romus “R.V.” Burgin.
Octavo, xvi, 326pp. Brown hardcover, title stamped in gilt. First edition, with no additional printings on copyright page. Clean text throughout, faint wear a tips of spine, largely unread. In the publisher’s first state dust jacket, $15.95 retail price on front flap, ISBN number on rear flap, shallow chipping along top edge, faint sunning to spine, bright illustrations. Housed in custom black cloth clamshell, title in gilt on red morocco label on spine.
This copy is signed by Sergeant Romus R.V. Burgin above the inscription by Sledge. The inscription by Sledge reads: “To Jim Kronaizl, Best wishes to an old K-3-5 mortar section buddy & a helluva fine Marine. I’m grateful to have fought alongside you – & even more grateful you survived that wound on Okinawa – (I thought you were a gone buddy when that shell exploded). God Bless you, Semper Fidelis, Gene Sledge.”
Arguably the best association copy we’ve seen from E.B. Sledge to a fellow Marine.
Sledge on his friend Jim Kronaizl on Okinawa in 1945: “I had seen mortar shells coming toward us, so I got the binoculars and was watching our front. Six or eight buddies were behind me playing cards around an ammo box. I said, “You guys better look out, that Jap gunner is walking those shells right down this little valley.” Well, I got what a Marine usually got in a case like that, ‘Oh hell, Sledgehammer, you’re just nervous in the service.’ So I said, ‘Okay I’m telling you, you’d better look out.’ At that moment, there was a terrific crash as a shell exploded right down in front of me down at ground level. The concussion knocked me off my feet and down into the foxhole-amazingly, I was still standing upright. How in God’s name I didn’t get my head blown off I’ll never know, but poor Kronaizl received a bad wound in the head and was carried to the nearby aid station.”
Sledge wrote about Jim Kronaizl in an article contributed to The Cost of War by John W. Denson (p. 371).
Jim Kronaizl was from the Dakotas and worked on a large wheat farm. Because of the injuries he suffered at Okinawa, he suffered from seizures for the rest of his life. He wrote to Sledge: “Sledgehammer, I had to give up the farm, and if you can believe it, loving the outdoors like I do, I am now in a damn insurance office.” Jim was awarded the Purple Heart and discharged with the rank of Corporal in December 1945. He passed away in 2017.
Additional provenance available upon request.
