The Old Breed: A Combat Marine’s Odyssey Through WWII 1941-1945

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One Marine’s World War II

THE OLD BREED … is the saga of a naive high school graduate, long hoping to become a Marine, who enlisted in the dark, gloomy days immediately following the overwhelming Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

The memoir details Dana T. Hughes’ traumatic experience overcoming the challenges of Marine boot camp at Parris Island, SC. It then follows him through advanced combat training in both barrage balloons as well as special weapons before his outfit was shipped across the Pacific in mid-1942. After a short but idyllic tour in New Zealand, Hughes’ unit was quickly detailed north into harms way.

This included seven months combat in the malaria-infested, starvation islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi followed, months later, by transfer to a new outfit in New Zealand for advanced 90 mm AAA gun training.

Hughes soon found himself on his way back to the Solomon Islands and was quickly immersed in the heavy fire of the Marine Corps’ 1 November ‘43 landing on Bougainville, where he campaigned for another seven months.

Finally, by Fall, 1944, Hughes had put in the time overseas required by the Marine Corps for rotation Stateside, so that–in his words–in early November, he was surprised to reach My front door in '44.