THE LIONS OF IWO JIMA. The Story of Combat Team 28 and the Bloodiest Battle in Marine Corps History.

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Inscribed presentation copy. Publisher's original quarter blue cloth and grey boards with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. Illustrated with photographs in black and white. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Complete with the fine original dustwrapper that remains without fading, loss and tears. Not price-clipped ($26.00 to the upper front flap).

Inscribed by the author "To Bob [Sgt Major Robert F. Singer] / a great marine! / Fred Haynes CT-28 IWO 1945"; subsequently inscribed by the recipient to the British military historian Derrick Wright "09.03.09 / To / Derrick Wright in appreciation for / your efforts in documenting the / history of the United States Marine Corps in World War II. Your three / great books on Tarawa, Peleliu and / Iwo Jimo / help keep alive the memory of / those marines who risked all there, for their / country and the men next to them / Semper Fidelis / Robert F. Singer / Sgt. Major U.S.M.C. Ret / 1966-1996". The recipient is the British historian and author of several books about the United States Marine Corps (including The Battle for Iwo Jima; Tarawa 1943; To The Far Side of Hell). Combat Team 28, one of the greatest units fielded in the history of the U.S. Marines, landed on the black sands of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. The unit, 4,500 men strong, plunged immediately into ferocious combat, and by the time the battled ended, 70 percent of the men in the team's three assault battalions were killed or seriously wounded. The stories told here, many for the first time, will seem too cruel, too heartbreaking to be believed. As one veteran remarked, "Each day we learned a new way to die". Major General Fred Haynes (1921-2010), then a young captain, was at the time of publication the last surviving officer in CT 28 who was intimately involved in planning and coordinating all phases of the team's fight on Iwo Jima. In this astonishing narrative, Haynes and James A. Warren recapture in riveting detail what the Marines experienced, drawing on a wealth of previously untapped documents, personal narratives, letters, and interviews with survivors to offer fresh interpretations of the fight for Suribachi, the iconic flag-raising photograph, and the nature of the campaign as a whole.