June 23, 1945

Cpl. Eugene B. Sledge helped secure the island of Okinawa after 82 straight days of combat during World War II. A native of Mobile, Sledge is internationally renowned for his 1981 memoir “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa,” which graphically portrays combat in the Pacific Theater. The memoir was used as source material for Ken Burns’ 2007 PBS documentary “The War” and HBO’s 2010 miniseries “The Pacific.” He joined the biology department at the University of Montevallo in 1962 and taught for nearly 30 years. Sledge was inducted into the Alabama Men’s Hall of Fame in 2013. His second memoir, “China Marine: An Infantryman’s Life after World War II,” was published posthumously in 2002.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Members of the Sledge family at Georgia Cottage in Mobile in 1942. From left: Edward Simmons Sledge, Mary Frank Sledge (Sturdivant), Eugene Sledge, Lt. Edward S. Sledge Jr., and Mary’s sister, Octavia Wynn (Sturdivant). When this photo was taken, Edward was on leave from the Army and Eugene had not yet joined the Marines. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of Auburn University Libraries and the Sledge Family)

A U.S. Marine Corps Stinson OY-1 Sentinel observation plane flies low over Naha, capital of Okinawa, ca. May 1945. On this flight, the tiny ship drew small arms and anti-aircraft fire from the city, which was in Japanese control at the time.(Photograph by Lt. David D. Duncan, USMC, National Archives and Records Administration, Wikipedia)

Eugene B. Sledge in his laboratory at Alabama College (now the University of Montevallo) in 1963. Sledge was a professor of biology at the school for nearly 30 years, specializing in the study of nematodes, or roundworms. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of Auburn University Libraries and the Sledge Family)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.