Faithful Warriors

Faithful Warriors is a memoir of World War II in the Pacific by Lt. Col. Dean Ladd, USMA (Ret.), a combat veteran of the 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. Written with award-winning author Steven Weingartner, Col. Ladd’s book chronicles his experiences as a junior officer in some of the fiercest fighting of the war, on Guadalcanal, at Tarawa, and on Saipan and Tinian. Ladd’s recollections and descriptions of life--and death--on the far-flung battlefronts of the Pacific War are vividly rendered, and augmented by from the men who served with and under him in his wartime journey across the Pacific. Dean Ladd grew up in the Marine Corps; and the Marine Corps grew up in World War II. Faithful Warriors tells the story of how both came of age in history’s greatest conflict, through eventful times and extraordinary circumstances. Detailing his pre-war training outside San Diego; garrison duty on Samoa after the attack on Pearl Harbor; fighting on Guadalcanal; rest and recuperation in New Zealand; savage battle and terrible suffering at Tarawa, before recovery in Hawaii and yet more fighting on Saipan and Tinian, his story ends with finally making it home for good when the war was ultimately, thankfully, over.