You’ll Be Sor-Ree!: A Guadalcanal Marine Remembers the Pacific War

Sid Phillips, a World War II Marine Corps hero featured in HBO(R)’s The Pacific, offers up an invaluable firsthand account of the war against Japan.

A mortarman with H-2-1 of the legendary 1st Marine Division, Sid was only seventeen years old when he entered combat with the Japanese. Some two years later, when he returned home, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned Sid into an ＂Old Timer＂ by Marine standards, and more: he left as a boy, but came home a man.

These are his memoirs, the humble and candid tales that Sid collected during a Pacific odyssey spanning half the globe, from the grueling boot camp at Parris Island, to the coconut groves of Guadalcanal, to the romantic respite of Australia. Sid recalls his encounters with icons like Chesty Puller, General Vandergrift, Eleanor Roosevelt, and his boyhood friend, Eugene Sledge. He remembers the rain of steel from Japanese bombers and battleships, the brutality of the tropical elements, and the haunting notion of being expendable.

This is the story of how Sid stood shoulder to shoulder with his Marine brothers to discover the inner strength and deep faith necessary to survive the dark, early days, of World War II in the Pacific.

Dr. Sid Phillips, a Guadalcanal Marine, was born Sept 2, 1924, and enlisted in the USMC the day after Pearl Harbor. Passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, he departed his land a nervous seventeen-year-old. Two years later, when he kissed the docks in San Diego, he had come home a hero. Together Sid and his brothers in the legendary 1st Marine Division won the first epic victory of the war, saved Australia, and stopped the Japanese juggernaut in the Pacific. Sid and his sister, Katherine, have become internationally known after their notable roles in Ken Burns’ documentary The War and the Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg/Gary Goetzman HBO miniseries, The Pacific. He passed away in 2015.