No glory or heroics, just blood and death Revisiting Jones' vivid novel of Guadalcanal

THE THIN RED LINE

By James Jones

Delta. $11.95 paper.

Sixty years ago Wednesday, on Aug. 7, 1942, the United Statesbegan its invasion of Guadalcanal, the first big American offensiveof World War II. The campaign for the Pacific island was long andbloody, taking the lives of about 25,000 Japanese and 1,500Americans, and did not end until February, 1943, when the remainingJapanese on the island stealthily slipped away.

Since then, countless numbers of books have poured forth on thesubject. As good as many of them may be, probably none is better thanJames Jones' novel The Thin Red Line. It is a grim history.

The novel, still in print, is observing an …