Plot

Basilone's fame keeps him in the U.S. selling war bonds, Leckie rejoins his company, and Sledge is reunited with Phillips in Pavuvu.

Gentle-natured, fragile PFC Eugene Sledge arrives on rats and crabs-infested Pavuvu fresh from boot-camp, where hazing-minded Merriell 'Snafu' Shelton gives him a rude welcome to the mortar unit, which is bitterly disappointed not to get another Australian shore leave. Meanwhile Basilone leads the empty life of spoiled Hollywood star, while his brother George leaves for the front. Eugene's joy over being reunited with mates from home is cut short as Sidney Phillips eagerly packs to travel back home, but Leckie, who rejoined, is pleased his 'library' finally has an avid reader, albeit not an atheist like him. While the land on coral Peleliu, strategically close to the Philippines, Eugene crumbles under heavy Japanse fire, but the Marines pull trough, despite heavy losses, and the real fight for the air base is till to come.—KGF Vissers

Basiloneʼs celebrity grows as he travels across the country on the war bonds tour. On Pavuvu, Sledge, assigned to the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, is briefly reunited with Phillips and Leckie rejoins his company. Sledge then gets his first taste of combat as he, Leckie, and the rest of the 1st Marine Division meet fierce Japanese resistance while landing on the intricately and heavily defended coral island of Peleliu.—HBO Publicity

Part Five

Sgt. John Basilone takes pictures with movie star Virginia Grey on the stairs of a bomber, then cuts through a hotel kitchen on his way to their next public appearance selling War Bonds. The cooks all run up to the pair, starstruck -- but not over the entertainer. Basilone's the star. They ask for his autograph and gush over him. One of the cooks shares that he's enlisting in the Marines soon. Basilone leaves him with this advice: "Keep your head down, and keep moving. And listen to your NCOs."

Cut to Basilone enjoying the perquisites of his celebrity in the star's bed at the Biltmore Hotel. Afterward, she congratulates him for handling stardom so well. He scoffs at this -- all he has to do is get on stage and get his picture taken. She grins at him, and tells him he has no idea what's coming his way. "Keep your head down," she purrs.

Basilone heads downstairs to meet his brother George, who is also an enlisted man and out on a six-hour pass. John convinces him to stay for breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Basilone runs down his schedule, a meeting with the Governor, among other things. George tells him that he went to the movie and saw him in the news reel, along with their Mom and Pop. New Jersey wants John Basilone Day.

George asks him if he can ask a question: How scary was Guadalcanal, George asks. He admits he's afraid he's going to freeze up when he's out there, which prompts Basilone to put down his menu and reach across the table to grab his brother's hand and tell him a stern message: "Don't feel like you need to prove nothin'. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?" he insists. George agrees.

Solomon Islands: Pavuvu, June 1944

Eugene Sledge is fresh meat and making his first landing. He remarks to a nearby fellow Marine, Roger Oswald, that it looks like Hawaii. "No it doesn't," the man says tersely.

Sledge makes his way into the Marine camp to find his company. He passes the very enthusiastic Sgt. "Gunny" Haney yelling and cursing at an imaginary target as he practices close combat. Sledge finds the rest of the men in his squad and tries to bunk in, but one of them, Private Shelton a/k/a "Snafu," marks his territory and won't them bunk in with them. Another Marine, De L'Eau, shows them where they can find a rack to sleep in. Sledge asks where he can find H Company.

Leckie heads back to his friends and they give him the usual ribbing to welcome him back to the squad and greet him with some moonshine. He hands out magazines to Hoosier, Chuckler and the rest. Phillips heads out to the main road and happens to see Sledge, who he runs up to and tackles happily in greeting.

One of the NCOs breaks them up, thinking it's a fight, but when they explain that they're old friends from Mobile, he lets them carry on, advising them to keep from breaking an arm or dislocating a shoulder.

Phillips reveals to Sledge that he's about to rotate home, but first he shows him the ropes. He advises him to take a hot shower when he can, and to drive home the point, a sudden rainshower breaks out and a few men, including Gunny, immediately strip naked in the center of the road and start to lather up. The rain passes before they can rinse, leaving them cursing.

Phillips continues to advise Sledge over hot chow at the mess hall as Sledge opens a care package from home. He's embarrassed to find some baby food in the package, and the other men make fun of him, but Phillips advises him to keep it -- later, someone might want to trade him something for it. But, Phillips tells him, he should never trade away the .45 pistol his father also sent. Snafu interrupts them -- they've been put on maintenance duty, scrubbing out oil drums.

Snafu sits and goads them while the boys scrub out the drums, and another man who has joined them on duty asks why he's not helping. Snafu declares that he scrubs drums for no man, and that he was only supposed to drop them off and show them where they were. He just stayed because he likes to watch the new guys sweat.

Once that's finished, Phillips and Sledge head out to the beach, where Sledge see his first crab. Phillips flips his lighter and moves to torture it, but Sledge stops him. Phillips grimly informs him that he'll be encountering his fair share of those, and soon he won't feel so kindly towards them. He admires a Marine lapel pin that Phillips is wearing, and says he lost his to poker. Phillips hands him his and says that some people think they're good luck. Sledge considers it for a moment.

Sledge asks what war is like, and Phillips replies that he slept with a woman in Melbourne -- not to brag, he explains, but that it's one end of the spectrum. He points all the way down the beach and says all the way down the other way, that's where "that" is.

"And that," Phillips says, "that you can never imagine." He tells his friend that he's going to be all right.

The men get a break that night with a showing of the movie "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and make horny male catcalls during a love scene between Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.

The next day Sledge is out at target practice and is shocked when the "Gunny" roughly screams at a superior officer for not observing proper weapons safety. An officer of even high rank informs the Lieutenant that the Gunnery Sergeant was correct in admonishing him.

Later, he goes to meet up with Phillips but finds only his empty bunk. He asks Hoosier where he can find his friend, but Phillips has already headed out on the ship.

At nightfall, Sledge shares a drink with Leckie and looks through his books. He asks Leckie if he's heard anything about what's going on with "the other war," and Leckie tells him that nobody cares about what's happening in Europe unless someone has a brother over there. Sledge tells him he does, which shuts up Leckie for a moment.

Sledge goes through some more of Leckie's books and pulls out the Bible and Leckie guesses that Sledge is "a believer." Sledge admits he is. Leckie asks Sledge if God is so wonderful, they why did he create the Japanese, who have been trying to kill them on many occasions? Sledge replies that they all have free will. Leckie doesn't buy it.

Sledge asks Leckie what he believes in, Leckie says, "I believe in ammunition." But, he tells Sledge, since he's still on speaking terms with God, to ask him to sink a few Japanese transports and have their troops fall on their bayonets so he can get out of there and go home. As Sledge leaves Leckie tells him to take his Bible with him, since he has no use for it.

"No thanks," Leckie says, setting it down and producing a smaller version from his chest pocket. "I have my own."

Peleliu: September, 1944

The NCO of Sledge's company gives his men last minute instructions in the troop transport, then shakes their hands as they get into the beach landing craft. Snafu offers Sledge a cigarette, and he says he doesn't smoke. Snafu grins. "Yeah?" he says. He vomits at Sledge's feet, and lights up.

The bay door of the transport opens up and it's bright for a moment until Sledge finally sees where they're headed, towards a beach filled with black plumes of smoke and explosions. Sledge peeks his head over the side to see where he's going, and quickly ducks down when a bomb explodes in the water beside the craft. He stares into the face of his NCO, who looks completely calm and assured, and nods at him.

The landing craft hits the beach and the Marines head over the side. The man beside Sledge gets shot through and his NCO pulls him back for a moment to save him, then tosses him over. Sledge freezes on the beach as the sand around him, littered with dead Marines and body parts, explodes. Screams and blasts fill the air, then an explosion hits near him and he can't hear. He pulls himself up the beach, then runs in terror, shrinking against the roots of a tree. He presses on, jumping into a foxhole with the rest of his men.

Leckie, Runner, Chuckler and Hoosier are on another nearby transport, with Leckie manning one machine gun. His counterpart gets shot through as they land, and he does his best to lay down cover fire as the men head over the side.

Sledge is still frozen in the foxhole as a Sherman Tank explodes. The rest of his squad heads out, and his NCO has to come back for him and pull him out. They rendezvous in a wooded area.

Leckie and Hoosier get out of the landing craft and barely make it off the beach. Leckie and Hoosier press in through the forest, firing their way through, when suddenly a blast goes off in front of Leckie. When the smoke clears, he sees Hoosier's been hit -- shrapnel has sliced through his femoral artery. Leckie tries to keep him calm and calls for the medic, but by the time he arrives, Hoosier's already passing out from the blood loss. The medic carries him off the field. Leckie can't get him to respond as he calls his name.

Sledge and the rest of the mortar squad head with Gunny to the airfield to rendezvous with the other men. The Japanese are dug in, and they have tanks. The mortar squads fire rounds at the enemy, taking out the infantry, but they have to retreat when a tank takes aim on them, and they run. They're pinned down, and it looks like they're done for, until a Sherman rolls into the area and blasts the tank to hell. The Sherman then fires on an enempt-held building and takes it out.

Leckie runs up to a man and ask for Chuckler or Runner. He says he doesn't know who they are. Runner finds him, and neither of them know where Chuckler is. Leckie tells Runner that Hoosier got hit.

Sledge's squad digs in, and then men prepare to hold the line. Leckie and Runner join a squad doing recon by the building, and Leckie is momentarily shocked when he steps on a disembodied hand still wearing a wedding ring. He snaps back into the moment when a mortar goes off by him and his squad retreats.

Sledge, Oswald and Snafu are camped together and about to eat when Snafu remembers that he forgot "to check that guy." He heads back to the dead body of a Japanese soldier and uses his knife to carve out his gold teeth as Oswald and Sledge look on in horror. He tells them to take the first watch so he can sleep for four hours.

At night, Oswald recalls a time that his father took them camping at the Grand Canyon. He said he asked his dad to describe it, but he just told his kids they had to see it for themselves. He remembers getting to a certain point, then setting up camp in the dark. In the morning, there it was -- the Grand Canyon. A mile down. Oswald said his dad was right: "You have to be there, looking down into it."

Snafu barks at them to shut up, and Sledge and Oswald stare out at the burning airfield, the remains of the destroyed building where the enemy is still holding out. They hear the explosions still raining down elsewhere on Peleliu.

Sledge looks at it all and grimly says, "We have to go out there tomorrow."