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Archive: June 2025 (2 Posts)

Monochrome sketch of soldiers walking along jungle path

A Historian at War: The Unpublished Guadalcanal Diaries of Herbert Christian Laing Merillat

Posted by: Josh Levy

In 1982, former United States Marine Corps historian H. C. L. Merillat published a history of the Guadalcanal Campaign based largely on his wartime diaries, but he left out entries that showed him struggling with his role in the military and in the war. Unpublished excerpts reveal Merillat’s thoughts and insecurities during the campaign and reveal some of the burdens of recording history as it happened.