Through These Portals

A Pacific War Saga

Wayne C. MacGregor

Narrated by James Robert Killavey

Available from Audible

Book published by Washington State University Press

This remarkably immediate memoir is an infantryman’s account of war at its worst—and individual soldiers at their best.

America’s sons, those born in the first quarter of the 20th century, were forged in the twin crucibles of the Great Depression and World War II. The values and attitudes of these mostly idealistic young men sustained them through horrific trials against incredibly courageous, and often suicidially committed, Japanese soldiers blindly loyal to their superior officers and the Emperor.

Through These Portals begins with a graphic description of growing up in Spokane, Washington, during the dire Depression years of the 1930s. The book then takes readers through the war years and the savage, face-to-face small-unit actions in the Mariana Islands, The Philippines, and Okinawa from 1944 to 1945. MacGregor’s account is heartfelt, and easily comparable to classic Pacific war memoirs such as William Manchester’s Good-bye, Darkness and E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed, at Peleliu and Okinawa.