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Stern as the battle proved to be, Gloucester was not as bad as the next "rest camp," Pavuvu, and neither—in some ways—was Peleliu, where the division again caught the full fury of war in the Pacific. Pavuvu is a stinking, rat-infested little island in the Solomons, fit neither for marine nor Gook. Some men went "Asiatic" (regular Marine lingo for rock-happy). A sentry walked his muddy post for four hours, stopped at the last tent as his relief reported, put his rifle to his mouth and blew the top of his head off. This seemed so reasonably symptomatic of the division's island sickness that a marine in a nearby tent only growled: "Now I gotta find the padre. It's getting so they won't even let a guy outa here that way without a pass."
The movies kept almost everybody on Pavuvu from going rock-happy. A well-rounded starlet's appearance on the screen brought cries of "Back it up!" Then the operator would oblige by rewinding it and showing the female again. When any heroine displayed signs of falling in love the audience implored: "Don't run off with that bum! Wait till I get home!" One night, men of Headquarters Battalion got so mad at Charles Boyer they threw coral rocks at the screen.
Manners for White Women. Finally, on Pavuvu, part of the division was marked for rotation. Hints on good manners were printed (anonymously) for those going home after two years in the South Seas: "Say 'Please pass the butter.' You DO NOT say, 'Throw down the grease ...' If, while dining at a friend's house you wish more dessert, merely stare at your empty plate until someone catches on. DO NOT say, 'How about seconds on the slop?' " Author McMillan refrains from printing "Personal Manners" instructions on addressing live young white women.
By the time the division had won its 19th Medal of Honor and its 18,337th Purple Heart after Okinawa, it was ready to take on more replacements and train for the invasion of Japan. But soon the war was over and all hands were on their way to China.
Unlike men of many other U.S. outfits from Manila to Berlin, the marines took the peace in their stride: no mass meetings, no whimperings to be sent home. Proud Author McMillan tells what made "the old breed" different: "The men of the 1st Marine Division stood steady at their tasks, welded together in what seemed then a dignified silence by the same pervasive sense of discipline and of duty that had been the division's most evident characteristic in 1940."