Bill Leyden counts his blessings after the Pacific

You’ve probably never heard of the golfer Bill Leyden. I hadn’t either until last week (Thursday, 10 March 2016) when the American drama series ‘The Pacific’ concluded on SBS 9 television.  Originally released by HBO in 2010, it is as an epic 10-part mini-series about the brutal conflict with the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II and is based on two first-hand accounts. True stories of the US marines and their stride against the enemy and the elements as they fought their way through jungles, rainforests and mountains in appalling conditions.

 

The final episode “Home” follows the marines on their return to America at the end of the war as they try to pick up their lives back home.  Finding work and settling down to a normal life again after the war was not easy with many marines suffering physical disabilities and bearing deep emotional scars.

 

At the end of the film, during the credits, there is an interesting update of what happened to the marines featured in the series after the war. And that’s where Bill Leyden, the golfer comes into the picture.  He served in K/3/5’s First Platoon.  After the war he returned to his hometown of Hempstead, Long Island with two Purple Hearts. Once he had eventually recovered from his serious injuries, he could not settle into a regular job.  Instead, despite missing a finger and walking around with chunks of Japanese shrapnel in both knees, he became a professional golfer and travelled the country.

 

One can only imagine how wonderfully soothing the tranquillity of the golf course must have been for him after the horrors he had been through on Okinawa.

 

While Bill was busy playing golf all around America, two of his comrades in battle were busy writing their memoirs. Some 20 odd years later they published their books –“With The Old Breed” by Eugene Sledge and “Helmet For My Pillow” by Robert Leckie.  Later film producers Steven Spielburg and Tom Hanks worked their genius on the stories to create ‘The Pacific’, an epic, all-action drama with attention to everyday details – all that you would expect and more from such an illustrious duo.

 

Wendy Hoad

 

 

 

IN MEMORIAM: Bill Leyden passed away in 2008 at the age of 82.

Photograph courtesy of War of Our Fathers.