Private Henrik Hahnemann is an eighteen-year-old Missouri farm boy growing up in the hard scrabble times of the Great Depression. Known for his hunting skills, his close-knit family often depend on him to bring home dinner. Shaken and bitter by the attack on Pearl Harbor, he is fixated on revenge and chooses the Marine Corps as the means for his personal retribution. Granted an early high school graduation, "Handyman" Henrik struggled with the change from a peaceful famer's son, but his platoon come to recognize his shooting and hunting skills. When the chips were down he summons the determination necessary to survive against hopeless odds.

Superior Private Obatia Yoshiro is an average twenty-year-old student expected to eventually take over his father's glassworks. To most an unassuming economics student, he has another side – a side shaped by long hours crewing an uncle's fishing boat where he is exposed to the physical and mental demands of the elements. His school plans suddenly undermined by a draft notice, he makes the best of a dismal and brutal life of absolute obligation and unquestioning obedience.

Both will end up on a rugged and brutal South Pacific island called Guadalcanal, where, two determined nations pit all they could spare; committing every airplane, ship, and soldier they could funnel into the cauldron. Values and beliefs, discipline and obedience, massed firepower or skill at arms – what will prevail in this nightmare?