USMC uniform worn by Corporal E.B. Sledge during the battles for Peleliu and Okinawa. The battle for Okinawa began slowly, particularly for the Marines, but the calm was short-lived. In late April, General Buckner finally ordered the Marines to aid the Tenth Army. In the south, the Marines encountered heavily fortified enemy positions and spent the next two months struggling to take the same hills over and over again. The psychological toll of nonstop battle with little sleep and torrential rains and mud was high. Battle fatigue added to the heavy casualties of the battle. Marine regiments of seasoned veterans were slaughtered in repeated battles to take short hills and narrow ridges.

Eugene Sledge served as a mortar man in Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division during the Battle of Okinawa. He wrote the memoir "With The Old Breed On Peleliu and Okinawa" which is considered one of the best memoirs of the Pacific War by a Marine infantryman. He wrote that this was his Model 1941 USMC battle dress jacket "lucky shirt" since he wore it through two of the war's worst battles and survived. Donated by his son, Henry Sledge