With the Deadeyes on Leyte and Okinawa

Harvey Ball, communications sergeant in Company L, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, served on the front lines in the Pacific during World War II. His memoir recounts the division’s training, and the horrific conditions endured during months of brutal fighting on Leyte and Okinawa. Three comrades were killed by a wayward shell as they stood beside him. Ball himself was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism. Blending battlefield detail with personal reflection, his account contrasts the official record with the infantryman’s lived reality—exhaustion, terror, and the camaraderie that sustained men through jungles, caves, and mountains. Moments of humanity shine through, from poetry shared in the mud to rare R&R breaks, even as the war closed with the atomic bomb and Japan’s surrender. A gifted artist whose best-known creation is the iconic smiley face, Ball also sketched life at the front. He drew portraits of comrades for their families and captured scenes of wartime chaos. These sketches, alongside his memoir, offer a deeply personal insight into the Pacific War.