I would very highly recommend With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge for an informative and frankly vivid read on the experiences of American troops in the Pacific Theatre. I would recommend accompanying it with a lecture on the role that racism played in the Pacific War; John Dower’s War Without Mercy is a good primer for you if you decide to go this route. Sledge’s book is a memoir of his time as a mortarman in the 5th Marine Regiment o( the 1st Marine Division, and he saw combat on Peleliu and Okinawa. The book is eloquently written and, in my opinion, provides a very unique perspective on the war. Sledge was very intelligent, attaining a doctorate in biology following the war and spending two decades as a professor, and it shows in his writing; he is able to lay bare (occasionally in graphic detail, though nothing high schoolers can’t handle in my opinion) the horrors of his experiences in the Pacific while remaining somewhat detached, describing these experiences in a very sophisticated manner. He did kill at least one Japanese soldier in close combat, and he describes this first encounter on Peleliu in great detail, including his emotions regarding it. Overall I feel it’s an incredibly valuable memoir primarily because it is so well written- it’s not a book of “I was here, and I did this” so much as an intimate look at Sledge as he was during the war, his experiences, and most importantly not only his reactions to these experiences but also those of his comrades. It is not a fun book- it covers the gamut of atrocities committed by both sides during the war- but it is an incredibly personal glimpse at what it was like to fight that war, which was characterized by brutality. It’s incredibly descriptive of the living conditions on both islands, which makes it quite valuable as well- your students will be able to visualize the battlefields through his words, which will be useful in driving home the alien nature of the war in the Pacific. Furthermore, it’s cheap- there’s been several printings, particularly since his story was one featured in HBO’s The Pacific, which while a good television series I would not recommend as a stand in for the book, as the context of several events is lost as well as much of the anguish described in the memoir. Finally, it’s an easy read for laymen- you don’t need to know anything about the Marine Corps to understand what he’s talking about.

As far as topics to cover goes, in terms of the Second World War what are your goals and what do you plan to use as your primary focus, ie the nature of the war, the way it was fought, the political aspects of it, etc.?

To clarify, what type of texts are you looking for? Would these be primary sources for analysis? Secondary sources to assign excerpts from? Or secondary sources with the whole book being assigned reading?

A bit more detail on how these would be consumed would definitely help direct what to recommend.