Eric M. Hammel (June 29, 1946 – August 25, 2020)[2] was a military historian, with a focus on the military campaigns of the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific War, and other military action in World War II as well as military conflicts including the Vietnam War and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Hammel wrote a series of books about World War II Flying Aces but his most influential book was The Root : The Marines in Beirut, August 1982-February 1984 on the subject of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings.
Eric Maxwell Hammel | |
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Born | |
Died | August 25, 2020 | (aged 74)
Education | Attended C. W. Post College, 1964 Temple University, B.S. (journalism), 1972 |
Alma mater | Central High School of Philadelphia, January 1964 |
Occupation(s) | Author and Publisher |
Known for | Writer on Military History, especially the U.S. Marine Corps |
Notable work | The Root : The Marines in Beirut, August 1982-February 1984 |
Awards | 1981, Retail Advertisers' Conference, for radio advertisement for Kennedy Business Machines 1985, Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association Award of Merit, for The Root |
Website | www |
Notes | |
Hammel worked in several occupations before he settled on writing and publishing. He was formerly a stringer and contributing editor to Leatherneck Magazine.[3] He owned and operated a publishing business under the names Pacifica Press and Pacifica Military History. He died on August 25, 2020, of Parkinson's disease.
Eric Hammel is a professional military historian with forty books and nearly seventy magazine articles to his credit (visit www.erichammelbooks.com). He has been writing about U.S. Marines at war since the early 1960s and has spoken to large assemblages of Marines and former Marines over the course of three decades. He often has been invited to lead professional military education seminars at the Marine Corps University as well as at Marine Corps commands on the West Coast. For many years he was a contributing editor and West Coast stringer for Leatherneck magazine. He has appeared in numerous television documentaries on Marine Corps operations in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Beirut. Hammel has also worked as a freelance acquisitions and line editor, and for ten years operated his own military history publishing firm (Pacifica Press). He lives in California.