Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission

It's a good book. in the beginning it gets confusing, especially if you are not tracking dates.But overall, a good write-up on Pacific war. Worth reading

This is a beautifully written history which not only tells the story of the rescue of the allied prisoners in the Cabanatuan camp in the Philippines, but is also a wrenching catalog of Japanese atrocities carried out on allied prisoners in general, delving into the mentality which motivated such cruelty. I never knew that while the death rate in German prison camps was about four percent in World War II, it reached about 27 percent in Japanese camps. The author explains that the relative cruelty of the Japanese was due to racism against Westerners, as well as being rooted in the ancient Samurai codes of honor known as Bushido: Since Japanese warriors were obligated to choose suicide, or seppuku, rather than be captured alive, they projected their absolutist notions onto their captives, whom they considered shameful as long as they were alive, often gratuitously murdering them. Not surprisingly, there were very few Japanese taken alive in battle. This book covers the Bataan Death march and the eventual imprisonment of the survivors in Cabanatuan, a former military base overrun by the Japanese in the early days of the war. Most of the prisoners died, were murdered, or were shipped to Japan in inhuman conditions. The rescue only involved a remnant of the original captives who had languished and starved for four miserable years. The stoicism and will-to-survive of the prisoners, and the skill and heroism of the rescuers, including many Filippino commandos, is a great story of bravery and ingenuity. One Filippino guerilla commander was especially ingenious in calling for planes to buzz overhead and distract the camp's guards attention to help the American rangers as they squirmed up close to the camp's gates. A salient point was how this rescue, a high-risk operation that only made any sense from a humanitarian point of view, would never have been made by the Japanese fascists who would not have wasted the resources. That was one huge difference between the Western civilized mentality and Japanese militarism. Those who deride America should take note. (We won't mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) Although it's tempting to paint all the Japanese soldiers black, there ware also individual instances of kindness, somewhat relieving the bleak narrative. The news of the rescue was quickly overshadowed by more dramatic events of the war, but this book serves as a fitting memorial for a story that should never grow old. Five stars up!

The book was in mint condition and the story was very well written.I finished it in one sitting.

This book is fab it could B a blockbuster film it is as good a book as I hav read

Arrived in good time, love the book. Brenda

Easy read