Hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces launched a devastating attack on U.S. troops in the Philippines. In May 1942, after months of battle with no reinforcements and no hope of victory, the remaining American forces, holed up on the tiny island of Corregidor, suffered a humiliating defeat, and 11,000 fighting men became prisoners of war in the largest American capitulation since Appomattox. Those lucky enough to survive the brutal conditions of their captivity remained imprisoned until General MacArthur returned to the Philippines in 1945.
During his time as a POW, Frank "Foo" Fujita kept a diary of daily happenings, embellished with drawings of life in the camp. He secreted the diary in the walls of his barracks, as the practice was forbidden. That diary forms the basis of these memoirs. Fujita's memoirs are also unique in that he was one of the fewer than nine hundred Americans taken prisoner on the island of Java. The bulk of American POWs in Japanese hands surrendered in the Philippines, and most of the published POW memoirs reflect their experience. Fujita's account of the defense of Java and of the fate of the "Lost Battalion" of Texas artillerymen serves to distinguish this memoir from others. At one point while a POW in Japan, Fujita was forced to be part of the Japanese radio group broadcasting propaganda. After the war, he testified at some of the war crime trials in San Francisco, and the diary on which this book is based was used as evidence in those trials.
A never-before-published account of the experience of an American officer at the hands of Japanese captors, Prisoner of the Rising Sun offers new evidence of the treatment accorded officers and shows how the Corregidor prisoners fared compared with the ill-fated Bataan captives. When Japanese aircraft struck airfields in the Philippines on December 8, 1941, Col. Lewis C. Beebe was Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s chief supply officer. Promoted to brigadier general, he would become chief of staff for General Wainwright in early March, 1942. From his privileged vantage point, Beebe kept diary records of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, their advance to Manila and capture of the Bataan Peninsula, and their assault on Corregidor. On May 6, Japanese troops assaulted Corregidor and secured the island in less than twelve hours. Beebe was among those captured and held prisoner until the end of the war in the Pacific, more than four years later. During his captivity, Beebe managed to keep a diary in which he recorded the relatively benign treatment he and his fellow officers received (at least in comparison with the horrific conditions described in the better-known accounts of less high-ranking POWs held by the Japanese elsewhere). He reports on poor rations, less than adequate medical care, and field work in camps in the Philippines, on Taiwan, and in Manchuria. He also describes the sometimes greedy and selfish behavior of his fellow captives, as well as a lighter side of camp life that included work on a novel, singing, POW concerts, and Red Cross visits. His philosophy demanded that captivity should be borne with optimism and self-respect. Annotation and an epilogue by General Beebe’s son, Rev. John M. Beebe, add details about his military career, and an informative introduction by historian Stanley L. Falk places the diary in the context of the broader American experience of captivity at the hands of the Japanese. The diary itself not only provides new details of the treatment of officers by the Japanese army, but also offers a glimpse into the psyche of one of the members of the Greatest Generation who transformed his captivity by using it to sort out what was most important in life.
Mario Machi survived one of the most terrible episodes in World War II. UNDER THE RISING SUN is his account of that experience. An Army private, Machi was in Manila when the Japanese attacked the Philippines in December, 1941. With the help of a diary that has miraculously survived, Machi relives the heroic campaign by the abandoned "Bastards of Bataan" to defend the Philippines. Upon surrender, Machi became part of the notorious Bataan Death March, a brutal forced march in which thousands of prisoners died. With telling detail & flashes of humor, UNDER THE RISING SUN describes the Death March, Machi's life during three years of near starvation while a prisoner of the Japanese, his liberation, & finally, many years later, his return to the Philippines. As a result of the help he gave other prisoners, Mario Machi was awarded the Bronze Star. Now he has told his story, & as Harold Stephens states in his introduction, "UNDER THE RISING SUN stands as witness to the values that sustained the author on his terrible journey...& we are all made the richer for it." UNDER THE RISING SUN contains photographs. Available from Wolfenden, P.O. Box 789, Miranda, CA 95553; 707-923-2455.
Late in 1940, the young men of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment stepped off the trucks at Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas, ready to complete the training they would need for active duty in World War II. Many of them had grown up together in Jacksboro, Texas, and almost all of them were eager to face any challenge. Just over a year later, these carefree young Texans would be confronted by horrors they could never have imagined. The battalion was en route to bolster the Allied defense of the Philippines when they received news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Soon, they found themselves ashore on Java, with orders to assist the Dutch, British, and Australian defense of the island against imminent Japanese invasion. When war came to Java in March 1942, the Japanese forces overwhelmed the numerically inferior Allied defenders in little more than a week. For more than three years, the Texans, along with the sailors and marines who survived the sinking of the USS Houston, were prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning in late 1942, these prisoners-of-war were shipped to Burma to accelerate completion of the Burma-Thailand railway. These men labored alongside other Allied prisoners and Asian conscript laborers to build more than 260 miles of railroad for their Japanese taskmasters. They suffered abscessed wounds, near-starvation, daily beatings, and debilitating disease, and 89 of the original 534 Texans taken prisoner died in the infested, malarial jungles. The survivors received a hero’s welcome from Gov. Coke Stevenson, who declared October 29, 1945, as “Lost Battalion Day” when they finally returned to Texas. Kelly E. Crager consulted official documentary sources of the National Archives and the U.S. Army and mined the personal memoirs and oral history interviews of the “Lost Battalion” members. He focuses on the treatment the men received in their captivity and surmises that a main factor in the battalion’s comparatively high survival rate (84 percent of the 2nd Battalion) was the comraderie of the Texans and their commitment to care for each other. This narrative is grueling, yet ultimately inspiring. Hell under the Rising Sun will be a valuable addition to the collections of World War II historians and interested general readers alike.
A writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation of her saga, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings. . . . Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all of Gavril’s fearsome powers. No longer possessed, he is instead being driven mad by the Drakhaoul’s absence. Worse, he has betrayed his blood, his people, and put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at risk—and lost.At the mercy of the victorious Eugene of Tielen, Gavril is sentenced to life in an insane asylum. For the power-hungry Eugene longs to possess a Drakhaoul of his own, and his prisoner seems the best way to achieve that goal. Meanwhile, a shattered empire reunites. But peace is as fragile as a rebel’s whisper—and a captive’s wish to be free. . . . Praise for Prisoner of the Iron Tower “A new fantasy series [that] will leave readers drooling to get their hands on the sequel.”—Publishers Weekly “Solid, wonderful fantasy, sparkling and imaginative!”—Booklist “Ash takes her large and colorful cast of characters from horror to pathos, from triumph to betrayal, smoothly and convincingly. a roller-coaster ride of events and emotions in the best modern fantasy manner.”—Kirkus Reviews
The powerful and riveting new book in the multimillion-selling Killing series by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant return and is plotting a full-scale invasion of Japan. Across the globe in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists are preparing to test the deadliest weapon known to mankind. In Washington, DC, FDR dies in office and Harry Truman ascends to the presidency, only to face the most important political decision in history: whether to use that weapon. And in Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito, who is considered a deity by his subjects, refuses to surrender, despite a massive and mounting death toll. Told in the same page-turning style of Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and Killing Reagan, this epic saga details the final moments of World War II like never before.
"A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit"--
The use of American POW's as slave labor by Japanese companies is the great unresolved issue of the Second World War in the Pacific. Unjust Enrichment provides a forum for American servicemen to tell their own stories, while Linda Holmes gives the reader the historic context to recognize the seriousness of the crimes. Bio: Linda Goetz Holmes has been interviewing and writing about World War II prisoners in the Pacific for over 30 years. She is the first historian appointed to the U.S. Government Interagency Working Group, formed in 1999 under the aegis of the National Archives to locate and declassify material about World War II war crimes.
