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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5425
EAN num: 9780385495646
ISBN number: 0385495641
Label: Doubleday
Manufacturer: Doubleday
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: May 15, 2001
Publishing house: Doubleday
Release Date: May 15, 2001
Sale Popularity Level: 146087
Studio: Doubleday
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A tense, powerful, grand account of one of the most daring exploits of World War II.
On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected troops from the elite U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles in an endeavor to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had spent three years in a surreally hellish camp near the city of Cabanatuan. The prisoners included the last survivors of the Bataan Death March left in the camp, and their extraordinary will to live might soon count for nothing—elsewhere in the Philippines, the Japanese Army had already executed American prisoners as it retreated from the advancing U.S. Army. As the Rangers stealthily moved through enemy-occupied territory, they learned that Cabanatuan had become a major transshipment point for the Japanese retreat, and instead of facing the few dozen prison guards, they could possibly confront as many as 8,000 battle-hardened enemy troops.
Hampton Sides's vivid minute-by-minute narration of the raid and his chronicle of the prisoners' wrenching experiences are masterful. But Ghost Soldiers is far more than a thrilling battle saga. Hampton Sides explores the mystery of human behavior under extreme duress—the resilience of the prisoners, who defied the Japanese authorities even as they endured starvation, tropical diseases, and unspeakable tortures; the violent cultural clashes with Japanese guards and soldiers steeped in the warrior ethic of Bushido; the remarkable heroism of the Rangers and Filipino guerrillas; the complex motivations of the U.S. high command, some of whom could justly be charged with abandoning the men of Bataan in 1942; and the nearly suicidal bravado of several spies, including priests and a cabaret owner, who risked their lives to help the prisoners during their long ordeal.
At once a gripping depiction of men at war and a compelling story of redemption, Ghost Soldiers joins such landmark books as Flags of Our Fathers, The Greatest Generation, The Rape of Nanking, and D-Day in preserving the legacy of World War II for future generations.
Amazon.com Review:
The Bataan Death March was just the beginning of the woes American soldiers captured by the Japanese army in the Philippines had to endure. The survivors of the march faced not only their captors' regular brutality (having surrendered, they were considered to be less than honorable foes), but also a host of illnesses such as dysentery and malaria. For three years these 'ghost soldiers' lived in misery, suffering terrible losses.
When Army Rangers among Douglas MacArthur's forces arrived in the Philippines, they hatched a daring plan to liberate their captured comrades, a mission that, if successful, would prove to be a tremendous morale booster at the front and at home. Led by a young officer named Henry Mucci (called 'Little MacArthur' for his constant pipe as well as his brilliance as a strategist), a combined Ranger and Filipino guerrilla force penetrated far behind enemy lines, attacked Japanese forces guarding Allied prisoners at a jungle outpost called Cabanatuan, and shepherded hundreds of prisoners to safety, with an angry Japanese army in hot pursuit. Amazingly, they suffered only light casualties.
In Ghost Soldiers, journalist Hampton Sides recounts that daring rescue, once known to every American schoolchild but now long forgotten. A gifted storyteller, Sides packs his narrative with detailed descriptions of the principal actors on both sides of the struggle and with moments of danger and exhilaration. Thrilling from start to finish, his book celebrates the heroism of hundreds of warriors and brings renewed attention to one of the Rangers' finest hours. --Gregory McNamee
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Rated by buyers 
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Very readable historical novel from which a Hollywood Film Production was rendered.
Gripping, realistic. Very human.
Rated by buyers 
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My father had a friend who he always identified as "that guy survived the Bataan Death March". I was too young to really understand what that was but the way my dad became so reverand about it I knew it must have been bad. I now finally know just how bad it was. In a gripping, harrowing, page turner of a book follow the rescue endeavor of American GI's from
Cabanatuan death camp in the Philippines. Unforgettable.
Rated by buyers -
This is more of the story about the prison camp and the prisoners themselves, so if you are looking for a super dramatic battle story this is not it. The raid is not an easy or boring one by any means, but it is no huge conflict. That said, it doesnt take away from the story, because while I started the book looking for a big battle, i later found myself interested in the life of the prison camp. Also, the book does tend to slow down to a halt in a few places, but it does not kill the read. Anyway, it truly is worth the read and i give it four good stars, pick it up.
Rated by buyers -
This is a fascinating, extremely well-written (an easy read) book about an interesting subject (though I hear the movie based on the book is not very good). I am giving it 4 1/2 stars rather arbitrarily, because the author does not appear to be a professional historian, does appear to make a few historical errors, and because I like to save 5 stars for professional historians. After all, they make less money than regular authors and have to teach students for a living on top of that!
Rated by buyers -
Ghost Soldiers is an excellent account of the liberation of the allied POW's from the Cabanatuan death camp in the Philippines. The book consists of a very large part of primary material, the authors interviews with the former prisoners and in some cases their surviving relatives.
Where most of the healthier POWs had been shipped elsewhere at the time, including to Japan, those remaining in the Cabanatuan camp towards the end of January 1945 were the "sick and the dregs, the sickest and the weakest." As the book also states "They were a special lot, a subset of a subset of bad fortune, an elite of the damned."
General Walter Kruger was General MacArthur's commander of the U.S. Sixth Army. He was tasked by MacArthur to "Go to Manila. Go around them, go through them, but go to Manila." This presented General Kruger with a problem when he received intelligence of a prison camp just over 30 miles away from his forces, that contained the remaining 500 or so allied POW's, mostly survivors from the infamous Bataan death march. The intelligence indicated that the Japanese were likely to execute all prisoners if the allies got too close to Cabanatuan.
Since they could not slow down their advance, the General quickly dispatched an outfit of 121 Rangers of the 6th Ranger Battalion. The rangers were at the time a new and largely unproven elite force of highly trained soldiers, that would work together with the local guerilla to liberate the POWs. The urgency of the mission was immense. Intelligence indicated that they had less than 3 days before the Japanese were likely to start massacring these prisoners due to the proximity of allied forces.
This book describes the events leading up to the surrender of the American forces in the Philippines and the subsequent march that has been referred to as the "Bataan death march". The book's focus switches frequently between the lives of the prisoners in the camp, and the actions of their liberators led by Colonel Henry Mucci. The book culminates with the actual prison break and the harrowing flight back to allied lines with these 513 men, many too weak to walk, with the Japanese in hot pursuit.
The book does a very good job at giving a good insight into the daily lives of the prisoners. It contains sometimes tragic but also comical accounts of how the prisoners were affected by countless infections and severe vitamin deficiency. It shows how the prisoners managed to retain a sort of normalcy in the situation they were in, and how their amazing ingenuity helped make it their "home" for three years.
I found every aspect of this book exciting, whether it was about the history leading up to Bataan march, information about the daily lives of the prisoners, or the actual rescue. It becomes obvious that the rescue could not have been undertaken without the help of the two Philippine guerilla units lead by Eduardo Joson and Juan Pajota. These are given their due credit in this book as well.
I do not hesitate to give the book 5 stars - highly recommended.
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