76 Hours
A Novel of Tarawa
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- €12.99
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- €12.99
Publisher Description
The gripping historical novel of the invasion of Tarawa by US Marines in World War II, from bestselling author, journalist, and historian Larry Alexander.
The island of Tarawa, a tiny spit of sand out in the middle of the Pacific, teemed with five hundred pillboxes filled with artillery pieces and highly motivated Japanese soldiers. Their commanding officer encouraged his troops, saying, “It would take one million men one hundred years” to conquer Tarawa. They were convinced that the Americans would be slaughtered before they ever got ashore.
Private Pete “Hardball” Talbot was one of the US Marines tasked with taking the island. A cocky, tough street kid from Philadelphia, Pete joined up to escape his abusive father. In his mind, nothing the Japanese could throw at him could be as bad as what his father dished out. He was angry, and more than willing to take it out on the enemy. But once he climbed over the side and into the landing craft, and once the Japanese artillery and machine guns opened up in defense of the island, Pete knew this was going to be different. It would take all his training, and all his street smarts to stay alive while those around him got blown to bits.
Despite Japanese predictions, it took the United States Marines seventy-six hours to take Tarawa. It was a walk in the park … if the park were in the middle of hell itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
WWII historian Alexander (A Higher Call) makes his fiction debut with a rote take on the invasion of Tarawa Atoll. Pvt. Pete "Hardball" Talbot, three months out of basic training, hits the beach with his Marine unit and immediately comes under fire. The reader also meets two of the atoll's Japanese defenders, Leading Seaman Kenji Sakai and his friend, Chief Petty Officer Tadao Onuki. Of course, Pete and Kenji take notice of one another amid the chaos of battle, one of the many cliches that this story traffics in. Pete's squad is full of stereotypical characters—the sharp-shooting Southerner, the tough-as-nails gunnery sergeant, the intellectual college boy whom the others call "Professor"—and Pete's transformation from lone wolf to team leader is rather obviously dramatized. But Alexander deserves credit for investing in the Japanese soldiers' points of view, driving home the point that, in war, no side has a monopoly on heroism or barbarism. Readers of old-fashioned war novels will appreciate this.
