Crisis in the Pacific
The Battles for the Philippine Islands by the Men Who Fought Them
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
From the depths of defeat...
On December 8, 1941, one day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Air Force struck the Philippines in the first blow of a devastating invasion.
With an undersupplied patchwork army at his command, General Douglas MacArthur led a valiant defense of the Philippines. When defeat came, MacArthur swore he would return, while thousands of POWs fell into Japanese hands — and faced a living hell that many would not survive.
To the dawn of victory...
In this gripping oral history, Gerald Astor brings to life the struggle to recapture the Philippines: the men who did the fighting, the battles that set the stage for an Allied invasion, and the acts of astounding courage and desperation that marked the campaign on both sides.
From Corregidor to the Battle for Manila, from horrifying jungle warfare to cataclysmic clashes at sea, on beachheads and in the air, Crisis in the Pacific draws on the words of the men who were there — capturing this crucial heroic struggle for victory against Japan.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
War's raw brutality pours over the pages of Astor's fourth book (after Operation Iceberg) to chronicle WWII combat by drawing heavily on firsthand accounts of American vets. In examining the Philippines' fall to the Japanese in 1941-1942, the consequent suffering of civilians and American POWs and the U.S. counterattack in 1944, Astor criticizes Douglas MacArthur's judgment in the war's initial stages, defends his decision to counterattack and considers pointless his later extension of operations to the southern islands. The author's more valuable work here, however, is his reconstruction of the frontline experience. Astor's evocative descriptions of jungle fighting highlight the fact that, even in an age of technology, ground combat in the Pacific was primarily man-to-man. American flexibility and initiative at all levels eventually triumphed, but as Astor makes clear in this dramatic narrative, the physical and emotional costs of defeating the Japanese were as high as those incurred in the struggle against any other foe in U.S. history. Maps, photographs.
