Hell under the Rising Sun - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Hell under the Rising Sun write by Kelly E. Crager. This book was released on 2008-01-22. Hell under the Rising Sun available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Cold Days in Hell
Cold Days in Hell - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Cold Days in Hell write by William Clark Latham. This book was released on 2013-02-03. Cold Days in Hell available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Prisoners suffer in every conflict, but American servicemen captured during the Korean War faced a unique ordeal. Like prisoners in other wars, these men endured harsh conditions and brutal mistreatment at the hands of their captors. In Korea, however, they faced something new: a deliberate enemy program of indoctrination and coercion designed to manipulate them for propaganda purposes. Most Americans rejected their captors’ promise of a Marxist paradise, yet after the cease fire in 1953, American prisoners came home to face a second wave of attacks. Exploiting popular American fears of communist infiltration, critics portrayed the returning prisoners as weak-willed pawns who had been “brainwashed” into betraying their country. The truth was far more complicated. Following the North Korean assault on the Republic of Korea in June of 1950, the invaders captured more than a thousand American soldiers and brutally executed hundreds more. American prisoners who survived their initial moments of captivity faced months of neglect, starvation, and brutal treatment as their captors marched them north toward prison camps in the Yalu River Valley. Counterattacks by United Nations forces soon drove the North Koreans back across the 38th Parallel, but the unexpected intervention of Communist Chinese forces in November of 1950 led to the capture of several thousand more American prisoners. Neither the North Koreans nor their Chinese allies were prepared to house or feed the thousands of prisoners in their custody, and half of the Americans captured that winter perished for lack of food, shelter, and medicine. Subsequent communist efforts to indoctrinate and coerce propaganda statements from their prisoners sowed suspicion and doubt among those who survived. Relying on memoirs, trial transcripts, debriefings, declassified government reports, published analysis, and media coverage, plus conversations, interviews, and correspondence with several dozen former prisoners, William Clark Latham Jr. seeks to correct misperceptions that still linger, six decades after the prisoners came home. Through careful research and solid historical narrative, Cold Days in Hell provides a detailed account of their captivity and offers valuable insights into an ongoing issue: the conduct of prisoners in the hands of enemy captors and the rules that should govern their treatment.
Hell under the Rising Sun
Hell under the Rising Sun - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Hell under the Rising Sun write by Kelly E. Crager. This book was released on 2008-01-22. Hell under the Rising Sun available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Scattered Under the Rising Sun
Scattered Under the Rising Sun - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Scattered Under the Rising Sun write by Stewart Mitchell. This book was released on 2022-04-30. Scattered Under the Rising Sun available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders was posted to Singapore in 1937 with their families. When the Japanese invaded Malaya in December 1941, the Battalion fought bravely until the surrender of Singapore on 14 February 1942. Those who were not killed became POWs. Of the 1000 men involved initially, over 400 had died by their liberation in summer 1945. Despite the diverse background of the members of the Battalion, all were bound by close regimental spirit. As POWs, all suffered hard labour, starvation, brutality and tropical diseases. Rank was no protection from death. After initial incarceration in Singapore the Gordons were dispersed to work on the famous Thai-Burma railway, in the mines of Taiwan and Japan and on other slave labour projects. Conditions defy modern comprehension. Others died trapped in hell-ships torpedoed by allied submarines. The author has researched the plight of these extraordinary men, so many of whom never saw their native Scotland again. Despite the grim conditions, he captures the strong collective regimental spirit and the humour and cooperation that saved so many who would have otherwise have perished à as many did. This is an inspiring tale of courage and survival against appalling odds.
Under the Rising Sun
Under the Rising Sun - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Under the Rising Sun write by Mario Machi. This book was released on 1994. Under the Rising Sun available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
