Into the Rising Sun: In Their Own Words, World War II's Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat - Softcover

O'Donnell, Patrick K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743214811 ISBN 13: 9780743214810

Publisher: Free Press, 2003

Synopsis

In his award-winning book Beyond Valor, Patrick O'Donnell reveals the true nature of the European Theater in World War II, as told by those who survived. Now, with Into the Rising Sun, O'Donnell tells the story of the brutal Pacific War, based on hundreds of interviews spanning a decade. The men who fought their way across the Pacific during World War II had to possess something more than just courage. They faced a cruel, fanatical enemy in the Japanese, an enemy willing to use anything for victory, from kamikaze flights to human-guided torpedoes. Over the course of the war, Marines, paratroopers, and rangers spearheaded D-Day-sized beach assaults, encountered cannibalism, suffered friendly-fire incidents, and endured torture as prisoners of war. Though they are truly heroes, they claim no glory for themselves. As one soldier put it, "When somebody gets decorated, it's because a lot of other men died." By at last telling their stories, these men present a hard, unvarnished look at the war on the ground, a final gift from aging warriors who have already given so much. Only with these accounts can the true horror of the war in the Pacific be fully known. Together with detailed maps of each battle, Into the Rising Sun offers a complete yet deeply personal account of the war in the Pacific, and a ground-level view of some of history's most brutal combat.

About this title

Review:

The author of Beyond Valor offers a new collection of oral histories from veterans of the Second World War, this time from the Pacific theater. In an introduction, Patrick K. O'Donnell warns, "oral histories are perhaps the best means available to reveal the horrors and pathos of the foxhole." Indeed, several of the accounts he compiles on these pages are grisly, such as the story of Tom Lyons, stabbed in the neck by a Japanese soldier on Guadalcanal. Lyons survived, but only after being heaped on top of a pile of dead bodies. Rumors of his death reached home: "My mother got a check from my insurance company saying I was dead the same day she got a letter from me written by a nurse at a hospital in New Zealand." Combat stories abound, including a firsthand account of Gunnery Sergeant William G. Walsh jumping on a grenade to protect his squad on Iwo Jima, a feat for which he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. O'Donnell organizes his material chronologically and introduces each chapter to help readers understand the context of the soldiers' individual narratives. For those who enjoy real-life war stories told from the perspective of the men who were there, Into the Rising Sun is hard to beat. --John Miller

About the Author:

Patrick K. O'Donnell is a military historian and the author of six books: Beyond Valor, winner of the prestigious William E. Colby Award for Outstanding Military History; Into the Rising Sun; Operatives, Spies and Saboteurs; We Were One; The Brenner Assignment; and They Dared Return. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks’ award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers, and for documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Fox News. He is an expert on WWII espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency on the modern battlefield. O’Donnell is also the founder of the Drop Zone (thedropzone.org), an award-winning online oral history Web site. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743214811
• ISBN 13: 9780743214810
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320