Given Up for Dead: America’s Heroic Stand at Wake Island

By Bill Sloan. Bantam Books, 2003. ISBN 0-533-80302-6.

Given Up for Dead is the story of the World War II battle for Wake Island in the Pacific, a battle that was both a victory and a defeat for the Americans.

Author Bill Sloan is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist who has written seven other books, including JFK: Breaking The Silence (Taylor, 1993). Here he offers the exciting and tragic true story of the Marines, sailors, and civilians who fought the Japanese in “America’s first real battle of World War II.”

Wake Island long has been overshadowed by other, more famous Pacific battles. In the early days of World War II, the United States desperately needed a victory to bolster morale and demonstrate the American fighting spirit. The defense of Wake Island provided just such a boost, with some reporters calling it “the Alamo of the Pacific.”

Sloan tells this gripping story in an exciting and suspenseful manner, with firsthand accounts of the men who battled the Japanese from Dec. 8 to the garrison’s final surrender on Dec. 23, 1941. Those 16 horrific and fateful days proved that Americans could fight and that the Japanese were not supermen.

Occupied by nearly 400 Marines of the 1st Defense Battalion, a group of Marine aviators, some sailors from the Navy seaplane base, a few Army radiomen, and more than 1,100 civilian construction workers, Wake Island was a forward base on a coral atoll midway in the Pacific, a long way from Pearl Harbor. Sloan describes the lack of supplies, weapons, ammunition, and aircraft but reveals there was no shortage of courage and determination.

The Americans suffered greatly through air attack, naval attack, and ground invasion yet managed to
inflict terrible punishment on the Japanese. They sank enemy ships, shot down enemy planes, and slaughtered enemy infantry, but that was not enough.

Read about Marine Maj. James Devereux’s bold plan to engage the enemy landing force, about the first sinking of a full-size Japanese submarine, and about the brutal treatment by the Japanese of American POWs during their 40 months of captivity. Sloan also explains the strange circumstances of the famous propaganda hoax message, “Send us more Japs.” Finally, Sloan discusses how Wake Island could have been saved if not for the dawdling and indecisiveness of admirals at Pearl Harbor.

The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II

By Donovan Webster. Farrer, Straus, and Giroux, 2003. ISBN 0-374-11740-3.

Not since historians Barbara Tuchman and Louis Allen has an author so thoroughly described the epic struggle in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of World War II as has Donovan Webster in his marvelous book, The Burma Road.

The CBI theater is described as “the wettest, muddiest, most-unknown, most-disorganized, lowest priority corner of World War II.” It also was the longest British campaign of the war; saw the greatest defeat on land of the Japanese Army; covered harsh mountain, jungle, and desert terrain; and was run by some of the most colorful and eccentric characters of any war.

An award-winning journalist, Webster has written one other book, Aftermath: The Remnants of War (Vintage, 1998), about the lasting effects of war on people, geography, and culture. In The Burma Road, Webster presents a lively and comprehensive story of incredible hardship, merciless brutality, bold initiative, and military stupidity.

The actual Burma Road barely exists today, and the author recently attempted to travel the entire 1,100-mile length from India to China. His book, however, is less about the road itself and more about the overall Allied campaign to defeat the Japanese in Burma and to supply China and keep it in the war.

Among all the theaters of World War II, the CBI theater was perhaps the most unusual. Battles there were fought in a most inhospitable climate and terrain, where disease and starvation were enemies as deadly as the Japanese. Webster tells this story from both Allied and Japanese viewpoints, highlighting the unorthodox tactics, logistics, planning, and leadership displayed by both sides.

According to Webster, the CBI theater produced oddball, nonconformist military leadership perfectly suited to what one reporter called “a fabulous compound of logistics, personalities, Communism, despotism, corruption, imperialism, nonsense, and tragic impotence.”

Webster offers vivid portrayals of American Gen. “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, British Gen. Orde Wingate, and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, as well as other Allied and Japanese figures. Stilwell commanded American and Chinese forces with unmatched energy, imagination, and determination along with blistering profanity. Wingate, nicknamed “Stinky” for his unhygienic personal habits, was a master of unconventional warfare. Chiang is pictured as a vain, nervous despot who sought to do as little as possible while wringing aid from the Allies.

Webster also provides riveting accounts of the long-range penetration groups of the famed Merrill’s Marauders, Wingate’s Chindit forces, and the mysterious Detachment 101, as well as the gruesomely effective guerrilla tactics of the Kachin Levies. He adds a superb section on the Allied airlift to China, called flying “the Hump” over the Himalayas; describes how the Burma Road was constructed; and details the peculiar political complexities of an unnatural theater command structure.

One of Webster’s most poignant stories is about the POW and slave labor used by the Japanese to build the infamous “Death Railway,” including the true story of the building of the bridge over the River Kwai.

Filled with action, anecdotes, analysis, and fresh perspective and ably supplemented with maps and photos, this book tells of a forgotten war where armies slaughtered each other over a supply road that, in the end, really did not matter.

— Reviews by William D. Bushnell

Member Books

NON-FICTION

FICTION

Yahuti. By Lt Col. Gary Brosch, USA-Ret.
Almost 90,000 men disappeared into thin air between World War II and the Vietnam War. Douglas Mallory was a military officer, an intelligence operative doing the bidding of Intelligence Community. He was officially listed as being killed in an air accident in the Alps in 1969. His remains were buried, his file closed. Thirty years later, Michael Howell appears, claiming to be the long-deceased Mallory. His death had been fabricated; he was abducted and physically altered. Now free, Mallory hunts for his betrayers. How many more Mallory’s are there?
PublishAmerica, P.O. Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705. (301) 695-1707. www.publishamerica.com. ISBN 1-4137-1113-8. 450 pp. $19.95 plus postage.

Beyond. By Maj. Ben R. Games, USAR-Ret.
This is a science fiction story that starts in Roswell, N.M. It explains why a flying saucer crashed and about some of the people who saw the aliens. It tells why the Zorans came to earth looking for a Battle Captain to help save them from being hunted for food by the Altairons. It is not a story for the weak of heart.
1st Books Library, 2595 Vernal Pike, Bloomington, IN 47404. (888) 839-8640. www.1stbooks.com. ISBN 1-4140-3739-2. 478 pp. $21.95 plus postage.

Mutti’s War. By CW4 M.J. Brett, USA-Ret.
Based on a true story, this action adventure tells the story of Regina Wolff, a young German mother who is forced to smuggle her three small boys out of East Prussia when the Russians surround it in 1944. In her attempt to survive and find her missing husband, she must achieve political and emotional awakening and learn to make life and death decisions, in spite of their painful consequences.
Blue Harmony Press, 528 Southern Cross Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80906. (719) 633-4661. ISBN 0-9748869-0-4. 312 pp. $14.00 postpaid.

Forget Me! Not! By Col. Donald R. Waddell, USAF-Ret.
This is the dramatic, tragic, fictionalized account of a volunteer undercover Air force pilot serving his tour as an O-1 Bird Dog Forward Air Controller in the Kingdom of Laos. After being shot down, he becomes a POW and is lost in SEASIA for 20 years. This story gives every pilot who flew in SEASIA the opportunity to recall the memories of his tour, both good and bad.
Booklocker.com Inc., P.O. Box 2399, Bangor, ME 04402. www.booklocker.com. ISBN 1-59113-441-2. 401 pp. $18.95 plus postage.

The Last Boomerang. By Capt. John J. McIntyre, USN-Ret.
When a downed spy plane was impounded by the Chinese in 2001, Americans got a momentary glimpse at the activities of U.S. spy operations. In his new novel, McIntyre pulls the curtain all the way back to reveal secret missions conducted in another area of “Naval interest,” the Black Sea. This is a taut, political thriller ripped from the secrets of history that most Americans never knew even took place.
1st Books Library, 2595 Vernal Pike, Bloomington, IN 47404. (800) 839-8640. www.1stbooks.com. ISBN 1-4107-9875-5. $14.50 plus postage.

MEMOIRS

Flying through the Years: A Trilogy of Short Tours and Collection of Short Stories. By Lt. Col. Bob Lanzotti, USA-Ret.
Lanzotti provides his memoirs as an Army helicopter pilot during three overseas tours, all conducted during the turbulent decade of the sixties. Each tour, one to Korea and two to Vietnam, contains at least a score of short stories. Lanzotti begins with his often humorous reflections as a fledgling new aviator in Korea and culminates with his command of the Crimson Tide, a Chinook unit within the 1st Cavalry Airmobile Division. His stories pay well-earned homage to the achievements of the men he served and flew with during what he recalls as his greatest adventure.
Dorrance Publishing Co. Inc., 701 Smithfield Street, Third Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15222-3906. (412) 288-4543. ISBN 0-8059-6195-X. 169 pp. $19.00 plus postage.

Hell’s Folly: WWII Memoirs. By Maj. William B. Moody, USA-Ret.
Moody shares his World War II experiences from 1941-1945. His encounters range from rollicking humor to encyclopedic horror in this very personal memoir.
Trafford Publishing Inc., Suite 6E, 2333 Government St., Victoria, B.C. V8T4P4, Canada. (250) 383-6864. www.trafford.com. ISBN 141200108-0. 233 pp. $22.95 postpaid.

Beyond the Call of Duty: The Story of an American Hero. By Col. Bernard Fisher, USAF-Ret., and Jerry Borrowman.
Fisher details his life from the farms of Utah to the exciting career of an Air Force pilot, spanning World War II, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Readers have a front row seat as he fights in military confrontations, scrambles with the Russians, flies full thrust through the heart of storms, flies bombing missions while avoiding ground fire, and spends a life’s career in the military often far away from those he loves.
Shadow Mountain, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, UT 84130. (800) 453-3876. www.shadowmountain.com. ISBN 1-59038-247-1. 232 pp. $18.95 plus postage.

A Ramble Through Life. By Col. Robert Richard Boyd, AUS-Ret.
Both historical and entertaining, this book not only tells the tale of the author, but of his family and their place in history. Boyd offers the reader a look into the events that shaped his life, such as stealing a watermelon from a neighboring farm, learning about the facts of life from the sharecroppers on his family’s land, his patriotism in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge, and courtship of the woman who would ultimately become his beloved wife. Interspersed with pictures and entries from a diary kept by is grandfather during the Civil War, this book is a memoir and a living history.
Ivy House Publishing Group, 5122 Bur Oak Circle, Raleigh, NC 27612. (800) 948-2786. www.ivyhousebooks.com. ISBN 1-57197-376-1. 316 pp. 33.95 plus postage.