Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission

So glad I read this. Well written and worth the time to understand what happened to these POWS and the ultimate sacrifices anyone fighting in a war makes.

Excellent book about a little known mission in WWII.

Really good book about a brutal combat mission during the Korean war. Not much has been written about this war.This book deals with many characters and their and death struggles. There are moments of joy as well as fatal sadness.

Hampton Sides has wrote a great historical true story of the US Army Rangers, scouts and Filipino resistance fighters rescuing POWs captured at Bataan and others from the monstrous horrible Japanese prison/death camp Cabanaantuan in WW2 Philippines.The 342 page book was a page burner, exciting and extremely informative. The reader has an enjoyable learning experience that is exciting and fast paced. No boring parts. I read it in 2 days. Could not put it down.The reader learns about the Bataan death march and how the US prisoners and a few foreigners were tortured, used as slave labor, given almost no food ( a little rice now and then. They killed and ate what small animals they could ( rats, snakes etc...later they were able to grow vegetables in a garden)and allowed to get all kinds of diseases and vitamin deficiencies. Their bodies are recked with diseases from many parasites and dysentery from human and animal feces and urine contact. Almost no sanitation facilities. We see the Japanese as cruel monsters that killed some of the prisoners for pleasure and thought of them as non humans. Killing and torture are the norm.Hampton does show a very few Japanese that treated the prisoners with a slight degree of compassion.The US Army is in full swing with MacArthur and soldiers returning and taking back the Philippines with Filipino resistance fighter help. Because of this we see the Japanese taking over a thousand of the prisoners out of the prison camp to be shipped to Japan as slaves. The rest of the prisoners are non productive with many diseases and unable to work. US intelligence believes the remainder of the prisoners will be executed. We see a spy "High Pockets" an American women working at her bar/dance establishment giving US intelligence information about Japanese ship movements and troop placements.The prisoners had been in prison three years and they believed America had forgotten them, until the Rangers break into the camp to save them. A group of US Army rangers led by Lt. Colonial Mucci and Captain Prince with the help from scouts and Filipino resistance fighters storm the camp, kill the remaining Japanese there and free the prisoners. We see the firefight and the over 15 mile trip toward US lines using Philippine cattle and carts to carry the men that can not walk. Many of the saved POW weigh only 100 lbs and have lost their teeth, hair,eye sight, and have sores all over their bodies with different disabilities due to disease, parasites and vitamin deficiency. They are walking and non walking skeletons.I won't ruin the ending. Just say that the reader will get a deep empathy with the tortured prisoners and really praise the Rangers, scouts and Filipino resistance fighters for saving them. This is a true WW2 story and a history that should be shown so all will remember the atrocities committed on POWs. This has happened before and after. Will humankind ever stop the inhuman treatment of POWs, end wars forever or is it in the inner nature of humankind to kill each other?A very enlightening book. 5 stars

The Bataan Peninsula extends southward on the Philippine island of Luzon. Directly to the south of Bataan is the island fortress of Corregidor (“the rock”) which guards the entrance to Manila Bay and the city of Manila.On April 9, 1942, Major General Edward King drove north to surrender to General Masaharu Homma of the Japanese Army. King had about 78,000 American and Philippine soldiers under his command plus 20,000 involved civilians. 24,000 were in field hospitals at southern part of Bataan.General MacArthur had been evacuated from Corregidor in March 1942 and General Jonathan Wainwright had taken his place. (This is where Mac got the nickname Dugout Doug.) After he left, 8,000 men on Corregidor continued to fight.General Homma wanted his forces to move south to Bataan and lay seige to Corregidor. They had to march 25,000 (they thought) prisoners north away from Bataan. The actual number turned out to be about 100,000. The Japanese were cruel and ruthless; it was in their interest to reduce this number of live prisoners sharply. (After the war Homma was convicted by a military tribunal of war crimes and executed by firing squad on April 3, 1946.)On January 28, 1945, well after General MacArthur’s return to the Phillipines, LtCol Henry Mucci, CO of the 6th Ranger Battlation, hand-picked 121 men for a secret and dangerous mission to rescue 513 prisoners in a Japanese camp. On their 30 mile march, they would be joined by 80 Philippine guerillas.Author Hampton Sides goes back and forth in time to describe the death march and preparations for the Rangers’ raid on the camp to free the prisoners. He tells of unspeakable horrors, a corpse about every 20 yards. Japanese soldiers beheaded many prisoners and used bayonets in order to save scarce bullets. It took 5-6 days of marching to reach Camp Donnelly, the U. S. Army’s camp before war that held about 9,000 troops. It swelled to 50,000 U. S. and Phillipino prisoners and made me sick and angry just reading all of this. Their ultimate destination was Camp Cabanatuan, 60 miles east of Camp Donnelly. Some 9000 American prisoners would be held there with about one-third buried outside.LtCol Mucci and his Rangers knew that the raid on the camp to free the prisoners would be a complex operation; all hell would break loose but on the Rangers’ terms. A cast of 1,000 would be involved: prisoners, Rangers, Philippine scouts, two guerrilla outfits, civilian natives in small villages near the camp and water buffaloes. Yes, water buffaloes; they would pull carts carrying prisoners who couldn’t march any more.Hampton Sides tells a gripping, horror-filled, but ultimately triumphant story of human courage and survival. I was close to tears by the end of it.

As s boomer, I knew some of WW2 but not as much about the Pacific campaign. This book amazed and inspired me to how great our nation was back then, despite plenty of hardships. Yet another shout out to "the greatest generation".