Voices From The Pacific War

From the New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead and A Higher Call comes an unflinching, brutal, and relentless firsthand chronicle of United States Marine Corps' actions in the Pacific during World War 2. Following fifteen Marines from the Pearl Harbor attack, through battles with the Japanese, to their return home after V-J Day, Adam Makos and Marcus Brotherton have compiled an oral history of the Pacific War in the words of the men who fought on the front lines. With unflinching honesty, these Marines reveal harrowing accounts of combat with an implacable enemy, the friendships and camaraderie they found--and lost--and the aftermath of the war's impact on their lives. With unprecedented access to the veterans, rare photographs, and unpublished memoirs, Voices of the Pacific presents true stories of heroism as told by such World War II veterans as Sid Phillips, R. V. Burgin, and Chuck Tatum--whose exploits were featured in the HBO(R) miniseries, The Pacific--and their Marine buddies from the legendary 1st Marine Division. Includes rare photos

The battle for Saipan is remembered as one of the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific during World War II, and was a turning point on the road to the defeat of Japan. In this work, the survivors--including Pacific Islanders on whose land the Americans and Japanese fought their war--have the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The author offers an introduction to the volume and arranges the oral histories by location--Saipan, Yap and Tinian, Rota, Palau Islands, and Guam--in the first half, and by branch of service in the second half.

Scholarship on Japan has recently broadened to include minority perspectives on communities from marginal workers to those whose sexuality has long been overlooked. This volume, with its combination of fieldwork in the gay and lesbian communities and the use of historical sources such as journals and documents, breaks important new ground in this field. It examines gay life in the Japanese Pacific War, addresses transgender and lesbian as well as gay issues, examines the interface of queer society with the U.S. occupation and the international community, contests major interpretations of contemporary queer society, and introduces readers to the development of lesbian, transgender, and gay communities in postwar Japan.Queer Japan from the Pacific Age to the Internet Age provides a historical outline of the development of sexual-minority identity categories and community formation through a detailed analysis of both niche and mainstream publications, including magazines, newspapers, biographies, memoirs, and Internet sites. The material is also augmented with interview data from individuals who have had a long association with Japan's queer cultures.Including a wealth of images from the "perverse press," this book will appeal to students and general readers interested in modern and contemporary Japan and in gender studies and sexuality.

One of Japan's most important intellectuals, Nambara Shigeru defended Tokyo Imperial University against its rightist critics and opposed Japan's war. His poetic diary (1936-1945), published only after the war, documents his profound disaffection. In 1945 Nambara became president of Tokyo University and was an eloquent and ardent spokesman for academic freedom. Among his most impressive speeches are two memorials to fallen student-soldiers, which directly confront Nambara's wartime dilemma: what and how to advise students called up to fight a war he did not believe in. In this first English-language collection of his key work, historian and translator Richard H. Minear introduces Nambara's career and thinking before presenting translations of the most important of Nambara's essays, poems, and speeches. A courageous but lonely voice of conscience, Nambara is one of the few mid-century Japanese to whom we can turn for inspiration during that dark period in world history.

"John C. McManus, one of our most highly-acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor--a rude awakening for a ragtag militia woefully unprepared for war--to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly-desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower."--Provided by publisher.

An oral history of the themes of war provides letters, photographs, and sketches from from U.S. veterans' who fought in World War I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf.

Micronesians often liken the Pacific War to a typhoon, one that swept away their former lives and brought dramatic changes to their understandings of the world and their places in it. Whether they spent the war in bomb shelters, in sweet potato fields under the guns of Japanese soldiers, or in their homes on atolls sheltered from the war, Micronesians who survived those years know that their peoples passed through a major historical transformation. Yet Pacific War histories scarcely mention the Islanders across whose lands and seas the fighting waged. Memories of War sets out to the fill that historical gap by presenting the missing voices of Micronesians and by viewing those years from their perspectives. The focus is on Micronesian remembrances—the ritual commemorations, features of the landscape, stories, dances, and songs that keep their memories of the conflict alive. The inclusion of numerous and extensive interviews and songs is an important feature of this book, allowing Micronesians to speak for themselves about their experiences. In addition, they also reveal distinctively Micronesian cultural memories of war. Memories of War preserves powerful and poignant memories for Micronesians; it also demonstrates to students of history and culture the extent to which cultural practices and values shape the remembrance of personal experience.

By October, 1944, Japan's once-mighty naval power was almost extinguished. But in one last desperate bid, the Japanese gathered and combined their forces to defeat the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy. With more ships engaged than there were even in the gargantuan World War I Battle of Jutland-and 200,000 men fighting on the sea and in the air- the Battle of Leyte Gulf was a hellish cacophony of cannon fire, murderous strafing airplanes, and deadly explosions. Here, in the words of the men who were there, are the dramatic accounts of what really happened at Leyte. Though often overshadowed by other Pacific War engagements, such as Midway or Guadalcanal, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was, and remains, the largest battle in the history of naval warfare.

This emotional and honest novel recounts a young man's experiences during World War II and digs deep into what he and his fellow soldiers lived through during those dark times. The nightmares began for William Manchester 23 years after WW II. In his dreams he lived with the recurring image of a battle-weary youth (himself), "angrily demanding to know what had happened to the three decades since he had laid down his arms." To find out, Manchester visited those places in the Pacific where as a young Marine he fought the Japanese, and in this book examines his experiences in the line with his fellow soldiers (his "brothers"). He gives us an honest and unabashedly emotional account of his part in the war in the Pacific. "The most moving memoir of combat on WW II that I have ever read. A testimony to the fortitude of man...a gripping, haunting, book." --William L. Shirer