Undefeated America's heroic fight for Bataan and Corregidor

Sloan (The Ultimate Battle: Okinawa 1945) adds to his reputation as a chronicler of the mid-century American military experience with this account of the service men and women who fought the battles of Bataan and Corregidor in the half-year after Pearl Harbor. His perspective is unusual. The defense of the Philippines has been condemned, in the words of one poet, as "a wasted hope and a sure defeat." Sloan tells the entire story-of military defeat but human triumph-relying heavily on participants' interviews and accounts to describe the fighting, the surrender, and the Bataan death march. He carries the story through the squalid POW camps, the mass deportation to Japan for slave labor, and the guerrilla war fought by the few successful escapees. He concluded that survivors desperately faced mass murder as Japan confronted defeat. Yet this is not a narrative of survival. Sloan presents a story of sustained heroism under unimaginable conditions, of indomitable spirit that brought order to the chaos of prison camps and held together the human cargoes of "hell ships," deliberately left unidentified and attacked by American submarines. Sloan demonstrates that if captivity is a state of being, defeat is only a state of mind. 16 pages of b&w photos, 4 maps. Agent: Jim Donovan, Jim Donovan Literary. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Although the title seems counterintuitive for a book on the worst military defeat in American history, Sloan focuses on the incredibly trying and undeniably heroic experiences of those caught up in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Before the war, being stationed near Manila was not considered a hardship, but after Pearl Harbor life changed for American soldiers in the region. Under intense pressure from Japanese army forces, American units on the island of Luzon retreated first to Manila then, as the situation deteriorated, to the Bataan Peninsula and eventually to Corregidor. A few slipped away into the countryside and organized guerrilla bands that operated-living in constant danger from Japanese soldiers, disease, and betrayal-until the islands were retaken. Very few escaped, barely, before the collapse. Survivors of these battles ended up in prison camps in Japan and Manchuria, where they endured torture and starvation. A Pulitzer Prize-nominated former reporter, Sloan (The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950) interviewed survivors and makes extensive use of oral histories in this personal look at what soldiers experienced as their comfortable garrison lives disintegrated. -VERDICT This accessible narrative will appeal to many military history fans for its themes of bravery, sacrifice, and patriotism. [See Prepub Alert, 10/28/11.]--Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The Darkest Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950, 2009) delivers his usual vivid, energetic battle account. Using reminiscences from a dozen survivors, he introduces prewar Philippines, a tropical paradise with an army led by the imperious General Douglas MacArthur, who insisted a Japanese invasion was impossible. Learning of Pearl Harbor, he remained curiously idle, allowing Japanese planes to destroy his air and naval defenses. After the December invasion, Philippine and American forces retreated to the Bataan peninsula, fighting valiantly until April 1942. The island fortress of Corregidor surrendered a month later. Readers should steel themselves for what followed as Japanese forces treated captives despicably during the Bataan death march and then starved and abused them in prison camps. No revisionist, Sloan delivers the traditional image of MacArthur ("brilliant general with inflated ego"), yet no brilliance is detectable as MacArthur neglected to supply Bataan until it was too late. As a result, starvation and disease decimated his troops. Safe on Corregidor, he allowed subordinates to conduct operations while sending out a torrent of press releases containing dramatic, heartwarming and often fictional accounts of how his genius was frustrating overwhelmed Japanese forces; in fact, his forces outnumbered theirs two to one. Aided by a fawning media, he emerged a national hero when commanders of all other early World War II debacles (Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, Dunkirk) were disgraced. Sloan writes expertly of the soldiers' courage battling the Japanese, but readers must search elsewhere (Richard Connaughton, H.P. Willmott) for the latest insight into the competence of their leader.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.