Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(267)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ghost Soldiers, by Hampton Sides, is possibly the best piece of work I have read on any war.It provides an in depth glance at the many tortures and shortcomings that many of our Americans experienced during the battles, surrenders, and prison camps in the Philippines. The book captures the detail and gore around the harsh surroundings and treatment from the Japanese troops. Sides explains the "Death March" to Cabanatuan very vividly. One such event of the march was the fight for the middle positions. If a soldier was noticed straggling on the outsides of the lines, they would most likely be put to death in some way or another. Also, Sides makes a point of showing how material things we feel will always be there, such as food, may someday disappear. At Cabanatuan prison camp, the prisoners valued food more than anything. Ghost Soldiers portrays the human condition under these crude circumstances as feeble and low. Many of the soldiers at the camp lost over one-hundred pounds and gained many diseases such as beriberi. Sides also does an exquisite job on explaining the capture of the prison camp by the American soldiers. He writes about the camp every other chapter and then the raid every chapter in between so the reading will not become stale and boring. The overall worth of this book is excellent. The book takes one on a journey through all the human emotions.

I bought this book after a friend recommended it to me. She knew that my father survived the Bataan Death March & was a POW for almost 3 years, had been held at the Cabantuan prison camp & was there when this rescue took place. Funny to see the postcard shown in the book and I have the same one my father sent all those years ago.

My father is gone now, I only wish he could have read this book. It took years but at the urging of his family he finally wrote down in journal form the suffering and cruelty he received and saw handed out.

As the years went by his one great saddness was the fact that so many people, adults among them, had never even heard of the Bataan Death March. This is some small part of history that should be taught to our school children in a history class, but for some reason has been neglected.

Thank-you Hampton Sides for bringing this true life story to generations of people.

Renee Salewsky

This book does not waste space with details of WWII. You will not finish this book with any understanding of the Pacific Theatre, why it started, how it ended, who the generals were and what were the broad tactics and strategies of victory and defeat. It simply recounts one daring raid. You will be horrified by what man does to man. You will be uplifted by what man does for man. The violence and cruelty, the sacrifice and selflessness. There are heroes and villains and any of us can be either at any time. This book will make you cry and when the tears of pain and loss and hope and bravery block your vision, it will be the only time you are not reading. You will not put it down until you are finished. I finished it in one sitting both the first and the second time I read it. In several months, I am sure I will finish it again in one sitting.

The great men who fought selflessly against Japan have a trustworthy champion in Hampton Sides, and one cannot but wish they were still here to be thanked. Sides brings to vivid life a horrendous ordeal. I was especially moved by soldier Henry Lee's poetry and will see if my library can obtain his posthumously-published, buried under a prisoner shack in palm-leaves volume "Nothing But Praise."

When I first saw Sides' book I must admit I was a bit miffed. Forrest Bryant Johnson gave a fantastic account of the Cabanatuan resue in his book HOUR OF REDEMPTION and I felt like Sides was taking advantage of Johnson's great work.

However, Sides presents the story in a different way and includes many tidbits that are not found in Johnson's book, such as numerous Japanese atrocities and the massacre at Palawan. Sides also has a great writing style that I enjoyed immensely.

While Johnson's book is still the standard on this subject, Sides' book is a great addition to the field.

I rated GHOST SOLDIERS a 4-star rather than 5 as it contains no footnotes or endnotes, no index, and no table of contents. I believe that all serious history books should contain at least notes and and index.

Hampton Sides writes of a harrowing escape mission in the book Ghost Soldiers. He tells of a group of brave Rangers in the American Army who risk their lives to save the last remaining soldiers of the Bataan Death March. Throughout the book, you read about the Rangers Mission from start to finish and from the prisoners view as well. It switches back and forth until finally the camp is liberated from the Japanese. Heroes can be found everywhere, whether it be Colonel Mucci, the man who lead the operation, Clara Fuentes, who risked her life to smuggle information, food, and items to the prisoners, Captain Prince, Dr. Hibbs and so many more. Each person has their own story to tell and each had a very important role that led to the liberation of the camp at Cabanatuan. Even though the ending was no secret, it was hard to put the book down because it detailed the mission so well that I had to know what exactly was planned next.

This book is aimed at the general reading public. Consequently, it lacks the detailed minutiae typically associated with military histories. That's good news for general readers who just want an interesting story. Bad if you're looking for details about organization, equipment, training, logistics, communications, etc. Stephen Ambrose, whose books were also aimed at a general audience, did a much better job of including sufficient detail in his work. Also, like many other books in this genre, "Ghost Soldiers" suffers from a dearth of adequate maps. You simply cannot write about military operations and not include good maps. As an aside, it may not be easy for American readers to dismiss the brutality of the Japanese. After reading "Ghost Soldiers", the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may seem less regretable. Almost forgot, there's no index either!

I can't stop reading. This book is amazing. I don't even really know why I purchased it, on a whim I guess, but I can't believe what I would've been missing had I not. It is everything said in the other reviews, and then some. I was literally sweating at some points of this story, it is truly a testament to the will of our armed forces. Check out the other review for details. God speed!

This book is a great book that shows the ruthlessness of Japanese soldiers toward American POW's. It starts off on the fight for Bataan, talks about the Bataan Death March and tells about their times at the POW camp. It show all of the POW's hardships. It also shows the Bravery of the rangers who went to rescue their comrades.

This may not be the best written of books. It certainly lacks the command of language of a David McCullogh history.

All that aside, it is riveting history. A story that some how had become a whisper between historians is told in hellishly painful, personal detail.

In 1945, as the Allied war machine continuously grinds the Japanese empire, Japan's leaders issue orders to execute Allied POWs. At some of the POW camps scattered throughout the Pacific theater, these orders are carried out. In order to prevent another massacre, a resue mission of near suicidal bravery is planned and carried out by the 6th Army Ranger Battalion.

The rescue mission is a heroic story in itself. The book is made even better by the surrounding cast of characters: Claire Phillips who by luck, pluck and strange circumstance becomes an American spymaster or the various Filipinos without whom the raid would not have been possible.

Excellent history! Well worth reading!