- Hardcover: 314 pages
- Publisher: The Free Press (25 Mar 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743214803
- ISBN-13: 978-0743214803
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 17.4 x 2.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,008,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Hampton Sides author of "Ghost Soldiers" Patrick O'Donnell may be the next Studs Terkel. Spending untold hours with proud and often laconic veterans, coaxing their stories with meticulous care, he has shown us the wet, dark, jungled truth of the Pacific War.
Product Description
"Iwo Jima was a massacre. I never expected anything like that. People were dying left and right...No names should have been used on the flag raisings because we didn't get up there by ourselves. It was the collective actions of a lot of people and there were a lot of Raiders and paratroopers up there with us."
-- Charles Lindberg, "Flag Raiser"
Patrick O'Donnell has made a career of uncovering the hidden history of World War II by tracking down and interviewing its most elite troops: the Rangers, Airborne, Marines, and First Special Service Force, forerunners to America's Special Forces. These men saw the worst of the war's action, and most of them have been reluctant to talk about it. With O'Donnell's respectful coaxing, however, they first began telling their stories through www.thedropzone.org, his award-winning Web site. In 2001, veterans of the European Theater told their stories in O'Donnell's first book, "Beyond Valor." Now, in "Into the Rising Sun," O'Donnell presents scores of veterans' personal accounts, based on over a thousand interviews spanning the past ten years, to tell the story of the brutal Pacific war.
"They were making a lot of noise, talking, yelling to one another, and I heard someone getting beat up on the left. I can still hear the screams. He was begging for mercy. They [the Japanese] were berating him. Later on I found that it was one of my friends, Ken Ritter."
-- Robert Youngdeer, "Guadalcanal"
These veterans were often the first in and the last out of every conflict, from Guadalcanal and Burma to the Philippines and the black sands of Iwo Jima. They faced a cruel enemy willing to try anything, including kamikaze flights andhuman-guided torpedoes. As O'Donnell explains in the Introduction, most of the men in this book were at first reticent to talk. Over the course of the war, they had spearheaded D-Day-sized beach assaults, encountered cannibalism, suffered friendly-fire incidents, and endured torture as pris-oners of war. Heroes among heroes, they include many recipients of the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and other medals of battlefield valor, but none bragged about it. As one soldier put it, "When somebody gets decorated, it's because a lot of other men died."
By at last telling their stories, these men present an unvarnished look at the war on the ground, a final gift from aging warriors who have already given so much. Only with these accounts can the true horror of the war in the Pacific be fully known. O'Donnell has carefully verified each account by comparing it with official records and interviews, and he intersperses each story with brief commentary. Together with detailed maps of each battle, the veterans' stories in "Into the Rising Sun" offer nothing less than a complete picture of the war in the Pacific, a ground-level view of some of history's most brutal combat.
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ON A CLOUDY AUGUST DAY IN 2001, more than one hundred veterans stood shoulder to shoulder at Arlington National Cemetery. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
ON A CLOUDY AUGUST DAY IN 2001, more than one hundred veterans stood shoulder to shoulder at Arlington National Cemetery. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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18 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Memoirs of the Pacific War by the Men who Fought There
11 Mar 2003
Format:Hardcover
Author Patrick O'Donnell has done a masterful job of interviewing surviving Pacific war veterans for this marvelous book. From the first American offensive at Guadalcanal to the final shots on Okinawa, McDonnell's interviews take the reader into the heart of combat in the Pacific. Often graphic and touching at the same time, these interviews tell the reader firsthand what it was like to fight against the Japanese. The soldiers often speak of the horrors of war, such as having a buddy die in their arms, seeing a fellow soldier break down mentally, or facing the atrocities of the Japanese, such as cannibalism of dead American soldiers.
The heart-felt interviews by these veterans were touching to read, and they brought a human element to the war. Many of the vets said that they tried to never get too close to another soldier because of the risk of death, but inevitably, friendships were formed, and when someone died, it usually affected other soldiers in a very personal way. Many of these men would cry like babies after losing a buddy, especially if his dying had saved someone else's life. Uncommon valor was a common virtue amongst these men. The vets spoke of men hurling themselves on live grenades to save their platoon or crawling great distances under enemy fire to rescue a wounded comrade. Compassion was also talked about by the vets. American soldiers on Okinawa continuously helped the civillian population after the Japanese tried to use them as human shields to stop the Americans.
This book moved me in a way I've never felt by a book before. I found myself grimmacing with every bullet wound and crying with the men as they discussed the death of a friend or some horrible act committed by the Japanese. This book offers a perspective on the war which can only be told by the men themselves. I highly recommend this excellent work. The stories contained inside will truly move you, and I'm sure your emotions will come out as well.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Elite Units of
31 Mar 2002
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Reading "Into the Rising Sun" takes one to places of great emotion and leaves the reader's mind going over and over what those courageous Forces went through and had experienced. If you want the truth of battle and just what took place, this is the book to read. Mr. O'Donnell's book "Beyond Valor" is emotionally charged reading. Now, "Into the Rising Sun" gives oral histories a new and deeper perspective. The variation of Airborne, Rangers, Marine Raiders, Paramarines and Merrill's Marauders' stories go to the heart. From bloodshed, cannibalism, distribution of body parts on the battlefield to the compassion of Marines taking care of a crying baby are just a part of what can be found in the author's expertise of drawing out the many stories of these great men. For those that returned -- their lives went on building families and careers, but feeling and knowing that they had done the job of their country's call. They are the forerunners of our Elite & Special forces of today of whom we can be so very proud.
Mr. O'Donnell, thank you for bringing to 'life & lite' one of the greatest wars of time and introducing us to yet, more of it's 'heroes' as no other as done.
Recommend: Beyond Valor, Author Patrick O'Donnell
Mr. O'Donnell, thank you for bringing to 'life & lite' one of the greatest wars of time and introducing us to yet, more of it's 'heroes' as no other as done.
Recommend: Beyond Valor, Author Patrick O'Donnell
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Better than Beyond Valor?
22 Feb 2002
Format:Hardcover
Pat O'Donnell's new book, "Into the Rising Sun", is a serious piece of historical research, but extremely "readable", interesting, and maybe even addicting. He has done a great service to our nation and to the heroes he has dedicated his life to honoring, our WWII veterans. In some ways, this book exceeds the fine job he did in his first book, "Beyond Valor", in the sometimes gruesome, sometimes funny, and always incredible stories of heroism and valor shown by our soldiers and Marines and their personal battles during WWII in the Pacific and CBI theaters. The stories of Japanese cannibalism shocked me, and descriptions of other horrors, and sacrifices, suffered on both sides moved me emotionally. No wonder my father's generation never wanted to talk about their experiences! The descriptions of the battles, as told by the veterans themselves, are exceptional, and confusing, and emotionally draining, and so realistic. Where these men went, and what they went through, no one should have to experience. Pat has done another great job with this book, and I don't know if I can wait another year for his third book. At least I hope there is a third.
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