> Behalf Of Marvin Long, Jr. > > I'm interesting in getting recommendations of good books to read about > the Pacific War from all perspectives. > > ------
One book I've found very good as an overview of the Pacific War is "Japan's War: The great Pacific conflict" by Edwin P Hoyt. He's an American author, so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding the book. It was published 1986. If you want books on the POW perspective, the only ones I know of deal with the Australian/British POWs. Treatment and conditions will have been very, very similar though. 1. The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop by E E Dunlop. Dunlop was an Australian Army doctor captured in Java and who worked, like your grandfather, with the captured troops until repatriation in 1945. Weary was a genuine Australian hero, and his diary contains a lot of sketches - many horrific - of the injuries and diseases suffered by the POWs and of the prostheses and instruments made from whatever materials were to hand during captivity. Again, the focus is on the Burma Railway - which I don't think many Americans were sent to - but I'm sure that otherwise the conditions would have been similar to those your grandfather worked under. 2. The Naked Island by Russell Braddon. A first hand account of his capture at Singapore with the 8th Aust Division, life in Changi and later on the Burma Railway. Written in the 1950s it started Braddon's career as an author. 3. Changi Photographer: George Aspinall's Record of Captivity by Tim Bowden. This includes many photographs taken in secret by an Australian soldier at Changi prison (Singapore) and along the Burma Railway. It also includes Aspinell's comments about how he took some of the photos and about life as a prisoner under Nippon. 4. White Coolies by Betty Jeffrey. This might be called "Paradise Road" in the US as this book was the basis for the Glen Close/Cate Blanchett film of the same name that was done a few years back. Excellent film, too. Again based on a diary recorded during captivity, Jeffrey was an Australian Army nurse captured after her ship was sunk following evacuation from Singapore. She was one of 53 surviving nurses from the sinking, 22 of whom were soon after executed on a beach by the Japanese. (My late mother-in-law used to work with the only nurse to have survived the beach massacre.) Hope this helps. Brett
