Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission by Hampton Sides.

Ghost Soldiers is a well-written and engrossing narrative history of the rescue of 513 American and British POWs from the Japanese prison camp of Cabanatuan in the Philippines. The soldiers imprisoned at Cabanatuan at the time of the rescue (January, 1945) were mostly survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March, survivors who were barely surviving since most of the somewhat healthier prisoners had already been transferred to Japan in anticipation of the Americans retaking of the Philippine Islands. This who were left at Cabanatuan were diseased, injured, and in a very precarious situation—not quite liberated, still under Japanese control, and dispensable because of their lack of usefulness as workers for the Japanese. There were indeed rumors of and precedent for a Japanese massacre of all the prisoners left at the camp as the Japanese retreated before the advancing U.S. armed forces.

The U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion was tasked with the mission of rescuing these prisoners of Cabanatuan from behind Japanese lines in January, 1945. The mission had to be done secretly and quickly. No one knew how long the prisoners would remain alive to be rescued. And the Rangers were a new and untried group of elite “commandos”, sort of an experiment. Would they be able to find the prisoners and bring them out before the Japanese army stopped them?

So, Mr. Sides, a journalist and author, has grabbed onto a great story. And it’s one I had never read about before, although I had read some things about Bataan (The Jersey Brothers by Sally Mott Freeman, We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman). He tells the story from alternating points of view, that of the Army Rangers who were sent to rescue the prisoners and that of the prisoners themselves who struggled with feelings of hopelessness and abandonment in addition to the physical deprivations and tortures of their ordeal. This way of telling the story works to increase the suspense as the two stories merge into the climactic scene of the Rescue.

One of the interesting things about this story was meeting unexpected heroes that I would like to read more about. Chaplain Robert Taylor, one of the prisoners who was selected to go to Japan just before the rescue took place, ended up on the ill-fated ship, Oryoku Maru, a hellish prison ship that was sunk off the coast of Bataan by the U.S. Navy. Taylor survived, went on another ship which was also disabled by U.S. bombers, finally was sent to Manchuria, survived his imprisonment there, and eventually after his return home became the highest ranking chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. Days of Anguish, Days of Hope by Billy Keith is a biography of Chaplain Taylor that I would like to read.

Then, among the 6th Ranger battalion, I encountered Dr. James Canfield Fisher, son of the famous author Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Captain James Fisher was a surgeon assigned to the Ranger battalion that freed Cabanatuan, and he insisted on going with his men up to very gates of the prison camp in order to be available to treat those who might be wounded in the attempted rescue. His story is all the more intriguing and poignant for me since I know of his mother and her books, including the classic Understood Betsy. Who knew that reading about World War II in the Philippines could circle around to connect back to children’s literature?

I recommend Ghost Soldiers to readers who are interested in reading about World War II adventures, the War in the Pacific, stories of courage and endurance, and just good narrative nonfiction. (If you liked Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand or Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff . . .) I found it to be fascinating and inspiring.