The Great Raid on Cabanatuan: Rescuing the Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor
The prolific Breuer's latest popular military history is less focused than some of the others but makes absorbing reading nonetheless. The title refers to its climax, the highly successful 1945 commando raid that rescued the last American POWs in the Philippines from the Japanese. Before we hear that story, we learn a great deal about the fall of the Philippines, the atrocious treatment of American and Filipino POWs, the heroic and frequently dangerous work of both Americans and Filipinos in the resistance, and the role of Douglas MacArthur in the whole story. The book's great virtue is that it allows a number of the rapidly diminishing band of survivors of the whole experience to have their say. In so doing, Breuer has not, on the whole, fallen substantially below his previous high standards.Roland Green