Title: Some survived
Description: Manny Lawton was a twenty-three-year-old Army captain on April 8, 1942, when orders came to surrender to the Japanese forces invading the Philippine Islands. The next day, he and his fellow American and Filipino prisoners set out on the infamous Bataan Death March--a forced six-day, sixty-mile trek under a broiling tropical sun during which approximately eleven thousand men died or were bayoneted, clubbed, or shot to death by the Japanese. Yet terrible as the Death March was, for Manny Lawton and his comrades it was only the beginning. When the war ended in August 1945, it is estimated that some 57 percent of the American troops who had surrendered on Bataan had perished. But this is not a chronicle of despair. It is, instead, the story of how men can suffer even the most desperate conditions and, in their will to retain their humanity, triumph over appalling adversity. An epic of quiet heroism, "Some Survived" is a harrowing, poignant, and inspiring tale that lifts the heart.

About the Author: Manny Lawton graduated from Clemson College and joined the United States Army as an officer in 1940. He spent three and a half years as a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippines, Japan, and Korea before liberation in 1945. He lived in his hometown of Estill, South Carolina, until his death in 1986.

Reviews: "Some Survived is a story of unrelieved horror, far worse than any fictional tale every imagined ... yet it does not convey despair. On the contrary, it is inspirational ... It makes one glad to be alive."--St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg Times) "Shows that the human spirit can soar like an eagle from the depths of hell on earth."--Charleston News & Courier (Charleston News & Courier).
Subjects: Prisoners of war, Concentration camps, American Personal narratives, World War, 1939-1945, Biography, Japanese Prisoners and prisons, Military biography, World war, 1939-1945, japan, World war, 1939-1945, prisoners and prisons, american, World war, 1939-1945, philippines
Places: Philippines, United States
People: Manny Lawton (1918-)