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35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
POWERFUL HISTORY, May 21, 2005
This review is from: Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)
This book, about a subject that many Americans are unaware, is both a personal journey and taut war history. America in the early Forties was still dealing with the depression, and how it would conduct itself, while much of the world was already at war.
This story, not about generals or admirals, is instead a tribute to dedicated, unassuming men caught in the throes of the terrible war that finally found America in 1941.
John Glusman actually writes about four different things: the allure of Asia to these young men, the defeat in the Philippines, their struggles to survive, and finally to recover their lives.
His style is easily readible and compelling.
I have read many books on this topic, and the only one that compares is John Toland's, But Not In Shame.
Please read this book! It is a magnificent work of history, and a moving personal tribute.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Four Heroic Doctors and Their Struggle Against the Japanese, July 20, 2005
This review is from: Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)
Author John A. Glusman has written a masterful book about the horrible conditions Allied POWs faced as prisoners of the Japanese. In particular, this book concentrates on the lives of four American doctors; Lt. George Ferguson, Lt. Fred Berley, Lt. John Jacob Bookman, and Lt. Murray Glusman. All were stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
After enduring the defeat of Bataan, and later Corregidor, some 78,000 American and Filipino POWs were forced to march over seventy miles in what became known as the Bataan Death March. For the next three and a half years, Ferguson, Berley, Bookman, and Glusman were at the mercy of their Japanese captors. Food and water rations were virtually nonexistant, beatings were frequent, and the work was long and hard. The atrocities committed by the Japanese can only be described as barbaric, and the doctors did the best they could to help the sick and wounded with virtually no medical supplies at all.
Eventually, the doctors were loaded aboard Japanese "Hell Ships"; overcrowded freighters converted into ships to carry POWs to mainland Japan. The conditions on the ships were worse than in the camps. Men were placed in vastly overcrowded and stifling holds, given virtually no food or water, and were unable to even lie down due to the crowding. But the greatest fear faced by the POWs was attack by American submarines. Once torpedoed, the Japanese were known to machine gun the surviving POWs in the water. Indeed, George Ferguson died when the ship he was on was torpedoed.
Once in Japan, the remaining three doctors were once again placed in concentration camps where they tended the wounded and sick. But as time wore on, they soon began to see hundreds of American B-29 bombers winging above them. They surmised that the Americans must be close to winning the war. However, they still had to endure the firebomb raids of Kobe and Osaka that virtually destroyed the cities. However, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, the Japanese finally surrendered, and John, Murray, and Fred were finally able to return home.
This is a spectacular book. John Glusman does an excellent job of describing the fall of the Philippines, the Bataan Death March, and the atrocities that the POWs faced at the hands of the Japanese. My favorite part of the book was the extremely vivid description of the firebombing raids on Japan in the spring of 1945. I give this book my highest recommendation. Read and see how four ordinary men from the heartland of the United States managed to survive against a brutal and unforgiving enemy.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A better story should have been told., January 2, 2006
This review is from: Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)
I surprised myself in judging this book only average. I started it with the expectation that it would be interesting to know the experience of naval doctors under Japanese captivity. This was the book's purpose as stated by the author.
The author is the son of one naval doctor held in a Philippine POW camp. Unfortunately, the author lost his way in telling what could have been a very interesting story. Of the book's 600 pages, the author gives only about a third of that space to actual mention of the naval doctors. The rest of the book is a recitation of the Pacific war and some Japanese culture. This was not itself uninteresting, or wholly unnecessary (some background info is expected on a story of this type), but I thought the purpose was to tell the story of the author's father and comrades.
The author's purpose may have been explained in the prologue in which he writes that he knew little about the war from his father until later in his life and supposedly until he researched to write this book. However, the author presumes that all of the readers are similarly ignorant of the war's history and require complete background material to understand his father's fate. That is an ill-assumed belief. More problematic is that the experiences of the four doctors became the background because of the overwhelming extra material. Frankly, I tired of it and gave up after nearly 500 pages and when I couldn't remember the names of the four doctors.
The doctors of this story deserved better treatment from the author and the editors. Someone should have taken control. Perhaps a more complete tale of medical personnel will emerge. In the meantime, the reader is advised to consider Clavell's KING RAT for a truthful rendition of a Japanese POW camp as told in novel form.
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