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 enlarge | Author: Hampton Sides
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $15.94 (100%)
New (69) Used (202) Collectible (7) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  138 reviews
Sales Rank: 7015
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 038549565X
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5425
EAN: 9780385495653
ASIN: 038549565X
Publication Date: May 7, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, best prices.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Just Right June 15, 2008
Very well balanced historical content with the grip of a great novel. The opening pages grab you and you won't want to put it down. The author brings to light untold or quietly forgotten stories each worthy of their own book. I have recommended this book to a number of nonhistorical readers and all were captivated and have passed it on as well. Readers will also want to check out a similar venue, Last Stand of Tin Can Sailors. Great stuff of a dying era.
Awesome! June 11, 2008
Read this in college a few years back. It is a good book for readers just looking for an intense story of bravery, hardship, depravity, sadness, etc. Just a very moving book, not too mired in the details. Just keeps moving, which is good for us who know little about WWII.
"We're the battleing bastards of Battaan,no momma, no papa, no uncle sam...and nobody gives a damn". I still remember the entire thing, and that was like 4 years ago.
Just get it. It's a great read.
Historical fact that reads like fiction April 20, 2008
Hampton Sides has written a work of history that reads like a novel. A first-rate account of an absolutely astonishing achievement - the rescue of Allied prisoners from the Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan. It also highlights the crucial role played by two battalions of Filipino guerrilla fighters, who were key to the success of the mission. While Sides does not go overboard on the atrocities committed by the Japanese, it's certainly easy to see why more than 25% of Allied prisoners held by the Japanese did not survive the war. I couldn't put this book down from the moment I picked it up until I finished it. If written as fiction, it would be sent back as not believable.
Sides gives a credible account of The March! April 18, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
In Hamilton Sides well-written and quite readable "Ghost Soldiers," the
Yale-educated author is no stranger to respected non-fiction,
having authored previously a definitive account of Kit Carson and his
own "march" in the American West.
"Ghost Soldiers" is highly acclaimed. Minnesota native and historian JoAnn Johnson notes: "Being a World War II `buff,' this true story is an excellent addition to my `sense of history,'The detailed account
of the rescue mission of the prisoners at Cabanatuan, the Philippines, is a very gripping story even though one knows the outcome. The only other book I have read that addresses the `prisoners left behind"'is 'Bataan
Uncensored' by Col. E.B. Miller, a survivor of that awful camp."
Sides uses no footnotes in this very readable, often riveting account; that said, his acknowledgments are extensive and the reader has no reason to doubt his research, which seems thorough and convincing. The
narrative is rich with detail and one almost feels like `one of them.'
If one is familiar with the entire story of the Fall of Bataan
and the subsequent Death March, the plight of the prisoners becomes
more meaningful. "Ghost Soldiers" is the story of how the rescue was accomplished and Sides succeeds with his narrative in a highly dramatic fashion.
Clearly Sides has spent a lot of time with extensive reading and interviewing soldiers who'd been in the Death March and it leaves an indelible impression on the reader of how these men suffered and survived, of many issues that become key to men in situations like this. In a way, there is a parallel theme with his Kit Carson book (Blood and Terror) published earlier. Both leave the reader exhausted as he examines the depths of inhumanity that transpires, even in comparison to events today.
His next research (and book) is on the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. Sides is from Memphis and says he feels a particular
"calling" to do this book. It should be worth the wait.
awesome work; a must read March 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a must read. Well written, captivating and shocking. It details how our people, and the Filipinos suffered at the hands of the barbarian Japs; including decapitations, castrating, and the like. After reading this book, you will have no regrets for the dropping of the atom bomb(s)to end the war. In addition to telling the story of the infamous Death March, the book details the freeing of our POWS in a stunning raid on a Jap prison. Further, noteworthy aspects of this book are the accounts of various "side stories" of Bataan, including a female spy who did much to aid the American POW's, and griping accounts of the physical ailments and diseases the POW's suffered due to malnutrition, and lack of medical care. You won't put this book down !
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