This book details a US Rangers-led rescue from the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan in the Philippines in 1945. The mission was considered highly important, both as one of the first missions to use the newly constituted Ranger force, and because of very real concerns that the retreating Japanese would simply kill the prisoners before retreating.

In telling the main tale, we get a parallel story starting with the fall of Bataan in 1942, the fabled Bataan Death March, and brutal conditions in the Japanese POW camps. Though Sides' language is florid to the point of sounding at times like pulp fiction, he includes a lot of facts and personal tales in his narrative in a skillful fashion, and much of the book's material is based on interviews with the principals involved.

That, in turn, is one of the low-level annoyances in the book, in that tension is broken multiple times (especially when approaching the climax) by including a phrase like, "As Capt. Smith mentioned in newspaper articles after the war ...", letting us know that Capt. Smith actually ends up actually surviving the whole mission.

While the dramatic (sometime melodramatic) language is strong, and Sides makes the mistreatment of the US prisoners very, very clear, he also presents a balanced analysis and occasional defense of the Japanese actions and individuals concerned throughout the war in the Philippines.

James Naughton's narration for the audiobook is appropriately grim, hardbitten, and dramatic.

Overall, this is a ripping tale of war, blood, disease, death, and freedom, and what the pressures of battle and imprisonment does to captives and captors alike. Highly recommended as insight into a part of WWII history that has not gotten as much attention as it should.