Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission in Around the World in 80 Books

Aug 02, 2007 Kay rated it it was amazing

Shelves: re-reading, world_war_ii, harrowing-tales, nonfiction, available-mcpl, american-histry

Seventeen years ago, I listened to an audio version of this book and was captivated. Since then, I've read three other books by Hampton Sides, all of them magnificent. Most recently, I read On Desperate Ground, a tale of heroism during the Korean War, and I made a mental note to go back and read Ghost Soldiers as my recollection of it was fuzzy, but the themes and development seemed similar.

In both books, he focuses on both tactical leaders and ordinary soldiers (and in neither book does he hav ...more

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Nov 16, 2017 Rachel N. rated it really liked it

Shelves: pbt-nonfiction-100, world-war-ii, nonfiction, read-in-2017, pow, phillipines

An account of how Army Rangers slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines to save over 500 POW's, many survivors of the Bataan death march, before the Japanese decide to execute them, as they had already done with POW's at other camps. I knew next to nothing about Bataan, except having heard of the death march in vague terms, so I'm glad the author went into the history of the death march and accounts of the camp. Though it's clear from the beginning how the raid turned out the author still d ...more

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Mar 16, 2014 Ken rated it really liked it

This book definitely held my interest, it’s a well-told take of true wartime heroics. To tell the truth, my knowledge of the war in the Pacific was quite sketchy to start with, so I found much of the background story interesting as well as the specific stories of the camp survivors and their rescuers. It’s a suspenseful tale well told.

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