Escape From Davao: The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War Review

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[i]Escape From Davao[/i] by John D. Lukacs. Simon & Schuster, 2010. 429 pp.
I heard about this book only about a week or 10 days ago. Although I meant to wait a bit, I just couldn't (My mother always said I lacked patience!) and an order through Amazon followed. I received the book late last week.
I had read William Dyess' book [i]The Dyess Story[/i] in junior high. Then, my occasional meeting with Sam Gashio, increased my interest. I was a bit suspicious of Lukacs' credentials, since this was his first book and he is a sportswriter by trade.
Lukacs did an excellent job on the book and it sort of capped all the other stories of the escape from Davao Penal Colony in early 1943 by 10 Americans and two Filipinos. Althought the story has been told by several of the escapees, this is the first recent history. ("10 Escape From Tojo" was a gathering of the "Life" Magazine articles of 1944).
The book was divided roughly into four parts: 1) biographies of all twelve and what they did prior to the surrender. 2) The Bataan Death March and capture (a few were captured on Corregidor or on other places; 3) Life in prison camp and the escape; 4) Arriving home and the attempts to get the story of the POW camps published (one escapee was recaptured several months later and executed).
Many of the wartime accounts had to skim over what happened during the actual escape attempts until arrival in Australia. Lukacs did a good job of showing the troubles and difficulties in reaching the guerrillas and proving they were legitimate escapees. He also describes the rivalry between Wendall Fertig and other guerrilla leaders. I had always thought the escapees left together, but they were evacuated in three groups over several months. One small surprise was that Grashio was evacuated by the submarine [i]Bowfin[/i], currently on display at Pearl Harbor (which I saw in 2005.
One point that Lukacs made over and over, was without the help and cooperation of the local Filipino population. Two were convicted murderers. Lukacs writes touchingly of one of the escapees visiting a dying Manuel Quezon and obtaining pardons for both.
The last hundred pages of the book (besides the epilogue) details the attempts to get the story told to the American public, which was one of the main reasons the prisoners escaped. What followed was nearly six months before the red tape could be removed. Tragically, William Dyess was killed in a P-38 crash before this could happen.
The epilogue was interesting to me, personally. All but one of the escapees has since passed away. Sam Grashio, my personal hero, in 1999. At least two of the Marines saw further combat in the Pacific towards the end of WWII, which surprised me. I recognized several names that I had contacted during the time I wrote my magazine articles in the 1980s.
The book is a great compilation of what happened during the only large-scale prison break from a Japanese POW camp of World War II. It describes well the tragedy, horror and bravery of the prison camps and the "March". It is well-written and very readable.
Well worth purchasing, or at least, reading.

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Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan Review

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(More customer reviews)In the 80's it seemed that almost any foreigner who spent much time in Japan felt obliged to write a book about their experiences. This lead to a lot of dull, pithy, pedestrian writing in which the same standard Japan cliches and themes were raised again and again to the point where self-parody became a real danger. Many of these works amount to little more than the product of a writer's conceit in having been published.
However, the best travel book I have ever read on Japan has just been published: 'Hokkaido Highway Blues' by Will Ferguson.
in 1996, Ferguson hitchiked the length of Japan, hardly a feat worthy of the 'extreme' category of travel writing currently in vogue, but certainly of interest to those of us who have spent time in foreign locales of no particular touristicattractions and have admired them precisely because of their normalcy- as a microcosm of the country at large. Ferguson spends much time in such locales nominally following the cherry blossom front from the southernmost point of Kyushu, up the lesser known Japan Sea side of Japan to the northern tip of Hokkaido. Along the way Ferguson converses and interacts with drunken truck drivers, high-school aged fisherman, sporty hedonistic new people, possible gangsters, overbearing intellectuals- a piece of Japanese society at large.
This is also a book that shows Ferguson to be an articulate, perceptive and very witty writer. Ferguson can paint words with the tender strokes of an impressionist only to be followed by Dave Barry-like ironies and double entendres. Ferguson is aware of the Japan cliches and stereotypes but does not ignore them. He calls a spade a spade when necessary but invariably with great wit and insight. On worn out cliches he is savvy enough to provide new perspectives that are enlightening yet not encumbering the reader with dull, indulgent academia.
Ferguson displays an inner understanding of Japan that matches Alan Booth ('The Roads To Sata'-hitherto considered THE travel writer on Japan) and far outdistancing the myriad sophomoric writers of the late 80's (including Pico Iyer's highly literate but maudlin and fanciful ' The Monk and the Lady'). Ferguson seeks not only to grumble but to praise Japan, and always with both incisive anecdotes on the state of modern Japan plus humourous self-parody of the 'gaijin'. Particularly funny are the situations in which Ferguson, a Canadian, is automatically deemed to be American everywhere he goes despite protestations to the contrary. This allows Ferguson to take some lighthearted jabs at both the U.S. and Britain while acting as a kind of underhanded, tongue-in-cheek Canadian ambassador. Thankfully, unlike Booth and Iyer, Ferguson does not seem to take himself so seriously .
Perhaps that which is most endearing about Ferguson to the reader, is that he is 'one of us', a run-of-the-mill expat, in his case as an language teacher at a remote Japanese high school who spent several years in Kumamoto (one who can really WRITE however). He is knowledgable enough about Japan and the language without falling into the common expat writer's trap of becoming a know-it-all pedant.
I highly recommend this book to any foreigners living in Japan, to Japanese people who can read English, anyone who has lived in Japan and anyone about to come- in short, just about anybody with an interest in Japan.

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The Eagle and the Rising Sun: The Japanese-American War 1941-1943: Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal Review

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(More customer reviews)Having read extensively on the subject matter within this book previously, it was nice to read a build up to Pearl Harbor (making the subtitle of the book somewhat of a misnomer) and not just diving into the war in the first chapter. I had read the history of SE Asia preceeding WWII in bits and pieces mainly, but had never read anything where the author skillfully and successfully put it all into a compelling narrative before.
Additionally, the author frequently added small biographies of many important historical figures. Some last less than a page, others up to five pages of information (like McArthur). Regardless, these are revealing and convey excellent information to the reader regarding motivations, personalities, and mannerisms.
In several cases the author presents evidence about such historical figures in a somewhat objective manner and lets the reader form their own opinion before either lambasting or praising the actions of such figures. Never over the top however.
Largely, the author doesn't get into much minutiae regarding combat operations and instead concentrates on policy decisions and operational history and the people that made or reacted to these events. That's not to say there aren't any reference to combat and it's impact, however it's just not a history intended to be that detailed in this regard. Regardless, it is still compelling and highly informative about the personages and policies of the period in question.
Overall, a highly regarded operational history with detailed information on the people who made the deicions at the time. Maps are decent, but not detailed and the bibliography is well documented as well. Not an unflawed history by any means, but certainly full of relevant and detailed information in the areas specified earlier.

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Southeast Asia Handbook, 2nd: 2nd edition guide to South East Asia covering 7 countries (Footprint Southeast Asia Handbook) Review

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(More customer reviews)I buy countless travel books, and I would definitely recommend Lonely Planet over Footprints for SE Asia. You get more places and more helpful info in the Lonely Planet book. That said, I highly recommend Footprints over LP for South America.

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Sip slings in Singapore, get beyond Bali, or take time out in Thailand with this second edition of Footprint's guide to Southeast Asia. This annually updated handbook is the perfect companion for anyone wanting to get off the banana pancake trail and escape and really uncover this beautiful region. Whether one wants to experience the surf, sea, and sand of a thousand deserted islands, witness the sheer craziness of a twenty-four-hour metropolis, or delve deep into the culture of the region's mysterious and diverse countries, this is the guide that goes there.

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