An exploration of rare and priceless manuscripts from museums around the world, this survey features nearly 200 photographic facsimiles that depict ancestors of the modern book. Contributions from numerous people and cultures include ancient sources of Greece and Rome, central and southern Asia, Africa, pre-Columbian America, the Far East, and Europe.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam" by Cyril J. O'Brien. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

"A gripping insight about the liberation of Guam." - Reviewer Guam's Japanese garrison fought practically to the last man. By invading Guam, US forces were not only getting access to a fine harbor and a number of airfields to use in future operations but were also liberating a US territory captured by the Japanese in 1941. The attack on Guam was intended to begin only days after the landings on Saipan but was postponed for a month. US forces used the delay to make the preliminary bombardment and air attacks extremely thorough and to ensure that offshore obstacles to landing craft were cleared efficiently. The landing force included both Marine and Army units from General Geiger's III Amphibious Corps, in all 55,000 strong. General Takashina commanded 18,000 defenders, who had built a typically elaborate network of bunkers, artillery emplacements, and other fortifications. This narrative recounts the story of the liberation of Guam in vivid, gritty detail. Explore the fascinating feats of strategy, planning, and bravery, handing the Allies what would eventually become a victory over the Pacific Theater and an end to Imperialist Japanese expansion.

In the years before the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, Guam was a paradise for the Navy, Marine and civilian employees of Pan American Airways, who found themselves stationed on the island. However their apprehension about the fate of the island increased as they anticipated a Japanese attack in the fall of 1941. Shortly after attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was bombed and the Japanese invasion soon followed. Since Guam was not heavily fortified it soon fell to the invading Japanese. In the takeover of the island, the Japanese practiced a swift brutality against the captive Americans as well as native population, and then immediately removed the American military and civilian personnel to Japan. Only a lucky few escaped, including five Navy nurses and dependent Ruby Hellmers and her baby Charlene, who were transported back to America aboard the Swedish ship Gripsholm in mid-1942. In Captured, Mansell tells the story of the captives from Guam, whose story until now has largely been forgotten. Drawing upon interviews with survivors, diaries and archival records, Mansell documents the movements of American military and civilian men as they went from one Japanese POW camp to another, slowly starving as they performed slave labor for Japanese companies. Meanwhile, he describes the brutal horrors suffered by Guamian natives during Japan’s occupation of the island, especially as the Japanese prepared for American forces to re-take this U.S. possession in 1945. Moving stories of liberation, transportation home, and the aftermath of these horrific experiences are narrated as the book draws to a close. Mansell concludes that America’s lack of military preparation, disbelief in Japan’s ambitions in the Pacific, and focus on Europe all contributed to the captivity of more than three years of suffering for the forgotten Americans from Guam as the Pacific War raged around them. Captured was completed by historian Linda Goetz Holmes after the death of Roger Mansell.

For the people of Guam, World War II divided their modern history into three distinct periods: ante de i guerra, durante i guerra, and despues de i guerra--before the war, during the war, and after the war. Ben Blaz was thirteen years old when the Japanese invaded, and Bisita Guam is his story. illus.

Tells the story of the growing Chinese Navy - The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - and its expanding capabilities, evolving roles and military implications for the USA. Divided into four thematic sections, this special collection of essays surveys and analyzes the most important aspects of China's navel modernization.

THE TRUE STORY OF UNITED STATES NAVY RADIOMAN GEORGE TWEED AND HIS 31 MONTHS OF SURVIVAL ON JAPANESE-HELD GUAM DURING WORLD WAR II “DANIEL DEFOE would have admired George Ray Tweed, the American seaman whose ingenuity and self-reliance have caught the imagination of modern America as Robinson Crusoe’s fascinated eighteenth century England. Defoe’s hero was engaged almost solely in a struggle for survival against nature. “Crusoe and Tweed were most alike in the genius for contrivance, and Tweed doesn’t suffer from comparison with his famous prototype. To construct his shelter and furniture, Crusoe brought from his ship planks and boards and a complete carpenter’s chest of tools, in addition to two saws, an ax, “an abundance of hatchets,” a hammer, nails and several knives. Tweed built his equipment without benefit of nails, using only a handsaw, a machete, and a pocketknife. He went on to fashion, with crude materials, a lamp, a lantern, and an ingenious alarm system. At one time he had electric lights in a part of the country where not even the best homes enjoyed such luxury. He kept in repair an almost worn-out typewriter, on which he produced a one-page underground newspaper. He tore apart an apparently useless radio, put it together again, and brought in news from a station thousands of miles away. “Tweed was born with common sense. A roustabout life as lumberman, stevedore, and mechanic gave him self-reliance; hunting expeditions in Oregon and California taught him woodsmanship; the Navy instructed him in the techniques of communication. It was as if all his early life had been preparation for the grueling experience which he alone, of those who fled before the invading Japanese, survived. “I am glad to be the one to tell Tweed’s story. In all important respects it is related here exactly as he gave it to me.”