This collection of 500-plus pictures dramatically enhances the written record of World War II in the Pacific Theater. The images freeze in place the soldiers, weapons, the operations, the geography, and the tenor of the moment. The War Against Japan was one of the first volumes in the United States Army in World War II series, and it has stood the test of time. The book has also served as a useful resource for anyone looking to illustrate this stage of the war. Although this second edition keeps all the original photographs, captions, and short narrative historical introduction in each section, the Center of Military History has taken several steps to improve the appearance, currency, and utility of the book. New prints of all existing photographs ensure their clarity, replacing the old printing negatives with greatly improved examples. The Center staff also removed outdated references and developed an appendix that provides more detailed information on sources and photograph cataloging numbers. In visually documenting the World War II experience, this volume has proven to be an invaluable collection. By publishing this upgraded edition, the Center hopes to revive and expand the book's effectiveness in promoting an awareness of the determination, courage, and sacrifices of the American soldier in World War II.

For many years, military historians and artists, collectors of militaria, war-gamers and war enthusiasts in general have felt the need for a comprehensive record of the uniforms, insignia and organisation of the fighting men of World War II. This remarkable book provides just such a record. Andrew Mollo is one of the leading British military historians with a worldwide reputation and his book is the result of years of study and research. His text not only details the design of uniforms and insignia but also describes their effectiveness in the field and how this affected the fighting ability of the troops themselves. An impressive series of 350 full-colour drawings has been specially commissioned for this book. These are supported by 160 photographs of the combatants in action, along with 53 plates of insignia. The authenticity of the drawings, together with the comprehensive descriptions, make The Armed Forces of World War II an invaluable source of reference for all students of military uniform.

Ichiro Sudan trained to be a kamikaze. Roscoe Brown was a commander in the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military aviators. Charin Singh, a farmer from Delhi, spent seven years as a Japanese prisoner of war and was not sent home until four years after the war ended. Uli John lost an arm serving in the German army but ultimately befriended former enemy soldiers as part of a network of veterans—"people who fought in the war and know what war really means." These are some of the faces and stories in the remarkable Veterans, the outcome of a worldwide project by Sasha Maslov to interview and photograph the last surviving combatants from World War II. Soldiers, support staff, and resistance fighters candidly discuss wartime experiences and their lifelong effects in this unforgettable, intimate record of the end of a cataclysmic chapter in world history and tribute to the members of an indomitable generation. Veterans is also a meditation on memory, human struggle, and the passage of time.

In the spring of 1974, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal. Hunted in turn by American troops, the Philippine police, hostile islanders, and successive Japanese search parties, Onoda had skillfully outmaneuvered all his pursuers, convinced that World War II was still being fought and that one day his fellow soldiers would return victorious. This account of those years is an epic tale of the will to survive that offers a rare glimpse of man's invincible spirit, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. A hero to his people, Onoda wrote down his experiences soon after his return to civilization. This book was translated into English the following year and has enjoyed an approving audience ever since.

The Alamo Scouts, Sixth Army's Special Reconnaissance Unit of World War II, provided intelligence-gathering and tactical reconnaissance in the Pacific Theatre. During the war, they performed over 106 successful missions in the Admiralty Islands, New Guinea and the Philippines, most deep behind enemy lines. The Scouts took part in liberating two POW camps. The Scouts evolved from a simple reconnaissance unit to a sophisticated intelligence unit supplying and coordinating large-scale guerilla operations on Leyte and Luzon. They did this without losing a man, killed or captured. The Scouts are now recognised as forerunners of the modern Special Forces.

Historians have made widespread use of diaries to tell the story of the Second World War in Europe but have paid little attention to personal accounts from the Asia-Pacific Theater. Writing War seeks to remedy this imbalance by examining over two hundred diaries, and many more letters, postcards, and memoirs, written by Chinese, Japanese, and American servicemen from 1937 to 1945, the period of total war in Asia and the Pacific. As he describes conflicts that have often been overlooked in the history of World War II, Aaron William Moore reflects on diaries as tools in the construction of modern identity, which is important to our understanding of history. Any discussion of war responsibility, Moore contends, requires us first to establish individuals as reasonably responsible for their actions. Diaries, in which men develop and assert their identities, prove immensely useful for this task. Tracing the evolution of diarists’ personal identities in conjunction with their battlefield experience, Moore explores how the language of the state, mass media, and military affected attitudes toward war, without determining them entirely. He looks at how propaganda worked to mobilize soldiers, and where it failed. And his comparison of the diaries of Japanese and American servicemen allows him to challenge the assumption that East Asian societies of this era were especially prone to totalitarianism. Moore follows the experience of soldiering into the postwar period as well, and considers how the continuing use of wartime language among veterans made their reintegration into society more difficult.

For almost 20 years, more than 200 reels of microfilmed Japanese naval records remained in the custody of the U.S. Naval History Division, virtually untouched. This unique book draws on those sources and others to tell the story of the Pacific War from the viewpoint of the Japanese. Former Marine Corps officer and Asian scholar Paul Dull focuses on the major surface engagements of the war—Coral Sea, Midway, the crucial Solomons campaign, and the last-ditch battles in the Marianas and Philippines. Also included are detailed track charts and a selection of Japanese photographs of major vessels and actions.

A forgotten account, written in the immediate aftermath of World War II, which vividly portrays the valor, sacrifice, suffering, and liberation of the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor through the eyes of one survivor. The personal memoir of Colonel David L. Hardee, first drafted at sea from April-May 1945 following his liberation from Japanese captivity, is a thorough treatment of his time in the Philippines. A career infantry officer, Hardee fought during the Battle of Bataan as executive officer of the Provisional Air Corps Regiment. Captured in April 1942 after the American surrender on Bataan, Hardee survived the Bataan Death March and proceeded to endure a series of squalid prison camps. A debilitating hernia left Hardee too ill to travel to Japan in 1944, making him one of the few lieutenant colonels to remain in the Philippines and subsequently survive the war. As a primary account written almost immediately after his liberation, Hardee’s memoir is fresh, vivid, and devoid of decades of faded memories or contemporary influences associated with memoirs written years after an experience. This once-forgotten memoir has been carefully edited, illustrated and annotated to unlock the true depths of Hardee’s experience as a soldier, prisoner, and liberated survivor of the Pacific War.

"In addition to the official photographs he turned over to his superiors, O'Donnell recorded some three hundred images for himself, but following his discharge from the Marines he could not bear to look at them. He put the negatives in a trunk that remained unopened until 1989, when he finally felt compelled to confront once more what he had seen through his lens during his seven months in post-war Japan." "Exhibited in Europe and Japan during the 1990s, O'Donnell's photographs were first published in book form in a 1995 Japanese edition. This edition, the first to appear in the United States, includes an additional twenty photographs and will bring O'Donnell's eloquent testament to the horrors of war to an even wider audience."--BOOK JACKET.