DescriptionStrategically located, the Philippine Islands have been one of the keys to American policy in the Pacific. But this loose island chain has a better history, vacillating between oppression and rebellion. America's military installations here ensure that she will be caught in any Filipino conflict.
DescriptionAt the height of the Battle of Iwo Jima, during a U.S. assault on a vital airfield on the day after the island invasion began, Jack Lucas and three other Marines were attacking a Japanese pillbox when two enemy grenades landed in their midst. Private Lucas jumped on both of them, driving them into the volcanic ash. Then they exploded. Thus did a 17-year-old from North Carolina become the youngest soldier in the twentieth century, and the youngest Marine in history, to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Today, when Jack Lucas speaks, crowds gather to honor him and pay tribute to Marine heritage and pride. Mr. Lucas is as close a thing to a rock star as our World War II generation has.
DescriptionA Band of Brothers for the Pacific, this is the gut-wrenching but ultimately triumphant story of the Marines' most ferocious, yet largely forgotten, battle of World War II. Between September 15 and October 15, 1944, the First Marine Division suffered more…
DescriptionAs the 18th century approached its midpoint, commercial and military competition between the European states became fierce. And whoever obtained accurate information about distant lands would hold an advantage. Were there continental landmasses in the Pac…
DescriptionPulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Tuohy follows Richard O'Kane, America's undersea ace of aces, and a few fearless submariners, during the U.S. submarine war in the Pacific. This grueling battle saw 10 million tons of Japanese shipping sunk by U.S. submarines, but the cost to the U.S. Navy was one in five of its boats, the highest casualty rate of the U.S. armed services. Amid internal threats and scandals, O'Kane participated in the most dramatic war patrols of the Pacific War, and rescued the largest number of carrier aviators from under the guns of the Japanese. Yet at the end of its fifth successful patrol, his ship was sunk by its own torpedo. Tuohy's portrait provides an insider's view of the successes and fractures that accompany wartime stresses.
