The Battle of Bataan - 2nd Edition by Donald J Young (Paperback)

About the Book

[From the first edition: On the morning of April 9, 1942, 75,000 American and Filipino soldiers on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese. Thus ended one of the most brutal and intense encounters of World War II.

Book Synopsis

Fought with obsolete and discarded equipment by an army mostly made up of untrained Filipinos, the Battle of Bataan has become one of the "forgotten" battles of World War II.

This book provides a complete history of the conflict by looking at the events which led up to the battle, with an overview of the American, Philippine and Japanese forces that fought on Bataan. Abandoned by their commander, Douglas MacArthur, and written off by their president, without an air force or navy to support them, for 90 days the Americans and Filipinos held out against not only the Japanese but the ravages of starvation and disease. In the end came the largest surrender in American military history. The book contains dozens of period and modern photographs and several maps.

Review Quotes

"a good account...extensive personal testimony...dramatic narrative"-Global War Studies; "brings together all facets of the story.... Recommended"-Library Journal; "an interesting synthesis of the ground-level combat...indispensable"-Choice; "a good account of the battle, with excellent maps and some rarely-seen photographs, its primary contribution is the inclusion of extensive personal testimony from memoirs, and interviews. These individual accounts lend color and immediacy to an already dramatic narrative-Stanley L. Falk, Philippine war historian.

About the Author

Donald J. Young is a military historian, author and lecturer on the pre-Midway period of World War II in the Pacific. He is a retired educator living in Hermosa Beach, California.