1 comments about P.O.W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II.

1. Overall, it's a fine book, and I'm glad I read it. The maps were very helpful, as were the introductions to each chapter that put Dr. Donovan's experiences in the larger context of events. But I have some beefs: (1) It *sounds* like an old man telling the story. Even if the authors had not disclosed this, you could still tell because Dr. Donovan telescopes interesting details & stories in the way old men often do. My other concern about this oral history is the 50 year delay between the events and the re-telling, as time selects memories and the hard edge comes off the stories. (2) The chapter on the home front was uninteresting. The wife's experience seems little different from the thousands of wives of POWs/MIAs in the history of warfare. I did like the "stopped bumping" description, though. :-) (3) It would have been nice to have at least a paragraph or two on how the author's war experiences affected his post-war life. What are the long-term effects of experiences like this? 50 years of hindsight would have been valuable in this regard. (4) I'm a military physician, so I was looking for medical details about captivity. I can fully understand why they may have been omitted, however. I can only hope that I never have to endure what Dr. Donovan did, and if I do, that I can measure up with the same courage, skill, and resourcefulness that he displayed.

1 comments about Floating World in Japanese Fiction (Select Bibliographies Series).

1. A detailed scholarly book devoted to "The Floating World" A great read too! Description on training, politics, fashions, artists, and more. Great many things are explained in regards to famous Japanese literary pieces, prints, festivals, and movies. A great addition to your Japanese culture library

No comments about My Non Violence, an Autobiography of a Japanese Buddhist.

No comments about Nomo: The Inside Story on Baseball's Hottest Sensation.

No comments about Heroic struggles of Japanese Americans: Partisan fighters from America's concentration camps.

2 comments about The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995 (Harvard East Asian Monographs).

1. Kenneth J. Ruoff is an Associate Professor of Japanese History at Portland State University. Dr. Ruoff is the Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at the university.
   
   Professor Ruoff received the 2004 Jiro Osaragi Commentary Prize for the Japanese translation of his book THE PEOPLE'S EMPEROR. The prize was given at a ceremony at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo January 27, 2005. The prize include an award of two million yen. Dr. Ruoff is the first foreigner to receive the Osaragi Prize.



2. The author offers a fantastic view of the Japanese monarchy that is well worth the read. A wonderful historical take on the subject.

No comments about Hope shines in the white cloud: An Issei's story.

No comments about Siebold and Japan (Japanese Version): His Life and Work.

No comments about Quiet Jungle Angry Sea: My Escapes from the Japanese.

3 comments about Flashbacks: Prisoner of War in the Philippines.

1. I just so happen to be the great niece of Mr. Walter T. Middleton. This book was a very heart moving book to read. For a person to go through the treatment that he endured is a miracle. This book is great. He is an outstanding storyteller and this book is a page turner. I would recamend this book to anyone looking for stories during this time perod.



2. The author, Walter Middleton, was a good friend of my dad's when I was a kid. At about age 10, full of the idea that war is really grand (common among red-blooded males of that age and beyond, it seems), I started bugging Mr. Middleton with questions like, "What did you do in the War?" About the third time I asked, he set me down for about an hour and told me. What I heard changed me forever.

   Many of the things Mr. Middleton told me that day are stories included in this book. I warn you, it is un-PC by standards of the current decade, but the author is to be forgiven if four years of treatment as an animal, by animals, has colored his view of the Japanese as a people. Also, the text is rife with colloquialisms, and there are more than a few grammatical and spelling errors. But the intent was not to write a thesis here. It was to record for succeeding generations the unique perspective of the War, the Japanese captors, and our own officers (including the great MacArthur) from the eyes of our enlisted men, who bore the brunt of the War. In this aim, Mr. Middleton succeeds with five stars. For anyone who has never read an alternative history textbook, I rank "Flashbacks" equal to Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the U.S." and James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me" in importance.

   I have ordered a copy of this book for a friend of mine with whom I have had conversations about how most Americans of my generation have no idea what hard times are really like. (I know I don't, not from first-hand experience such as recorded in this book.) I would have sent my own copy to my friend, except that it is a signed copy, and even more importantly because I will want to pass it down to the next generations in my family. This reading is not pleasant, but it is vitally important. The history embodied in this book must be kept alive. Read it and pass it on.




3. T. Walter Middleton gives you a great taste of folksy, oral history used to describe one of the most horrific sequence of events in US military history: the Defense of the Bataan Peninsula, the Bataan Death March, imprisonment in Camp O'Donnell, the Hell Ship experience, and slave labor for a Japanese corporation in Mukden, Manchuria.
   
   Mr. Middleton reveals many details of the horrors of those accumalated experiences. He does so, not with bitterness, but rather with a refreshing and surprising sense of humor. In one chapter he describes how his fellow prisoners discovered a large cache of marijuana which they smoked, and how in the midst of all deaths and diseases, they behaved strangely in an effort to have fun at the expense of the Japanese guards, who were completely confused by their unusual behavior. In one of the final chapters, he expresses the doubts he and his fellow prisoners had that they would ever again be able to fit into a normal, civilized society.
   
   Aside from being a "Great Read", this book will give it's reader a very personal look into the lives of the men who made the Bataan Death March.
   
   Fred Baldassarre
   Researcher/Archivist
   Battling Bastards of Bataan