Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made...

In this follow-up to his late father's Band of Brothers, which tracked a single army unit from Georgia to the battlefields of Europe, historian Ambrose turns his attention to the Pacific theater, following four individual marines and one Naval Aviator through their time in combat.

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared -- Lt. Louis Zamperini ... Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a floundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft and beyond, a trial even greater. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended...

"Brown ... sits down with [Jerry] Yellin, now ninety-three years old, to tell the ... story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over--but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. [This book] is a ... first-person...

Chronicles the epic struggle of America and her allies against Imperial Japan, from the devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, to the American and allied battles to recapture the Gilbert Islands of Makin and Tarawa. Includes rare footage from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.-- Container.

This account of the Pacific arena in World War II brings fresh insight to the crucial questions: Why did Japan start the war in the Pacific? Why was the U.S. unprepared to meet the challenge? Tracing the history of Japanese aggression from 1853, the author sheds new light on the "China Question," the rape of Hong Kong, the Bataan Death March, and the murder camps of the East Indies. He analyzed Japan's policy of hakko ichiu--all eight corners of the...

"After the devastating losses to America's Pacific Fleet in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Imperial Navy ruled supreme in the vast Pacific Ocean. In time, the Pacific Fleet was able to rebuild to take on the Japanese. Much of the publicity went to the aircraft carriers and the Naval Aviators who flew from their decks. Yet, as important as the carriers were, the most significant naval warships in actually prosecuting the war tailed...

In 1943, while World War II raged on in the Pacific Theater, Lieutenant Louis Zamperini was the only survivor of a deadly plane crash in the middle of the ocean. Zamperini had a troubled youth, yet honed his athletic skills and made it all the way to the 1934 Olympics in Berlin. However, what lay before him was a physical gauntlet unlike anything he had encountered before: thousands of miles of open ocean, a small raft, and no food or water.

Examines the military campaigns of World War II in the Pacific, from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the fall of the Philippines to the United States attacks on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the Japanese surrender.

"Days of Infamy" starts minutes after the close of "Pearl Harbor", as both sides react to the monumental events triggered by the presence of Admiral Yamamoto. In direct command of the six carriers of the attacking fleet, Yamamoto decides to launch a fateful "third wave attack" on the island of Oahu, and then keeps his fleet in the area to hunt down the surviving American aircraft carriers, which by luck and fate were not anchored in the harbor on...