Forgotten Island: The WWII Story of One Sailor’s Survival on Japanese-Occupied Guam

Historian Domagalski (Escape from Java) recaps the gripping tale of radioman George Ray Tweed, the sole survivor out of six American servicemen who initially evaded capture when the Japanese took Guam in 1941. Having fled into the jungle with fellow radioman Al Tyson, Tweed survived with the help of locals and skills he’d learned growing up in rural Oregon. Tyson and Tweed split up to better hide themselves (Tyson, who was not as adept at moving through the bush, was later caught and killed), and Tweed spent most of 1942 traveling from one sympathetic rancher’s home to another (and becoming somewhat of a local celebrity along the way, crashing parties whose attendees, later questioned on Tweed’s whereabouts, all maintained total ignorance). At one ranch, Tweed resurrected a clandestine edition of the island’s shuttered newspaper, typing up news gleaned from broadcasts out of California on a radio he’d managed to repair. The operation attracted too much attention, however, and Tweed was forced to hide out in the jungle from late 1942 onward. When the U.S. began bombarding Guam in July 1944, he got a destroyer’s attention using a hand mirror and semaphore flags, and was rescued. Domagalski’s fast-paced account interweaves Tweed’s survivalist saga with that of Allied admirals in the Pacific wrestling with strategic decisions that determined Tweed’s fate. WWII buffs will relish this stirring adventure. (July)