The Great Raid on Cabanatuan: Rescuing the Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor

Breuer (Hitler's Undercover War) tells the story of the successful U.S. raid on Cabantuan prison camp in the Philippines in January 1945. Rangers and Alamo Scouts, the latter an ancestor of today's Delta Force, liberated several hundred U.S. prisoners and then brought most of the half-starved inmates safely back behind U.S. lines. Breuer relies heavily on interviews with surviving participants to describe the fall of the Philippines in 1941 and the subsequent conditions of Japanese captivity. He offers interesting sidebars on guerrilla activity there and on the underground connections between Cabanatuan and the outside world. His account of the raid itself is an exciting narrative presented by a first-rate storyteller. Of significance to specialists-but for buffs and beginners, a useful acquisition. Illustrations. (Sept.)