Bill Sloan

La batalla de Okinawa, de abril a septiembre de 1945, fue el último gran combate de la segunda guerra mundial, y uno de los más sangrientos. Participaban en ella mil quinientas embarcaciones norteamericanas, unos dos mil kamikazes japoneses y unas fuerzas de mas de seiscientos cincuenta mil combatientes de ambos bandos. Su resultado fue la final muerte de ciento quince mil soldados, marinos y aviadores, y la de unos ciento cincuenta mil civiles atrapados entre los dos fuegos, en circunstancias tan terribles que les empujaron a muchos al suicidio; fue precisamente el elevado coste en vidas humanas de esta batallo lo que decidio a Truman a lanzar las bombas atomicas sobre Japon. Bill Sloan ha escrito este libro, que Evan Thomas califica de "poderoso y conmovedor", a partir de las entrevistas realizadas a unos setenta supervivientes de los combates, que quedaron marcados para siempre por esta experiencia: "Habian ganado su ultima batalla –concluye– pero el derramamiento de sangre y las miserias sufridas por los vencedores teñirian sus recuerdos y perturbarian sus sueños por todo el tiempo de sus vidas."

This Band of Brothers for the Pacific is the gut-wrenching and ultimately triumphant story of the Marines most ferociousyet largely forgottenbattle of World War II.Between September 15 and October 15, 1944, the First Marine Division suffered more than 6,500 casualties fighting on a hellish little coral island in the Pacific. Peleliu was the setting for one of the most savage struggles of modern times, a true killing ground that has been all but forgottenuntil now. Drawing on interviews with Peleliu veterans, Bill Sloans gripping narrative seamlessly weaves together the experiences of the men who were there, producing a vivid and unflinching tableau of the twenty-four-hour-a-day nightmare of Peleliu.Emotionally moving and gripping in its depictions of combat, Brotherhood of Heroes rescues the Corpss bloodiest battle from obscurity and does honor to the Marines who fought it.

This epic story recounts the exceptional valor and endurance of American troops that battled Japanese forces in the Philippines during World War II.Bill Sloan, a master of the combat narrative (Dallas Morning News), tells the story of the outnumbered American soldiers and airmen who stood against invading Japanese forces in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II, and continued to resist through three harrowing years as POWs. For four months they fought toe to toe against overwhelming enemy numbersand forced the Japanese to pay a heavy cost in blood. After the surrender came the infamous Bataan Death March, where up to eighteen thousand American and Filipino prisoners died as they marched sixty-five miles under the most hellish conditions imaginable. Interwoven throughout this gripping narrative are the harrowing personal experiences of dozens of American soldiers, airmen, and Marines, based on exclusive interviews with more than thirty survivors. Undefeated chronicles one of the great sagas of World War IIand celebrates a resounding triumph of the human spirit.

The acclaimed, dramatic story of the first three months of the Korean War, when outnumbered and outgunned Marines and GIs executed two of the greatest military operations in history and saved South Koreaand the Marine Corpsfrom extinction.The Darkest Summer is the dramatic story of the first three months of the Korean War as it has never been told before. A narrative studded with gripping eyewitness accounts, it focuses on the fateful days when the Korean Wars most decisive battles were fought and the Americans who fought them wenthowever brieflyfrom the depths of despair to the exultation of total conquest. Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of surviving U.S. veterans, it reveals how one ninety-day period changed the course of modern history and opens a unique and revealing window on an all-but-forgotten war.

The Ultimate Battle is the full story of the last great clash of World War II as it has never before been told.With the same grunts-eye-view narrative style that distinguished his Brotherhood of Heroes, Bill Sloan presents a gripping and uniquely personal saga of heroism and sacrifice in which at least 115,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen from both sides were killed, as were nearly 150,000 civilians caught in the crossfire or encouraged to commit suicide by Japanese troops. It is a story set against a panorama of more than 1,500 American ships, nearly two thousand Japanese kamikazes sworn to sink those ships, and two huge armies locked in a no-quarter struggle to the deaththe 541,000 GIs and Marines of the U.S. Tenth Army, and Japans 110,000-man 32nd Army. Woven into the broader narrative are the personal stories of men who endured this epic battle and were interviewed by the author. In many cases, their experiences are told here in print for the first time.Much of the action in The Ultimate Battle unfolds among men pinned down under relentless fire on disputed hillsides, in the ruins of shell-blasted villages, and inside stricken tanks and armored cars. Sloan also takes readers aboard flaming ships and into the cockpits of night-fighter aircraft to capture the horror and heroism of men and vessels besieged by kamikazes.The Ultimate Battle is a searing and unforgettable recreation of the Okinawa campaign as it was experienced by men who were there. It is filled with fresh insights that only those men can provide.

A gripping narrative of unprecedented valor and personal courage, here is the story of the first American battle of World War II: the battle for Wake Island. Based on firsthand accounts from long-lost survivors who have emerged to tell about it, this stirring tale of the Alamo of the Pacific will reverberate for generations to come.On December 8, 1941, just five hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes attacked a remote U.S. outpost in the westernmost reaches of the Pacific. It was the beginning of an incredible sixteen-day fight for Wake Island, a tiny but strategically valuable dot in the ocean. Unprepared for the stunning assault, the small battalion was dangerously outnumbered and outgunned. But they compensated with a surplus of bravery and perseverance, waging an extraordinary battle against all odds.When it was over, a few hundred American Marines, sailors, and soldiers, along with a small army of heroic civilian laborers, had repulsed enemy forces several thousand strongbut it was still not enough. Among the Marines was twenty-year-old PFC Wiley Sloman. By Christmas Day, he lay semiconscious in the sand, struck by enemy fire. Another day would pass before he was foundstripped of his rifle and his uniform. Shocked to realize he hadnt awakened to victory, Sloman wondered: Had he been given up for deadand had the Marines simply given up?In this riveting account, veteran journalist Bill Sloan re-creates this history-making battle, the crushing surrender, and the stories of the uncommonly gutsy men who fought it. From the civilians who served as gunmen, medics, and even preachers, to the daily grind of life on an isolated islandliterally at the ends of the earthto the agony of POW camps, here we meet our heroes and confront the enemy face-to-face, bayonet to bayonet.

In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horrorMcErerys Rifle Companythe legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacificfought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnerys story is a no-holds-barred, grunts-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.

Bill Sloan, que en Okinawa nos ha dejado un memorable relato de la última batalla de la Guerra del Pacífico, nos descubre ahora la primera. El 8 de diciembre de 1941, cinco horas después del bombardeo a Pearl Harbor, los aviones japoneses atacaron Wake, una remota y desierta isla del Pacifico de gran valor estrategico donde habia una pequeña guarnicion militar norteamericana y un gran numero de trabajadores civiles ocupados en la construccion de una base. Era el comienzo de dieciseis terribles dias de bombardeos y de combates cuerpo a cuerpo en que este pequeño grupo de resistentes consiguio repeler un primer intento de desembarco japones, para sucumbir mas tarde ante un enemigo muy superior en numero. Sloan ha reconstruido esta dramatica batalla a partir de sus entrevistas a unos cuarenta norteamericanos que sobrevivieron a los combates y al cautiverio y a dos japoneses que aportan una vision distinta de los hechos.