Rating: 
Summary: Good effort
Review: I knew little of our Pacific POW history. I read Dickey's Special Prisoner, but most history glosses over US POW treatment in WWII. The book is interesting and informative, and I'm glad it was written. However, I would have given 4 stars but found Sides writing a bit weak. I felt that he struggled between "reporting" what happened and trying to tell a good story. He's not a natural storyteller. The other weakness is of no fault of Sides: nothing really dramatic happens, which means, thankfully, the mission was very sucessful, but unfortunately lends itself to a uneventful read.
Rating: 
Summary: Edge- of- your- seat excitement
Review: I am an avid reader of military history, especially World War II. This book has the perfect balance between historical documentation and excellent story-telling. The pace of the book is excellent. Sides makes you appreciate this wonderful story by giving you the events that surrounded these brave men. Certainly, this will stay on my top ten list for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent story - excellent read
Review: I just had to write a review of this book to encourage others to read it. It's more than just an account of man's never ending inhumanity to man, but a story about conscience...what was America's military going to do about a large group of men it apparently had declared "expendable"? How military/political leaders can readily make promises to save this group out of one side of their mouth, and give orders to do nothing out of the other side amazes me.
Forgotten, ignored...this brave group of men lived on, despite great odds, until their deliverance was at hand from yet another brave group of men...men of conscience. To me, they are heroes as much as those who survived the POW camp.
Yet another story to make us count our blessings...and to give hope that American ideals aren't always misplaced when it's expedient.
Rating:
Summary: The heroes don't make this a great book
Review: It is seldom I review a book which has already been reviewed by 178 other people, but in reading some of those reviews I feel I have to say something about this book. I can understand those who were in the rescued camp or in the unit rescuing the prisoners, or those related to someone who was, being enthusiastic about the story being told. But I did not find the author did a good job of telling an important and heroic story. I think there is no comparison between this work and Flags of Our Fathers, which I found a superlative read, and with excellent references and bibliography. The bibliography in Ghost Soldiers is pitiful. The book has no index and no footnotes. There is not a list of the persons rescued nor of the rescuers. All of these things would have been appropriate in a book such as this. The writing at times seemed jejune. I much more appreciated a lesser known book: The Hike into the Sun: Memoir of an American Soldier Captured on Bataan in 1942 and Imprisoned by the Japanese until 1945, by Bernard T. Fitzpatrick with John A. Sweeter III, which I finished reading on 1 April 1995. I hoped it would at least be in the bibliography, but of course it isn't. There are a lot better books on the Pacific War out there, and I did not think this book compared at all with Flags of Our Fathers, nor with the extremely moving book from the Vietnam War: We Were Soldiers Once...and Young (which I hear is going to be a movie!) For a good example of how a story should be told see Abandon Ship! The Saga of the U.S.S Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster, by Richard F. Newcomb.
Rating:
Summary: Intensely real with a good vocabulary
Review: All through high school and college, I was taught of the Western Front of WWII more so than the Pacific Theatre. Studies concentrated on the evils of the German side of the Axis powers while the Japanese atrocities were brushed over, probably out of general American guilt for using the bomb and the unfathomable carnage of the Nazi concentration camps. This book tells the story of just a small section of the Pacific Theatre with total regard for the brutal accuracy of the Japanese at the time. I asked a fellow scholar to read the epilogue and after reading he said, "I can't read this book, it makes me want to go out and kill Japanese." He was being facetious of course, but it gives you an idea of the realism this book delves the reader. Make no mistake; because this book is non-fiction, it was a bit depressing. After reading this, I started with the Hobbit; a little lighter reading to ease my sense of humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Uneven writing spoils an otherwise excellent book
Review: I know of this story because I lived next door to one of the Rangers when I was growing up. About the only time I heard my father talk about the war was when the two of them talked about their experiences in the South Pacific theatre. It is about time the story was told. This author chose a wonderful way to telling the story - alternating chapters from the Ranger's point of view and then the POW's. Unfortunately the author's writing is uneven and at times it has the feel of a high school essay. Early chapters are riddled with inappropriate word usage as if he relied too heavily on his thesaurus. In other instances his use of scatalogical terminology was inappropriate. Should this book be reprinted, I hope he takes the time to fix these problems.
Rating:
Summary: Superb story-telling!!
Review: After having watched the series on "Band of Brothers", a friend suggested that I might like to read "Ghost Soldiers." What an understatement!! This is an outstanding story of bravery and courage that needs to be heard by more people. Hampton Sides has written a page-turner that is captivating from the very first page. The author has vividly captured and retold a story of sensitive emotions in such a way that you probably have not experienced in a true historical account. These brave soldiers demonstrate extreme courage and bravery while suffering from unfathomable depravations. How humans could treat others under the guise of enemies of war (as happened in this story) is beyond any level of comprehension. We should honor these soldiers and their rescuers more so than we have done to date. Getting this story out is one way of acknowledging our debt of gratitude to these amazing people. The bibliography that Sides has put together at the end of the book is an essential list of other must-reads on this topic. All Americans who value their freedom and respect acts of courage should read this book. For those who have stories of the horrors of war, here's a story that goes beyond what most people know.
I have no relatives who fought in WW2, but was mesmerized by this story. If I have any complaint about the book, it would be the occasional tendancy of the author to reach for his thesaurus more than necessary when he could have used a more common term. The pictures included in the book were valuable, but I would have preferred that the maps or drawings were someplace other than the inner frontspiece and back liner of the book. But these are only minor points to an otherwise profound story. To all of the subjects in this book, I salute you and honor you.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely well-written
Review: I feel Sides created a wonderful sense of anticipation and urgency by switching between the Ranger's rescue and the plight of the POW's with each different chapter. I highly recommend this book to anyone. It reads as well as any fictional bestseller.
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This book was "hard to put down" and "hard to pick up". The descriptions were horribly graphic and made it difficult to read at times. However, the book was a testimony to the will of the American soldiers.
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This book was hard to read and hard to put down. The stories were horribly graphic and difficult to stomach at times. However, the strength of the will of the survivors was something to be truly admired. A wonderful book about a horrible time.
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