American Guerrilla: My War Behind Japanese Lines (Brasseys Commemorative Series Wwii)

Rating:
Summary: A Classic Personal Narrative
Review: The author went on to have a long and noted career as an academic and government official. He was chief of the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) and the Assistant Secretary of State during the Johnson administration.
Roger Hilsman graduated from The US Military Academy in 1944 and was assigned to the OSS, Sent to Burma, the author commanded a guerrilla battalion, ambushing Japanese patrols, blowing up bridges, spying on the enemy, and slipping back into the teeming jungle. later he went to the prison camp in Manchuria where the Japanese had held his father and helped liberate him.
This is an articulate and informative memoir. In the course of his career the author has written many political and policy books. This gives a sense of the man behind the job.

Rating:
Summary: Lest we forget...
Review: there are books like this one, perhaps now merely for those who are academically interested in the subject of the World War.

Hilsman has a casual and elegant style of writing, his narrative is filled with marvelous details, he has an unerring memory (how I wonder, this book was written many years after his war experience). Here you meet some of the characters from your history books, and learn how they were viewed by their men and their soliders (Stillwell, Seagrave, Merrill).

It's a forgotten part of WWII history, and the American soldiers who sweated and steamed in the tropical jungles of Burma find little acknowledgement in any contemporary war talk. So here is an exquisite reminder.

Hilsman writes with heart too--he reminds us that even armies defending or attacking each other in foreign lands have to behave with dignity and respect toward those who are native to the land.

The book is in many ways an intensely personal narrative, but it's strength and beauty lies in the retelling of a part of the war not often remembered today. Good job, Mr. Hilsman!