bataan death march, philippines, 1942

Fifteen-year-old Henry Forrest lies about his age and enlists in the Marines to escape from his abusive father, but when he is immediately sent to the Philippines he finds himself in the middle of the Japanese invasion--and as he grows up he will have to endure the Bataan Death March, overcrowded prisons, and the Japanese factory in Tokyo where he is eventually sent as slave labor.

On April 9, 1942, thousands of U.S. soldiers surrendered as the Philippines? island of Luzon fell to the Japanese. A few hundred Americans placed their faith in their own hands and headed for the jungles. One of them was Clay Conner Jr.?a twenty-three-year-old Army Air Force communications officer who had never even camped before?.

Describes the disease, torture, and deprivation of both Allied and Filipino prisoners as they were forced to march several miles to prison camps in the Philippines in April 1942; with personal testimonies from some of those who survived.