As Good As Dead: The Daring Escape of American POWs from a Japanese Death Camp
Stephen L. Moore. New York: Caliber, 2016. 358 pp. Plates. Maps. Appendices. Biblio. Endnotes. Index. $27.
Reviewed by Mark Felton
As Good As Dead sums up the predicament of American prisoners of the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster of a journey into the dark heart of a brutal conflict and the brutality of man against his fellow man.
Examining for the first time in detail the horrendous Palawan Island Massacre of December 1944, Stephen L. Moore’s book is much more than an escape drama—it is a narrative that pays tribute to the bravery and determination of the small number of survivors, as well as the unfortunate victims, of one of Japan’s worst war crimes. It also is the truly uplifting tale of deliverance from certain death that rarely occurred for prisoners of the Japanese, particularly to those who tried to escape their shackles.
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