HELL SHIPS-1

by Jack Morris

This is a true story using literary license to fill voids where documentation appears not to exist. The names of the seven main characters of Hell Ships are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely circumstantial. The names of some of the survivors are displayed in order to make them known and forever remembered for the ordeals they faced, their heroism, and their service to country.The names of the Japanese officers and enlisted men in this book are all true names as stated by my eight eyewitnesses and from the official records of the tribunal courts.The events and their sequence comprising the story are true and they were provided by numerous sources. These sources included many living eyewitness interview accounts by survivors of the three Hell Ships, Oryoku Maru, Brazil Maru, and the Enoura Maru. Other sources include the military tribunal records of the Japanese officers and men who were tried and convicted of their crimes against humanity. The extensive records of the story period at the Military Records Section, U.S. National Archives, in Washington DC were used extensively to verify much of what had been gained from the eight interviews with the Hell Ships survivors.The author notes here and with great sadness that the vast majority of American prisoners entering the holds of the three transport ships had died or were dead prior to the end of the war in 1945.The true names of the Prisoners of War recognized as heroes and survivors and whose names are displayed here Curtis T. Beecher; Charles M. Brown; Lloyd E. Mills; James W. Donaldson; Arthur C. Beale; Harold Ferrell; Earl D. Eggers; Bill Elliot; James M. McGrath; Harry M. Beck; Kenneth Wheeler; William Brewster; James E. Alsobrook; George Petritz; James Moran; Clyde R. Huddleson; Hugh McGowan; Frank Bridget; and Alan Gorsky.

330 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 2011