First Captured, Last Freed: Memoirs of a P.O.W. in World War II, Guam, and Japan

by Edward E. Hale, Helen Heightsman Gordon

"War," says U.S. Navy officer Edward E. Hale, "brings out the best in the best and the worst in the worst." Hale was one of eighty U.S. servicemen captured in the first battle in the Pacific, Guam, December 8-10, 1941. The "eighty eight-balls" spent all of World War II in Japanese labor camps, not released until Japan officially surrendered on September 2, 1945. How did they endure, for nearly four years, the starvation diets, beriberi and other diseases, forced labor, harsh punishments, bitter cold, and deprivation of news from home? Only one of the eighty died in Japan, but they might all have perished if they had undergone another hard winter. Ed Hale tells their story with a keen eye for detail, an understanding of human nature, an amazing lack of bitterness, and a natural eloquence that makes the book inspiring. Ten years after the war, this career officer had come to love the Japanese people, who had also been victims of the Military. He wrote a farewe! ll essay to Japanese civilians, thanking them for teaching him the virtues of patience and tolerance.

162 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[yalayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was particularly interested in this because the author is my grandmother's uncle. It's a memoir of Ed Hale, who was on Guam when Pearl Harbor was attacked, then was captured a short time later. It might be interesting to a WWII buff, but my interest in it was because of my family link.