The GI War Against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific During World War II

Those who cannot handle the ugly truth about warfare, and about warfare in this theater in particular, would do better to stay away from this harrowing book. Those who can, should be encouraged to buy and read it soon, in anticipation of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's much-awaited television series The Pacific. The Atlantic Monthly is absolutely right: this is a terrifying book, but at the same time - because of that, because it refuses to pull any punches about the true nature of warfare in the Pacific - it is one of the best books ever on what American boys had to go through in the war against that most vicious of foes, the Japanese.