East Wind Rain Book Ii

On the eve of the Japanese landing in Lingayen Gulf, 2/Lt. Douglas MacQueen, 4th Regiment USMC was at Darmortis, a small coastal town on the north shore of the Gulf. His was there to observe the action and report to his Commanding Offi cer, Col. Howard. The Marines, as branch of the Navy, were getting little information from the Army. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of American and Filipino Forces, went so far asto declare the “...4th Marines untrained for combat...” 2/Lt. McQueen witnessed the subsequent collapse of MacArthur’s Grand Beach Defense Strategy; MGen. Jonathan ‘Skinny’ Wainwright’s magnificent leadership in the orderly retreat and delay action from the Gulf to Bataan that enabled Southern Force to reach the peninsula before the bridges were demolished; the abandonment of most of the supplies originally intended for Bataan that had been moved to advanced locations in the Gulf at MacArthur’s direction but without any contingency arrangements for their removal as such anticipation, according to the General, was defeatism. MacQueen was determined to survive and hoped to rejoin his wife in Australia.

On the eve of the Japanese landing in Lingayen Gulf, 2/Lt. Douglas MacQueen, 4th Regiment USMC was at Darmortis, a small coastal town on the north shore of the Gulf. His was there to observe the action and report to his Commanding Offi cer, Col. Howard. The Marines, as branch of the Navy, were getting little information from the Army. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of American and Filipino Forces, went so far asto declare the " 4th Marines untrained for combat " 2/Lt. McQueen witnessed the subsequent collapse of MacArthur's Grand Beach Defense Strategy; MGen. Jonathan Skinny' Wainwright's magnificent leadership in the orderly retreat and delay action from the Gulf to Bataan that enabled Southern Force to reach the peninsula before the bridges were demolished; the abandonment of most of the supplies originally intended for Bataan that had been moved to advanced locations in the Gulf at MacArthur's direction but without any contingency arrangements for their removal as such anticipation, according to the General, was defeatism. MacQueen was determined to survive and hoped to rejoin his wife in Australia.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gutsy Girl comes this provocative, compelling novel of irrevocable consequences for people thrust unwittingly into a devastating war of nations and American identity—based on a little-known true event. December 1941. The inhabitants of Niihau lead a simple life. Mostly Hawaiian natives, they work the ranch of Niihau's eccentric haole owner, who keeps his island totally isolated from the outside world, devoid of cars, phones, and electricity. But then a plane crash-lands there, and although the villagers rescue the pilot, they have no idea that he has just attacked Pearl Harbor. War has now come to Eden, slowly undoing its tranquillity, widening the cracks in the already troubled marriage of Irene and Yoshio Harada, the island's only Japanese-American couple. It will test everyone's loyalties and all they believe in . . . as Paradise, once within reach, slowly falls victim to its own isolated innocence.