The Dyess Story The Eye Witness Account Of The Death March From Bataan Illustrated Edition

[Illustrated with over 30 photos of the author, his unit, escape, his kit etc.] As General MacArthur sailed away from the Philippines vowing to return, he left behind him many American soldiers that had been swept up by the victorious Japanese tide of invasion. One such man was Lt.-Colonel William Edwin ‘Ed’ Dyess, he and his unit of the 21st Pursuit squadron flew their obsolete P-40 Warhawks against the superior Japanese fighters until no more planes remained. Undaunted he fought on as an infantryman before his eventual capture by the Japanese his deeds of selfless bravery were legendary, including giving his own plane to a fellow aviator so he could fly to safety. Dyess and his brave men deserved a better fate than that which awaited them at the hands of their Japanese captors on the infamous Bataan Death March. Driven north from Bataan, the American and Philippino prisoners were beaten, starved and prodded at the tip of the bayonet toward prison camps that had been callously unprovided with the basic means of existence. In the only successful mass prison escape, Dyess along with his men broke out of their prison camp and made contact with resistance groups. After a time waging further Guerilla operations, Dyess and two other American servicemen were evacuated by submarine to Australia. As Dyess recuperated the American Government knowing the effect that the truth of the atrocities committed by the Japanese would galvanize public opinion allowed the release of his story via the Chicago Tribune. The story created a huge storm of outrage directed at the Japanese and of respect and admiration for Dyess and his fellow soldiers who had endured so much on their behalf. Dyess returned to active service as soon as was possible but tragically died in an airplane accident in 1943, a hero to his men and country. A tragically vivid and gruelling account of one of the most heroic escape stories yet told.

The Dyess Story, first published in 1944, is the moving World War II account of William Dyess (1916-1943), a US Army Air Force pilot who was captured by the Japanese in the fall of the Philippines. Dyess then took part in the infamous Bataan Death March, and was a POW at Camps Cabanatuan and O'Donnell before his transfer and eventual escape from the Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao. His horrific story, one of the first to be published in the U.S. during the war, shocked and angered the nation. Illustrated with maps and photographs. Sadly, on December 22, 1943, Dyess was killed in a training accident in California while testing a P-38 fighter; he was only 27 at the time.

Bataan Death March, originally published as The Dyess Story in 1944, is the moving World War II account of William Dyess (1916-1943), a US Army Air Force pilot who was captured by the Japanese in the fall of the Philippines. Dyess then took part in the infamous Bataan Death March, and was a POW at Camps Cabanatuan and O'Donnell before his transfer and eventual escape from the Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao. His horrific story, one of the first to be published in the U.S. during the war, shocked and angered the nation. Illustrated with maps and photographs. Sadly, on December 22, 1943, Dyess was killed in a training accident in California while testing a P-38 fighter; he was only 27 at the time.

Tears in the Darkness is an altogether new look at World War II that exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides. For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history. The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture—far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur. The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele's story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers.

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