Death on the Hellships: Prisoners at Sea in the Pacific War

by Gregory F Michno

Overview

Now available in paperback, Death on the Hellships chronicles the true dimensions of the Allied POW experience at sea. It is a disturbing story; many believe the Bataan Death March even pales by comparison. Survivors describe their ordeal in the Japanese hellships as the absolute worst experience of their captivity. Crammed by the thousands into the holds of the ships, moved from island to island and put to work, they endured all the horrors of the prison camps magnified tenfold. Gregory Michno draws on American, British, Australian, and Dutch POW accounts as well as Japanese convoy histories, declassified radio intelligence reports, and a wealth of archival sources to present a detailed picture of the horror.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682470251
Publisher:	Naval Institute Press
Publication date:	07/15/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Gregory F. Michno is the son of a World War II submariner whose boat participated in one of the infamous torpedoings of a Japanese “hellship.” He has written twelve nonfiction books, several of them award winners, and more than forty articles. He and his wife, Susan, live in Erie, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

"Gregory Michno’s riveting chronicle of life and death for American and Allied POWS aboard Japanese ships during World War II offers an extraordinary look into a neglected chapter in the prisoner-of-war experience in the Pacific. He has mastery over both his sources and subject and produces an exhaustive history as well as a gripping tale.” —Stuart I. Rochester, author of Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 “A carefully researched and poignantly told tale of thousands of Americans who died at sea at the hands of their own countrymen. The fact that their numbers were greater than the number of deaths in the bloodiest of all Pacific was battles, Okinawa, is shocking. . . . Simultaneously judicious, sympathetic, and compelling in his presentation, Michno has produced a must read book for anyone interested in Pacific war history.” —Roger R. Dingman, author of Ghost of War: The Sinking of the Awa Maru and Japanese-American Relations, 1945-1995"

From the Publisher