Last Man Out: Glenn McDole, USMC, Survivor of the Palawan Massacre in World War II

Rating:
Summary: A True Incident, A Lesson for All Time
Review: One of the good stories to come out of World War II was the rescue of over 500 American prisoners at the CABANATUAN MILITARY PRISON CAMP. If you are not familiar with the story, 123 members of the 6th Rangers sneaked through enemy lines to the prison camp, killed all the guards and got the men out.

It was not common for such break outs to be attempted. And the reason for the rescue at Cabanatuan was the massacre at Palawan.

Palawan was an offshoot of Cabanatuan, some 150 prisoners from Cabanatuan had been sent to Palawan as slave workers. They spent two and a half years working on the air strip. Then on December 15, 1944 the Americans landed on Mindoro. So the Japanese decided to execute the 150 prisoners. They missed eleven who managed to escape.

This is the story of one young marine. From all the people in the USMC he bacame one of the 7,000 Americans captured at Corregidor, and one of the eleven to survive Palawan.

As I read this book, my first thought was to damn the Japanese. Their culture of Bushido created an environment where such events happened. Then I thought of the Islamic terrorists, or cult or whatever you'd call it in Iraq who yesterday beheaded someone just to get it in the news. And that lead me to the events in the prison in Iraq where we Americans didn't exactly act with honor.

This is a book, not only excellently written, but tells of a side of the war not often reported. And forces you to think of other places, other incidents. Highly recommended.