Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan (Bill O'Reilly's Killing Series) - Hardcover

O'Reilly, Bill; Dugard, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1627790624 ISBN 13: 9781627790628

Verlag: Macmillan USA, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

The next book from Bill O'Reilly in his best selling Killing series. Bill OReilly is the anchor of The OReilly Factor, the highest-rated cable news show in the country. He is the author of the number-one bestsellers Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and Killing Reagan.

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BILL O’REILLY’s success in broadcasting and publishing is unmatched. He was the iconic anchor of The O'Reilly Factor, the highest-rated cable news broadcast in the nation for 16 consecutive years. His website BillOReilly.com is followed by millions all over the world, his No Spin News is broadcast weekday nights at 8 and 11 (ET) on The First TV, and his O’Reilly Update is heard weekdays on more than 225 radio stations across the country. He has authored an astonishing seventeen #1 bestsellers; his historical Killing series is the bestselling nonfiction series of all time, with over 18 million books in print. O’Reilly has received a number of journalism accolades, including three Emmys and two Emmy nominations. He holds a History degree from Marist College, a master's degree in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University, and a master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. O’Reilly lives on Long Island where he was raised. His philanthropic enterprises have raised tens of millions for people in need and wounded American veterans.


MARTIN DUGARD is the New York Times bestselling author of several books of history. He and his wife live in Southern California with their three sons.

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Killing the Rising Sun

How America Vanquished World War II Japan

By Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard

Henry Holt and Company

Copyright © 2016 Henry Holt
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62779-062-8

CHAPTER 1

Peleliu, Caroline Islands Pacific Ocean September 15, 1944 0832 Hours

Destruction is near for the empire.

The morning heat is so unbearable that Corporal Lewis Kenneth Bausell, USMC, has trouble breathing. He is huddled inside an amphibious landing vehicle with a dozen other marines of the First Battalion, headed for the section of Japanese-held beach code-named Orange One. Even this early in the morning, the temperature hovers at 100 degrees. The Americans are sweating profusely as their armored craft brings them ever closer to the sand. But heat is not the only factor — some of the perspiration is from nerves. These marines understand that they may soon die or be maimed for life and few will ever know what happened to them.

Unlike in the much more publicized war in Europe, where reporters like Ernie Pyle and Edward R. Murrow are making names for themselves by covering every aspect of the fighting, there are few journalists or photographers hitting this remote beach today. The crucial upcoming battle against the Japanese will be waged in near anonymity.

Peleliu is important because of its airstrip, a hard-surfaced field capable of launching long-range fighter-bombers. The island is just six miles long and two miles wide, but the terrain is exceptionally rugged, a film of thin soil laid atop coral and limestone. A thousand yards off the beach rise the jungle-covered Umurbrogol ridges, a series of low, jagged peaks forming the island's spine. The Japanese have long coveted tiny, remote Peleliu, first taking possession of the empty island in 1914. For two decades it remained basically unused, but with the war came renewed awareness of its tactical importance. Since this past summer, knowing that the Americans would soon attack, the Japanese have labored to transform Peleliu into a fortress.

Most American marines could not care less about the history of Peleliu. Each man approaches the coming battle in his own way. Some smoke to calm their fears, some vomit onto the steel deck, and others worry about wetting their pants. But there is one belief that every man shares: no matter what happens when they hit the beach, surrendering to the enemy will not be an option.

Lewis Bausell has been through this before. Only twenty years old, the apprentice bookbinder from Washington, DC, has an easy smile and a wide boxer's nose. His hair is cropped close to his skull. Bausell had a semester left at McKinley Technical High School when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He immediately dropped out of school and tried to enlist in the navy but was rejected. So instead, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. During his more than two years serving his country, Bausell has earned the respect of his peers, and although his rank is not yet official, just one month ago Bausell was selected for promotion to the rank of sergeant because of his heroic performance and leadership during invasions on Tulagi, Gavutu, Guadalcanal, and Cape Gloucester.

Now, as the amtrac churns forward through the flat surf toward Peleliu, Bausell buckles the chin strap of his steel helmet. The landing craft stalls momentarily on the coral reef one hundred yards offshore, then continues churning toward the landing zone. Bausell is tempted to peer up and over the side to glimpse the battlefield, but he keeps his head down. Japanese snipers are known to target the curious.

All at once, geysers of water erupt around the landing craft. Incoming Japanese 141-mm mortar rounds fill the air. Many find their mark, killing Bausell's fellow marines on other landing craft. The explosions and the roar of artillery are so loud that Bausell and his squadmates cannot hear one another without yelling. The smoke of battle has turned the blue morning sky black. On any other day, Peleliu is a tropical island paradise. Today it is a living hell.

"Hit the beach," yells a sergeant as the amtrac's steel treads reach the shore. Bausell vaults up and over the side, landing hard on the bone-white sand and coral. The staccato chatter of hidden Japanese machine guns forces Bausell to press his body flat against the earth. All around him, explosions bring flashes of light. The palm trees lining the beach are in flames. Crimson pools of American blood mingle with the yellow phosphorus of Japanese incendiary devices.

"All any man could do was sweat it out and pray for survival," one marine will later write of his first moments on Peleliu. "It would have been sure suicide to stand up during that firestorm."

Everything Bausell sees and hears gives the lie to what he and his fellow marines had been told about this tactically vital Japanese stronghold. In preparation for Operation Stalemate, the United States Navy bombarded Peleliu with ten days of aerial raids and two more days of naval shelling. It seemed impossible that anyone could have lived through such an intense barrage of napalm and artillery; "we have run out of targets," a top naval officer complained. American intelligence supported this notion, suggesting that the enemy response would be minimal. The Marine Corps officer commanding the invasion, Major General William Rupertus, predicted a quick and easy battle — "a hard fought 'quickie' that will last for four days, five days at most."

But as Corporal Lewis Bausell and his squad can now attest, Peleliu will not be taken easily. Its defenders have had months to prepare. Mortar launchers and artillery are concealed behind the 2,200-yard beachfront, targeted to strike the precise spots at which the Americans now race ashore. In addition, the Japanese have constructed antitank barriers, laid hundreds of mines, and lined the beach with every coil of barbed wire in the Caroline Islands. "Spider traps" — machine-gun nests made of coconut-tree logs — are camouflaged so well that they are almost invisible in the swampy landscape where jungle meets the sand.

Yet Japanese commander Colonel Kunio Nakagawa is a realist. He knows the Americans will eventually work their way ashore. The US force is huge. So the wily colonel is employing a strategy tried just once before in the war. Despite the horrific welcome the Americans are now receiving, it is not his goal to win this battle on the beaches. Just a fraction of his army now fights the marines, but thousands of other elite troops wait inland, in a network of five hundred hidden caves in the nearby Umurbrogol highlands.

These fukkaku defenses will allow Nakagawa and his men to counter the Americans, "bleeding them white" by coming out of hiding to attack when the marines least expect it.

The attacking Japanese soldiers' ability to swarm out of nowhere led top British general William Slim to refer to them as "the most formidable fighting insect in history." The men of Nakagawa's Fourteenth Imperial Division embody that sentiment. Almost all are veteran warriors, hardened by years of battle. They have been living five stories underground, subsisting on a simple diet of rice and fish and enduring the beatings and harsh discipline from their officers that are typical of the Japanese army. "You could be beaten for anything," one Japanese soldier later remembered. "Being too short or being too tall, even because somebody didn't like the way you drank coffee. This was done to make each man respond instantly to orders, and it produced results. If you want soldiers who fight hard, they must train...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Macmillan USA
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1627790624
• ISBN 13: 9781627790628
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: webstar; casetta@mondadori.it; ; Via Mondadori 1,; Segrate Milano; 20090; Italien