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| Titre : | Ship of Ghosts |
| Auteurs : | James Hornfischer |
| Type de document : | document électronique |
| Editeur : | [S.l.] : Bantam, 2006 |
| ISBN/ISSN/EAN : | 978-0-553-38450-5 |
| Index. décimale : | 359 (Marine militaire) |
| Résumé : |
"BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from James D. Hornfischer's *Neptune's Inferno*. ""Son, we're going to Hell."" The navigator of the USS *Houston* confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS *Houston* was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn't a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death. Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again--until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the *Houston* was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home. In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as *The Bridge on the River Kwai*, the war continued for the men of the *Houston*--a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma--Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will--power--and the undying faith that their country would prevail. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of *Houston*'s survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it's easy to forget that every single word is true." |
