American Guerrilla: My War Behind Japanese Lines

Description

During World War II, Roger Hilsman fought in Burma with the legendary Merrill's Marauders until he was machine-gunned. Then, at age twenty-five, he led a battalion of indigenous troops behind Japanese lines. At the war's end, he headed a POW rescue mission to Manchuria, where the prisoners included his own father. An exciting, unusual coming-of-age story, "American Guerrilla" concludes with reflections on how Hilsman's wartime experiences influenced his involvement in early Vietnam War policy making when he served in the Kennedy administration.

An exciting, human-scale memoir of WWII derring-do . . . with a pointed coda on counterinsurgency. Kirkus Reviews Enthralling . . . concludes with some useful reflections on the conditions required for guerrilla warfare to be effective. A magnificent piece of work . . . Hilsman s experience and observations should be studied closely.