VALOR

The spectacular adventures of an American soldier who refused to surrender after the Japanese conquest of the Philippines.

Hampton, a decorated former Air Force pilot and bestselling author of military history, tells the remarkable story of Lt. Col. William Frederick Harris (1918-1950), whose regiment arrived in the islands in the Philippines in 1941, just after Pearl Harbor and only days before the Japanese invasion. In January, his unit moved to Corregidor, a fortified island in Manila harbor and the last remaining outpost after the American defeat. Despite a fierce defense, American forces surrendered on May 6, 1942. Harris immediately planned to escape his imprisonment, which would require swimming three miles across the shark-infested harbor to the mainland. Against all odds, he and a companion succeeded, although it required nine exhausting hours. There followed an amazing odyssey, as Harris and a changing cast of fellow soldiers, assisted by Indigenous people and guerrillas, walked and sailed several thousand miles toward Australia, eventually reaching Indonesia before being recaptured by the Japanese in June 1943. Taken to Japan, Harris endured more than two years of miserable conditions in prison camps until the American fleet arrived on Aug. 30, 1945, two weeks after Japan’s surrender. His postwar life seemed to be moving toward the traditional happy ending, as he fell in love, married, and had two children, but readers will be jolted to learn that he remained in the Marines and returned to war in Korea in 1950, where he was killed. Hampton narrates his story with a combination of invented dialogue, melodrama, insight into characters’ thoughts, and precise details of events that are unlikely to be documented, pausing regularly to recount the progress of the war. Though the author’s conventional, novelistic approach is in keeping with countless other breathless accounts of World War II heroics, Harris’ life was unquestionably amazing, making his story worthwhile.

A fast-paced WWII tale for military-history devotees.