This work - the story of Herbert Zincke's survival - is drawn from the secret diary he managed to keep out of his Japanese captors' hands. Zincke recollects being spared death by the Japanese camp commander's samurai sword, the diet of rice and thin soup that resulted in drastic weight loss and an inability to do the required factory work, the POW British doctor who attended the prisoners and was frequently beaten because of his constant efforts to keep the sick men from going to work, and many of the other terrible conditions and experiences he endured during three years of imprisonment.

Twelve hours after Pearl Harbor, Clark Field in the Philippines was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Among the survivors was Private Victor L. Mapes, who spent the next three years fleeing from and then being imprisoned by the Japanese military machine. When the tide of battle in the Pacific turned against the Japanese, Mapes experienced more harrowing conditions than before. After his unmarked prison ship was torpedoed by an American submarine, the wounded author struggled in the water against the elements and the enemy, as the Japanese tried to kill the escaping POWs. Mapes memoir chronicles...