[Map Kernow]

Because of the racial aspect, and the exploitation by both sides of racist stereotypes of the enemy, the War in the Pacific was in the opinion of many particularly brutal. It goes without saying, even given practices among US soldiers such as "skull souvenirs," that Japanese military personnel in the Pacific were very often consciously savage towards American prisoners---not to mention civilian populations under their control. I recommend John W. Dower's War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War for more info.

[metesky]

Map, I have all ten volumes of Pictorial History of the Second World War, William H. Wise and Co., Inc.. Old, out of print, cheap now, but my father bought the volumes as they came out, the first in 1944 the year of me. :O)

The last volume came out in 1949 after all the trials were over.

4,000 pages of pictures with captions mixed with a spare factual text. Covers all the theaters, with pictures of Manchuria in the Pacific Theater, Munich, Czechoslovakia, the Blitzkrieg into Poland, right through to the trials of Japanese and Nazi war criminals.

In addition to Pa's younger brother with Merrill in the Pacific, my mother's brother was with the 8th AAF and flew Ploesti and a chit load of other runs. I grew up with this stuff.

I was 9 or 10 years old before the old man would even let me look at some of the pictures, like the eyewitness drawings of a survivor of the Black Hole in a Manila hotel where the Japanese army had a production line POW decapitation thing goin'.

I'll look for that book. Thanks. I'm a sap for history books and one good thing about that, history books are usually the first ones discounted. My wife and I were almost alone in the history section at our public library's annual old book sell-off. Three grocery bags full of history for $20.00!