Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway: 11 (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

I agree with the other reviewer that there is a certain "something" missing from this narrative and that the story would have been enriched if the author had not relied solely on secondary sources. Having said that, this book fills in a lot of the gaps in the story of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery and their experience as the "Lost Battalion." The details on their pre-war experiences after being federalized and the story covering their journey across the Pacific and into combat on Java is well detailed. This is a story that deserves to better known and I appreciate the author doing his part.

I've probably read 50 - 60 books, mostly autobiographies, about POWS of World War II. Some are self-published, some are best-sellers, some are excellently written and some struggle. The story of our young men and what they had to endure, mostly at the hands of the Japanese is inspiring. Hell Under the Rising Sun had an interesting quirk to it, the fact that this was a Texas National Guard artillery unit, many of them had grown up together, got called up and then were captured almost before they even got into the war. I'm glad Kelly Crager elected to do this story. I feel, however, the book lacks SOMETHING although it's hard to figure out. There's a lot of redundancy, telling the reader the same thing several times such as "this camp is worse than the last one". After we've been told that once, we don't need to keep being reminded. I caught myself skipping over much of it. I never felt I really got "close" to the men the story was about. I think it might have helped if Mr Crager had been able to interview any remaining survivors himself to get a better feel. I also felt as if Mr Crager dwelt a little too much on the popular belief today that veterans never recover from their service during war time. The things these men went through was horrendous but research has actually proven that almost all returned to long, active, productive lives. I would have l liked to have more of that aspect pointed out. Also, and the most disturbing, I don't think I've ever read a book about POWs where there wasn't some mention of their faith in God. In the nearly 60 books I have in my library on this subject, I believe the men's religious faith is mentioned in all of them. That was such a part of the lives of families in the 1930's and 40's that I wonder why it wasn't even mentioned among the Texas boys or was it something not deemed necessary to include by the writer, the editor or whomever at least once or twice. Reading through the book I suspect this was a dissertation for an advance degree rather than an urgency to tell the story of the men. It was somewhat well researched (note the pages and pages of notes and bibliography but with no interviews by Mr Crager himself), awkward to read but I'm still glad Mr Crager put the words to paper. It did leave me with an urge to edit though! I would recommend it to anyone who had a friend or family member in the 131st Field Artillery Regiment or the USS Houston, you need to know all you can.

This book is an outside look at the events from World War II that overtook the men of the Texas National Guard unit of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment when they found themselves prisoners of war in Java in 1942.The book by Kelly E. Crager is a look at the men of the battalion and the struggles they faced being forced to work for the Japanese on the Thailand-Burma railroad - known today as the Death Railroad.During a recent visit to Thailand I visited the River Kwai area and learned about the Texas unit while touring the Death Railway Museum in Kanchanaburi near the War Cemetery. The American numbers in the prisoners forced to work on the railroad were small compared to the British, Australian and Dutch, but the Texans were able to stay close and helped each other survive the terrible work and camps along the 260-mile project.A good read, and provides objective insight into the events and men from Texas who survived their ordeal.

I became aquatinted with the family of one of the men portrayed in the book, though not directly. This man spent the entire war in the Japanese POW camp and didn't know till release the details of the war. Very graphic but that's what those "boys" and many were just boys lived through yet came out and led productive lives.