Angels Against the Sun: A WWII Saga of Grunts, Grit, and Brotherhood

Description

The 11th Airborne—nicknamed ‘The Angels’— were trained to enter combat via airdrop: by parachutes and engineless gliders. They were one of five such divisions created by the US Army during the war and the only one sent to the Pacific theater. There they were pitted against two merciless foes: the Imperial Japanese Army and the combined forces of monsoons, swamps, insects, mud, privation and disease. The Angels’ combat operations were some of the most dramatic of the war, ranging from miserable jungle battles to the gritty urban combat required to push the Japanese out of Manila, the Philippine’s capital city of almost a million inhabitants.

Based on exhaustive archival research, including interviews, letters, and diaries, Angels Against the Sun takes readers on a soldier’s journey from the routine of stateside training to the diversions of football, boxing and distilling moonshine before descending into the hardships and tragedies of war. Written in an engaging, character-driven, narrative-style, the book provides readers with the human perspective of little-known aspects of the war in the Pacific.

Hardcover. 528 pages.