In December of 1940, Morgan Thomas Jones, Jr. enlists in the New Mexico National Guard. He ends up serving more than five years in the Army--mostly as a Japanese prisoner of war. This memoir is one of the last written accounts of an American who survived the defense of the Philippines and the Bataan Death March.
Dick Field wanted his World War II service to be something different. It was. The nineteen-year-old guaranteed that when he volunteered to be a paratrooper. The Army assigned him to the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion. In August 1944 his unit participated in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France. They made airborne history in that campaign by carrying out the wars first daylight combat jump by American paratroopers. With the 551st s attachment to the 82nd Airborne Division, Dick fought in the Battle of the Bulge. In a letter to his wife months later, he admitted, I have never seen such hell before. He survived that German counteroffensive, but the 551st did not. Based upon Dick s recollections and letters home, this is his story.
In December of 1940, Morgan Thomas Jones, Jr. enlists in the New Mexico National Guard. He ends up serving more than five years in the Army--mostly as a Japanese prisoner of war. This memoir is one of the last written accounts of an American who survived the defense of the Philippines and the Bataan Death March.
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