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This is ostensibly the story of eight WWII flyboys (and one unknown flyer) who were shot down in attempting to take out the radio communications center on Chichi Jima, a much less notable location than its sister island, Iwo Jima, where most history focuses. One of those pilots was George H.W. Bush, who was rescued by a submarine. What happens to the captured men shows the depravity of war and the perversion of the ancient Japanese way of Bushido. If you've read much about war crimes, you should be fine with reading about the separate fates of these airmen, but the stories are disturbing and not for the faint of heart.

But the larger story is about the war waged in the Pacific - and the historical/cultural/sociological reasons for its beginnings. In very few pages, Bradley gives the reader the broad picture - which is helpful in understanding what happened on Chichi Jima - but is just a little too broad for my taste. He makes rather sweeping comparisons of the colonial military actions of Japan in China to America's dealings with Native Americans. Some of these points are surely valid, but I would have loved to have had more documentation and depth. Nevertheless, the deceptions perpetrated on both sides by high ranking officials, especially in defending mass slaughter, are agonizing to read.

I always have such mixed feelings reading these kinds of histories. War is the arena of the hero - it is in battle (and there is no other condition like it, I would imagine) that men, and now women, are able to test their bravery, loyalty, and personal strengths. However, quite frankly, I wish there could be another way toward valor. This book makes the point that we already know: war is a horror.

If the writing had just been a little more artistic, I might have given it a four.