Surviving the Japanese (The Desperate Struggle of American Civilians Fighting for Their Lives after Pearl Harbor)

After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the tide of Japanese conquest swept over the Pacific: the Philippines, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, Hong Kong, Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea, Singapore. Like dominoes, and more quickly than the Allies ever thought possible, their Pacific territories fell to the Japanese— and many Americans living overseas found themselves caught in a war zone. Survivingthe Japanese tells the incredible story of their mass exodus during the first months of World War II in the Pacific.

As storm clouds gathered across the Pacific in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the thousands of Americans in the region cautiously went on with their lives. Theirs was a world of oil refineries, rubber plantations, and missionary outposts, a world of Pan Am clippers alighting in Far East cities. They were businessmen and entertainers, scientists and engineers, missionaries and construction workers, diplomats and newspaper correspondents, men, women, and children. They worked for the U.S. government, for churches, for companies like Standard Oil and Goodyear. They made preparations for war with Japan, but when it finally broke out in December 1941, nothing could have prepared them for the harrowing reality that upended their lives overnight.

Once the Pacific exploded in war and violence, these Americans’ lives became a constant struggle to stay one step ahead of the Japanese. They destroyed machinery in refineries, blew up oil tanks, burned secret documents. They boarded small boats that threaded through mined waters and coral reefs out of cities under siege. Others found passage on ocean liners. Safe havens disappeared as Japanese forces seized in a day or a week what European countries had held a century or more. Some died during their attempt to escape. Others were captured and interned for the rest of the war. Still others ended up enlisting in the U.S. Army. Through courage, grit, and perseverance, many escaped and found refuge— and went on to live changed lives in a changed world.

A gripping story of human beings caught up in the tide of war and an impressive feat of historical detective work, Surviving the Japanese recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of the old world of Pacific empires and captures the drama that unfolded as that world crumbled and left American civilians to flee for their lives. This is a heart-pounding look at the first months of World War II in the Pacific as it has never been seen before.