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Women Heroes of World War II―the Pacific Theater: 15 Stories of Resistance, Rescue, Sabotage, and Survival (18) (Women of Action) Hardcover – October 1, 2016
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Glamorous American singer Claire Phillips opened a nightclub in manila, using the earnings to secretly feed starving American POWs. She also began working as a spy, chatting up Japanese military men and passing their secrets along to local guerrilla resistance fighters. Australian Army nurse Vivian Bullwinkel, stationed in Singapore, then shipwrecked in the the Dutch East Indies, became the sole survivor of a horrible massacre by Japanese soliders. She hid for days, tending to a seriously wounded British soldier while wounded herself. Humanitarian Elizabeth Choy lived the rest of her life hating war, though not her tormentors, after enduring six months of starvation and torture by the Japanese military police.
In these pages, readers will meet these and other courageous women and girls who risked their lives through their involvement in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. Fifteen suspense-filled stories unfold across China, Japan, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines, providing an inspiring reminder of womens' and girls' refusal to sit on the sidelines around the world and throughout history.
These women—whose stories span 1932 to 1945, the last year of the war—served in dangerous roles as spies, medics, journalists, resisters, and saboteurs. Seven of them were captured and imprisoned by the Japanese, enduring brutal conditions. Author Kathryn J. Atwood provides appropriate context and framing for teens 14 and up to grapple with these harsh realities of war. Discussion questions and a guide for further study assist readers and educators in learning about this important and often neglected period of history.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherChicago Review Press
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2016
- Grade level9 and up
- Reading age14 years and up
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-10161373168X
- ISBN-13978-1613731680
- Lexile measure1210L
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Editorial Reviews
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“Atwood’s vivid, accessible storytelling brings to life the oft’ forgotten female spies, saboteurs, and survivors who were utterly crucial to American victory in World War II. This book rightly solidifies their place in human history.” —Ben Montgomery, author of The Leper Spy and New York Times bestseller Grandma Gatewood's Walk
“Anyone who thinks that women’s only responsibility in World War II was keeping morale high on the home front will change this view after reading about spies, prisoners of war, guerilla fighters and other courageous women in Kathryn J. Atwood's Women Heroes of World War II—the Pacific Theater. By using their own voices from memoirs, diaries and other sources, Atwood clearly lets us know that valor is not, and never has been, only a men’s trait.” —Elizabeth M. Norman author of We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Women Trapped on Bataan
Kathryn Atwood’s Women Heroes of WWII-the Pacific Theater tells the stories of fifteen gutsy ladies—writers, agents, activists, nurses, survivors, and others—whose bravery, resilience, and determination to take risks, confront adversity, and even face death are revealed from a perspective too often ignored. A modern day Profiles in Courage. —David Rensin, co-author with Louis Zamperini of his autobiography, “Devil at My Heels,” and his collection of life lessons, “Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In.”
“Kathryn Atwood presents refreshing perspective into the horrors of the Pacific War through the forgotten stories of heroines who have mostly been lost in the vast historiography of World War II.” —Jenny Chan, director, Pacific Atrocities Education
“A worthy addition to military collections.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Amid the cruelty and inhumanity of "the war without mercy," Atwood presents readers, young and old, with inspiring stories of women whose courage and endurance restore our faith in the ability of ordinary people to survive, resist and ultimately triumph over evil." —Robert Messer, Associate Professor Emeritus, 20th Century U.S. History, University of Illinois at Chicago
“This follow-up to Atwood's Women Heroes of World War II (2011) is part helpful informational text, part enthralling narrative; each of these 15 profiles could constitute a cliffhanger screenplay” —Booklist, starred review
“A suitable addition to works on World War II and a fine follow-up to Atwood’s Women Heroes of World War II” —School Library Journal
"Highly recommended. It’s aimed at teens, but I thoroughly enjoyed it." —The Deliberate Reader
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Chicago Review Press (October 1, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 161373168X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1613731680
- Reading age : 14 years and up
- Lexile measure : 1210L
- Grade level : 9 and up
- Item Weight : 15 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #566,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Kathryn J. Atwood has written multiple young adult collective biographies on women and war for the Chicago Review Press. While her first book, Women Heroes of World War II, gets all the attention, her book on the Pacific Theater of WWII was given a starred review by Booklist, and her book on the Vietnam War was honored with an award that to unfocussed eyes almost resembles the Newbery Medal. She has been seen on America: Facts vs. Fiction; interviewed by Wild Bear Entertainment and WGN TV; heard on BBC America; published in the Historian and War, Literature & the Arts; and featured as a guest speaker at dozens of libraries and historical societies, including the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park, and the Atlanta History Center.
Visit her on Instagram at KathrynJAtwood and at www.kathrynatwood.com.
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Amazing read, would suggest for anyone looking to learn more about womens involvement in the War.
The books are aimed at the young adult audience but readers of any age will not fail to be moved and horrified in equal measure by the stories contained within these pages. As Kathryn writes in her foreword, she’s tried not to make the stories too graphic but we’re talking about the Rape of Nanking here, young girls forced into being ‘comfort women’, and the much-feared Kempeitai, Japan’s military police. So we approach with caution because what some of these women had to endure is mindboggling. Yes, there are tales of incarceration, torture and rape but this book is not a horror-fest. Instead, what we have is a very sympathetic portrayal of these incredibly brave and resourceful women and what they went through in the name of justice and humanity.
Atwood begins with a brief overview of Japan’s relationship with the West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She reminds us that Japan fought on the side of the Allies during the First World War. But post-war Japan was treated dismissively by their European allies – much of it based on racism. She summarises Japan’s development into a fascist, one-party state, and how young Japanese boys were hardened and desensitized by brutal and compulsory military training.
We tend to think of the Second World War as having started on 1 September 1939, the point Germany attacked Poland. But some historians now consider 7 July 1937 to be a more accurate date – the ‘Marco Polo Bridge Incident’ which started the war between Japan and China.
On 7 December 1941, the Japanese attacked several Western strongholds in the Far East, and, most notoriously, the US Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor. Two months later, Japanese forces humiliated the British by taking Singapore. Atwood book covers all these pinch points and several more within the Pacific theatre of war.
Atwood gives us 15 tales of women who, each in their own way, fought against Japanese aggression. Take Vivian Bullwinkel, for example. Vivian was one of 22 Australian nurses who, on 12 February 1942, was forced by Japanese soldiers into the waves off Bangka Island in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). They smiled at each other, aware of what was about to happen. Their matron, Irene Drummond, managed to call out, ‘Chin up, girls. I’m proud of you and I love you all’ before the machine guns opened fire. Vivian, although shot, survived. The only one.
Then we have Wilhelmina ‘Minnie’ Vautrin. Minnie was working in a women’s college in the Chinese city of Nanking when the Japanese invaded in December 1937. The college became a designated refugee camp. Designed for about 300 students, by the end of the year, 10,000 terrified women had squeezed in, desperate for sanctuary from Japanese soldiers intent on raping every female they could find, however young or old. Tortured by what she had witnessed in Nanking, Minnie returned home to Indianapolis where, in May 1941, she took her own life.
Another chapter relates the story of Sybil Kathigasu, a Malayan nurse, who, together with her surgeon husband, helped scores of wounded guerrilla fighters. But she was arrested and interrogated and tortured by the Kempeitai. Sybil survived the war but the injuries sustained at the hands of the Kempeitai were too severe and she died in 1948, aged 48.
Fortunately most of the women from these tales survived the war and lived to an old age. Elizabeth Macdonald, who worked as an undercover agent during the war, died in 2015 having made it passed her 100th birthday.
Atwood, as always, writes well, her admiration for these women evident. She’s not afraid to tackle the horrors they had to endure but manages to do so with great sensitivity, and avoids becoming overly voyeuristic.
These 15 extraordinarily courageous women deserve to be remembered. Kathryn Atwood’s fine book helps ensure that they will be.
I'll confess another reason I was interested in this book. Many years ago, I lived in Okinawa, and I traveled to the Philippine Islands, Taiwan, and South Korea. I've seen the jungles where the Resistance fighters hid in World War II. I've seen the bunkers scarred by grenades as Japanese officers committed suicide, the battlefields, the hangers for the kamikaze planes that still existed when I first arrived on Okinawa, and so many other things including the hatred elderly women in so many countries displayed toward Japanese tourists.
This book contains 15 amazing stories about ordinary women and girls caught up in the horror of war. The way they responded to the circumstances in which they found themselves turned them into extraordinary women. They were heroes by any definition of that often overused word.
The target audience for this book is Young Teens (14 and up). Because of this, the book is written without sensationalism or descriptive emotional response to the horrific events contained in the book. Nothing is airbrushed or withheld when it comes to the history of that era in that part of the world. Facts are stated clearly and without emotionalism, but that doesn't lessen the horror.
Powerful heart-wrenching stories are no less powerful for being presented as bare facts without sensationalism. When one reads Maria Rosa Henson's story, it's impossible to feel unemotional. Raped multiple times at fourteen, Maria endured and survived and became a resistance fighter. Her story is one of the 15 in the book. It's one story of rape out of tens of thousands of stories of raped women in occupied countries. It's estimated that more than 200,000 women were enslaved by the Japanese military in so-called "comfort stations." Let's call them what they really were: rape stations.
Yes, these facts are presented unemotionally in an effort to acquaint the target audience with not only the horrors of the last world war but also the fate of women in the countries conquered by a ruthless army of occupation. Starvation, torture, rape, illness, and death all awaited women--not just those who resisted or tried to help those who resisted yet that did not stop women from doing what they could to tend to the sick and wounded, to comfort the dying, and to fight in any way they could.
In the European theater, women resistance fighters and covert operatives were at risk, but in the Pacific theater, all women were considered fair game by the Imperial Army, not just those they suspected of being resistance fighters. Every female regardless of age was at risk of starvation, imprisonment, torture, and rape.
Ms. Atwood has done a thorough job of research into this era. She also offers insight into why many average Japanese citizens disavow the stories of "comfort women" and other atrocities. I urge you to read some of the other books she cites at the end of each chapter. I think the additional reading will enrich your knowledge of these amazing women and what they endured to help others.
World War II is fading from memory, and most people probably don't know as much about the Pacific Theater as the war in Europe. The Pacific front was more horrific in many ways, and I think it's important to recognize the women whose lives and deaths are spotlighted by the book. There are women still alive today who had their souls shattered by the events in the Pacific Theater. If nothing else, honor them by knowing what they endured.
If you never knew much about what happened in the world outside of Europe during World War II, this is your chance to learn. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone who wants to know more about the world, and why it is the way it is today. If you are a woman reading this book, you'll feel an incredible respect and reverence for the women whose stories are told. You'll be proud of women heroes wherever or whenever they may have lived.
I strongly feel that the lessons of the past, our world's history, should always be acknowledged--never whitewashed--lest history repeat itself.