Sorties Into Hell: The Hidden War on Chichi Jima

Chester G. Hearn; Chester Hearn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0275980812 ISBN 13: 9780275980818

Publisher: Praeger, 2003

In October 1946, Colonel Presley Rixey arrived by destroyer at Chichi Jima to repatriate 22,000 Japanese who had been bypassed during the war in the Pacific. While waiting for a Marine battalion to arrive, the colonel met daily with a Japanese commission assigned to assist him. When asked what had happened to American prisoners on the island, the Japanese hatched a story to hide the atrocities that they had committed. In truth, the downed flyers had been captured, executed, and eaten by certain senior Japanese officers. This is the story of the investigation, the cover-up, and the last hours of those Americans who disappeared into war's wilderness and whose remains were distributed to the cooking galleys of Chichi Jima. Rixey's suspicion of a cover-up was later substantiated by a group of Americans returning from Japan who had lived on Chichi Jima for generations. It would take five months of gathering testimony to uncover all the details. Thirty war criminals were eventually tried at Guam in 1947, five of whom met their fate on the gallows.

Review:

"Sorties Into Hell uncovers the tragic and heartbreaking story of how a dozen captured American pilots were tortured, mutilated, murdered and, in some cases, eaten by officers in Japanese Imperial Army on the island of Chichi Jima in Bonin Islands during the Pacific War....Hearn provides a remarkable read with important information."-Marine Corps Gazette

"[H]earn tells the story well....The book offers great detail into the war crimes committed on Chichi Jima....[C]orrectly pinpoints the Bushido code....Chester Hearn writes popular history on both the American Civil War and World War II."-Marine Corps Gazette

"Throughout the Pacific war, the Japanese frequently killed captured American flyers, and cannibalism was also not uncommon. But the Chichi Jima atrocities and their subsequent investigation were properly unique and have not previously been so fully described in published works."-Military History

"ÝH¨earn tells the story well....The book offers great detail into the war crimes committed on Chichi Jima....ÝC¨orrectly pinpoints the Bushido code....Chester Hearn writes popular history on both the American Civil War and World War II."-Marine Corps Gazette

?[H]earn tells the story well....The book offers great detail into the war crimes committed on Chichi Jima....[C]orrectly pinpoints the Bushido code....Chester Hearn writes popular history on both the American Civil War and World War II.?-Marine Corps Gazette

?Throughout the Pacific war, the Japanese frequently killed captured American flyers, and cannibalism was also not uncommon. But the Chichi Jima atrocities and their subsequent investigation were properly unique and have not previously been so fully described in published works.?-Military History

? Sorties Into Hell uncovers the tragic and heartbreaking story of how a dozen captured American pilots were tortured, mutilated, murdered and, in some cases, eaten by officers in Japanese Imperial Army on the island of Chichi Jima in Bonin Islands during the Pacific War....Hearn provides a remarkable read with important information.?-Marine Corps Gazette

"The book is a shocker and a stomach-turner, but one that should certainly find a place in American's public libraries. It merits as well wide circulation among individual readers, both specialists in World War II and ordinary Americans who want to understand just what their country was fighting against in the Pacific."-Dennis Showalter The Colorado College

From the Back Cover:

In October 1946, Colonel Presley Rixey arrived by destroyer at the island of Chichi Jima to return 22,000 Japanese, who had been bypassed during the war in the Pacific, to Japan. While waiting for a Marine battalion to arrive, the colonel met daily with a Japanese commission assigned to assist him. When asked what had happened to American prisoners on the island, the Japanese hatched a story to hide the atrocities that they had committed.
In truth, the downed flyers had been captured, executed, and eaten by certain senior Japanese officers. Rixey's suspicion of a cover-up was later substantiated by a group of Americans returning from Japan who had lived on Chichi Jima for generations. It would take five months of gathering testimony to uncover all the details. Thirty war criminals were eventually tried at Guam in 1947, five of whom were hanged.
Sorties Into Hell is the story of the investigation, the cover-up, and the last hours of those Americans whose remains were distributed to the cooking galleys of Chichi Jima. Drawing on research into long-classified files, author Chester Hearn has added an important and largely overlooked chapter to the history of World War II, and his contribution will be welcomed by the general reader and serious enthusiast alike.