Reviewed in The Oregonian: July 28
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Building for War: The Epic Saga of the Civilian Contractors and Marines of Wake Island in World War II by Bonita Gilbert
Synopsis This intimately researched work tells the story of the thousand-plus Depression-era civilian contractors who came to Wake Island, a remote Pacific atoll, in 1941 to build an air station for the U.S. Navy. Author Gilbert charts the contractors' hard-won progress as they scramble to build the naval base as well as runways for U.S. Army Air Corps B-17 Flying Fortresses while war clouds gather over the Pacific.
Five hours after their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese struck Wake Island, which was now isolated from assistance. The undermanned Marine Corps garrison, augmented by civilian-contractor volunteers, fought back against repeated enemy attacks, at one point thwarting a massive landing assault. The atoll was under siege for two weeks as its defenders continued to hope for the U.S. Navy to come to their rescue. Finally succumbing to an overwhelming amphibious attack, the surviving Americans, military and civilian, were taken prisoner. While most were shipped off to Japanese POW camps for slave labor, a number of the civilians were retained as workers on occupied Wake. Later in the war the last ninety-eight Americans were brutally massacred by their captors. The civilian contractors who had risked distance and danger for well-paying jobs ended up paying a steep price: their freedom and, for many, their lives.
Written by the daughter and granddaughter of civilians who served on Wake Island, Building for War sheds new light on why the United States was taken by surprise in December 1941 and shines a spotlight on the little-known, virtually forgotten story of a group of civilian workers and their families whose lives were forever changed by the events on the tiny atoll that is Wake.
Bonita Gilbert has an MA in history from the University of Oregon and teaches history at North Idaho College. Bonnie and her husband live in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Hardcover
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Longest Road by Philip Caputo
Publisher Comments One of our greatest living writers completes an epic journey across America, Airstream in tow, and reflects on what unites and divides a country as endlessly diverse as it is large. September 1996 found Phil Caputo on Barter Island, a windscoured rock in the Beaufort Sea populated by two hundred Inupiat and a handful of whites. As he gazed upon an American flag above the only school for 150 miles, he marveled that the children in that school pledged allegiance to the same flag as the children of Cuban immigrants on Key West, almost 6,000 miles away. Awed by America's vastness and diversity and filled with a renewed appreciation for its cohesiveness, an idea began to form. With enough time, gas money and nerve he could drive from the southernmost point to the northernmost point of the US reachable by road, talking to people as he went and try to better understand what held our great country together. And then, cicada-like, the idea went dormant, not to be reawakened for fourteen years. In 2011 in an America struggling through the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression and more divided than it has been in living memory, Phil, who had just turned 70, his wife, and his two English setters, set off in a truck hauling an Airstream camper from Key West, Florida to Deadhorse, Alaska. The journey, which traveled back roads, state routes, took 4 months and covered 17,000 miles. Caputo interviewed more than 80 Americans from all walks of life to get a picture of what their lives and the life of the nation are like in the 21st century and created a book that informs as much as it entertains. Your price $13.95 Used Hardcover
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