Synopses & Reviews
This unique record of action in the Pacific is the personal journal of a young American soldier, Sy Kahn. Written under trying conditions and contrary to military regulations, the diary provided the writer both sanity and sanctuary a foxhole of the mind in an often violent, irrational world. A bookish nineteen-year-old who was the youngest soldier in his company, Kahn recorded in almost daily entries both the immediacy of danger and the tedium of relentless work, heat, humidity, and routine. His wartime odyssey took him to Australia, New Guinea, other South Pacific islands, and a D-day landing on Luzon. Surviving four campaigns and over 300 air attacks, Kahn and his company finally were sent to occupy Yokohama shortly after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.
Review
"The compelling diary of a young man from Manhattan during the Pacific campaign--and one of the few WW II diaries published to date....Kahn makes an ideal diarist: objective, observant, with a spicy dash of introspection. A WW II document of note." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"This diary of a bookish New York teenager's service aboard a cargo-handling unit in the southwest Pacific is a worthwhile addition to World War II memoirs....a literate, detailed, and compelling private's-eye view of a forgotten category of soldier in an almost equally forgotten theater of the war." Roland Green, Booklist
Review
"Kahn's diary marvelously captures the daily grind and abrupt excitements of the war, and from an unusual angle....His diary is special not so much for its depiction of warfare (although there's plenty of that), but as a chronicle of a sensitive young soldier's journey toward maturity. The book continuously engages as it reveals Kahn's distinctive personality and outlook." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The diary of a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Pacific during World War II records both the daily tedium and the immediacy of danger as he traveled to Australia, New Guinea, and other faraway locations.
Synopsis
When Sy Kahn set off to serve in the Pacific during World War II, he was a bookish, naive nineteen-year-old, the youngest in his company. Convinced he would not survive the war, Kahn kept a meticulous record of his experiences as his "foxhole of the mind," even though keeping such a journal was forbidden by military regulations. His secret diary--one soldier's "mark against oblivion"--is a rare ground-level account of the war.
Often writing in tents by candlelight, in foxholes, or on board ships, Kahn documents life during four campaigns and over three hundred air attacks. He describes the 244th Port Company's backbreaking work of loading and unloading ships, the suffocating heat, the debilitating tropical diseases, and the relentless, sometimes terrifying bombings, accidents, casualties, and deaths.
His wartime odyssey also includes encounters with civilians in Australia, in the Philippines, and, as among the earliest occupation troops, in Japan. A detailed record of the daily cost of war, Kahn's journal reflects his increasing maturity and his personal coming of age, representative of thousands of young Americans who served in World War II.