The Wide Wide Sea

Hampton Sides

Michael, Joseph

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

BOOKS ON TAPE]

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

History

Americas

Random House, Large Print

On Desperate Ground

Random House Digital, Inc.

SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, HAMPTON SIDES! From the New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and In the Kingdom of Ice, a chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism by Marines called on to do the impossible during the greatest battle of the Korean War On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war. As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What followed was one of the most heroic--and harrowing--operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time. Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below zero, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way to the sea. Hampton Sides' superb account of this epic clash relies on years of archival research, unpublished letters, declassified documents, and interviews with scores of Marines and Koreans who survived the siege. While expertly detailing the follies of the American leaders, On Desperate Ground is an immediate, grunt's-eye view of history, enthralling in its narrative pace and powerful in its portrayal of what ordinary men are capable of in the most extreme circumstances. Hampton Sides has been hailed by critics as one of the best nonfiction writers of his generation. As the Miami Herald wrote, "Sides has a novelist's eye for the propulsive elements that lend momentum and dramatic pace to the best nonfiction narratives.

On Desperate Ground - Signed / Autographed Copy

Doubleday Books

"Hellhound on His Trail" is the story of two very different men whose lives catastrophically interweaved over the course of some nine months in the late 1960s: one was a thief and con man called James Earl Ray, the other one of the greatest American figures of the twentieth century, Martin Luther King Jr. Hampton Sides follows in Ray's footsteps as he escapes from prison, creates a new identity for himself and becomes convinced of his mission to kill King. "Hellhound on His Trail" is equally the story of King himself in his last months, fighting to keep his ideals alive in the face of intensive FBI surveillance and his own exhausted frustration. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Ray and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the fateful moment, on 4 April 1968 at a Memphis hotel, when the drifter finally caught up with his prey. Nationwide riots were sparked by the assassination, followed by the largest manhunt in American history.

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr

Penguin??Books

Ghost soldiers the forgotten epic story of World War II's most dramatic mission

U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles in an attempt to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had spent three years in a surreal hellish camp near the city of Cabanatuan. The prisoners included the last survivors of the Bataan Death March left in the camp, and their extraordinary will to live might soon count for nothing-elsewhere in the Philippines, the Japanese Army had already executed American prisoners as it retreated from the advancing U.S. Army. As the Rangers stealthily moved through enemy-occupied territory, they learned that Cabanatuan had become a major transshipment point for the Japanese retreat, and instead of facing the few dozen prison guards, they could possibly confront as many as 8,000 battle-hardened enemy troops.

Asia

Random House]

<p>A tense, powerful, grand account of one of the most daring exploits of World War II. On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected troops from the elite U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles in an attempt to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had spent three years in a surreally hellish camp near the city of Cabanatuan. The prisoners included the last survivors of the Bataan Death March left in the camp, and their extraordinary will to live might soon count for nothing--elsewhere in the Philippines, the Japanese Army had already executed American prisoners as it retreated from the advancing U.S. Army. As the Rangers stealthily moved through enemy-occupied territory, they learned that Cabanatuan had become a major transshipment point for the Japanese retreat, and instead of facing the few dozen prison guards, they could possibly confront as many as 8,000 battle-hardened enemy troops. Hampton Sides's vivid minute-by-minute narration of the raid and his chronicle of the prisoners' wrenching experiences are masterful. But Ghost Soldiers is far more than a thrilling battle saga. Hampton Sides explores the mystery of human behavior under extreme duress--the resilience of the prisoners, who defied the Japanese authorities even as they endured starvation, tropical diseases, and unspeakable tortures; the violent cultural clashes with Japanese guards and soldiers steeped in the warrior ethic of Bushido; the remarkable heroism of the Rangers and Filipino guerrillas; the complex motivations of the U.S. high command, some of whom could justly be charged with abandoning the men of Bataan in 1942; and the nearly suicidal bravado of several spies, including priests and a cabaret owner, who risked their lives to help the prisoners during their long ordeal.</p>

Michael Prichard

<p>On a parched evening in the Philippines in 1945, 511 American POWs were saved from almost certain death. A force of elite US troops from the Sixth Ranger Battalion slipped 30 miles behind enemy lines and marched for three days through jungle and peat swamps. They stormed the camp at dusk, killing over 250 Japanese soldiers, rounded up the dazed prisoners and led them out of the gate. With bullets and mortars whining past, the Rangers hauled the prisoners across the Pampanga river and led them down a network of secret paths, past an 8000-man-strong phalanx of Japanese troops. A guerilla force of a few hundred men ambushed the Japanese, destroying a series of bridges along the river, holding off the enemy long enough for the POWs to escape. Today, the raid on Cabanatuan remains the largest and most successful operation of its kind ever undertaken by the US army. A mission of mercy, the raid was of immense symbolic importance for the USA in its fight against the Japanese.</p>

Ghost Soldiers

Time Warner Paperbacks*

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Books by Hampton Sides