From Hampton Sides's Ghost Soldiers, a gripping narrative of World War II POWs on the brink of freedom.

The men of Cabanatuan had been held by the Japanese since the Bataan Death March, in increasingly dire circumstances. With the war turning in the Americans' favor, the POWs worried that their captors would murder them all in the frenzy of an all-out withdrawal. Then one day in early January, 1945, the prison guards simply left.

For a brief moment the haggard survivors of Cabanatuan were given the keys to their prison, though swift death was promised to anyone who dared leave. The prisoners waited nervously, all while (unbeknownst to them) a daring raid was being planned which would result in their rescue or their end. This is Hampton Sides at his most riveting, a fitting tribute to these soldiers who would be prisoners no more.

An eBook short.

HAMPTON SIDES is the author of The New York Times bestselling histories On Desperate Ground, In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on his Trail, Blood and Thunder, and Ghost Soldiers, which won the PEN USA Award for Nonfiction. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.