Yanks Don't Cry

Yanks Don't Cry, first published in 1963, opens on the tropical Pacific island of Guam in early December, 1941, a few short days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Marines on Guam, neither equipped nor prepared for an invasion are quickly captured and shipped off to prison in Japan. There they began a nearly four-year imprisonment until the war's end in 1945. During those years they managed to retain the high spirits of free men, to sabotage the Japanese war effort at every opportunity as they worked on the docks and in other areas, to steal extra food rations, and, near war's end, to observe with pride the American bombing raids on Japan (while struggling mightily to free a group of Japanese schoolchildren trapped in a warehouse damaged by the bombs). The author's sense-of-humor shines through on nearly every page, which allowed him and his companions a small measure of comfort and the strength to somehow carry on. Yanks Don't Cry remains a classic recounting of life in war-time Japan for Allied prisoners-of-war.