Description
The Castaway’s War: One Man’s Battle against Imperial Japan
By Stephen Harding. In the early hours of July 5, 1943, the destroyer USS Strong was hit by a Japanese torpedo. The explosion broke the destroyer nearly in half, killed dozens of sailors and sparked raging fires.
Scores went into the ocean as the warship sank—and a young officer’s harrowing story of survival began.
Severely injured, Lt. Hugh Barr Miller and several others survived three days at sea and eventually landed on a Japanese-occupied island. The survivors found fresh water and a few coconuts, but Miller, believing he was dying, ordered the others to go on without him.
They did so, believing, as Miller did, that he would be dead within hours. But Miller didn’t die, and his health improved enough for him to find the enemy—Japanese forces patrolling the island.
Miller then launched a one-man war against the island’s occupiers. Based on official American and Japanese histories, personal memoirs and exclusive interviews with the story’s key participants, Castaway’s War is a story of unbelievable bravery.
Hardback, 320 pages
