This time around we feature four books about individual experiences during the war: three of them autobiographical, two of them about airmen, one the unusual story of a Polish Jew serving in the Red Army.

Furey, Charles. Going Back: A Navy Airman in the Pacific War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

ISBN 1-55750-278-1
230 pages

Furey joined the Navy in 1942 and became a radioman aboard B-24's out of Nadzab in New Guinea. He describes his enlistment and training and his path into the Southwest Pacific where most of his time was spent flying long, boring patrol missions over the ocean. The first time he and his crew mates fired their weapons in anger they almost sank an American sub. They transferred to Los Negros in the Admiralties and on another lengthy patrol mission managed to shoot down a Japanese Betty in a lumbering dogfight.

Then one morning Furey's B-24 rolled down the runway but didn't quite get airborne. He was one of the lucky ones who survived the crash, but seriously injured and burned. The forward medical facilities seemed unable or unwilling to treat his seared and broken body, merely pressing layer after layer of bandages on him. When finally by sheer force of willpower he succeeded in getting himself belatedly moved to a competent hospital, his new doctor could only spit out "Bastards!" when he saw what the corpsmen had done to the young sailor.

Furey writes, more than fifty years after the event, with a clear and detached voice. The first person, present tense technique increases the wallop of immediacy as he describes the crash and his long, painful recovery in Australia and the States.

Merrill, Sandra D. Donald's Story: Captain Donald R. Emerson, A 4th Fighter Group Pilot Remembered. Berlin, MD: Tebidine, 1996

ISBN 0-9649541-4-1
225 pages

Donald Emerson, a fighter pilot in the 4th Fighter Group flying out of England, did not survive the war, but his memory did. Years later his niece pieced together this interwoven account of her uncle's military service and his family back home in the States, telling it through letters and memories of friends and relatives and squadron mates.

Sandra Merrill transcends the genre, though, as she gradually reaches her own peace while putting together the story of a pilot and his death -- just another tragic death, one of far too many -- by sifting through the past. His death in combat, the tears and brave faces when news reaches his family three weeks later, and Merrill's eventual journey to her uncle's resting place in Holland-- all these episodes are written in quiet and moving terms that bring an ache to the heart and a lump to the throat.

Temkin, Gabriel. My Just War: The Memoir of a Jewish Red Army Soldier in World War II. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1998.

ISBN 0-89141-654-5
236 pages

Gabriel Temkin was a young man in Poland when the Germans invaded in 1939. With his wife Hanna he was lucky enough to find relative safety on the Soviet side of the demarcation line. In June of 1941 when the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, he was called into military service. Because of his "questionable" status as a Jewish refugee, however, he was transferred to a labor battalion and spent almost a year shoveling trench lines and anti-tank ditches.

During the German summer offensive of 1942, Temkin and his battalion -- deserted by their NKVD guards -- were captured and he was fortunate not to be betrayed by his comrades as a Jew and killed on the spot. Instead, he was able to escape during the march to a new prison camp. Trapped in German-occupied territory, the young man assumed a new, non-Jewish name and identity and with falsified papers succeeded in working as a farm laborer until forcibly evacuated in the face of the Soviet counter-offensive in early 1943. Temkin again escaped from the marching column and remained behind to meet the advancing Soviet army.

From there he was ordered to undergo NKVD interrogation and, thanks mainly to bureaucratic reaction to his nearly fatal case of typhus, was cleared of charges (of being possibly a collaborator or enemy agent), ordered back into the army, and sent to the front. Temkin joined the recon platoon of a Soviet rifle regiment and fought his way across the Ukraine, Rumania, and Hungary in a seemingly endless series of battles. Following the war he was reunited -- after more than four years -- with Hanna. They enrolled at Leningrad State University, returned to Poland, emigrated to Canada, and eventually retired to Florida.

All in all, an amazing story.

Michel, John J.A. Mr. Michel's War: From Manila to Mukden: An American Navy Officer's War with the Japanese, 1941-1945. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1998.

ISBN 0-89141-643-9
297 pages

Michel was an ensign aboard the USS Pope, a destroyer on the US Asiatic Fleet based in the Philippines, when war broke out in the Pacific. Within a few hours, the Pope was firing at Japanese aircraft attacking targets in Manila Bay and soon afterwards the DD sailed southward for the Dutch East Indies. There they took part in the American destroyer raid on the Japanese landing force at Balikpapan and a melee off Bali. But the US task force -- and its Dutch and RN allies -- gradually melted away, and the Battle of the Java Sea sealed the fate of the islands it was defending.

Attempting with HMS Encounter, another destroyer, to escort the damaged RN cruiser Exeter to safety, the Pope and the two RN warships were caught off Java by a superior Japanese force. With the British vessels pounded and disabled, Pope attempted to run for it but was bombed and sunk.

Michel spent two and a half days in the water before being picked up by a Japanese destroyer. The remainder of his book describes his experiences as a POW, first at Makassar, then near Nagasaki, and eventually at Mukden in Manchuria. There his camp was finally "liberated" by an OSS parachute team and, a few days later, by the advancing Soviet army.

The account was written shortly after Michel returned to the States; here it is published for the first time.

All four are available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the publishers.

Thanks to the publishers for providing these review copies.