Escape From Davao: The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War

This is a fascinating account of a prison escape by a group of US POWs in the Philippines in World War II. After surviving the Bataan Death March and horrific prison camp conditions, they were eventually transferred to the Davao penal colony, where a small group of soldiers hatched an escape plan and somehow survived.

The book is interesting for a lot of reasons: First, I didn't know much about the War in the Pacific as it related to Japanese treatment of Americans, which was truly shocking. The book provides a statistic about the number of POWs who died at the hands of the Japanese in the Pacific versus the number who died at the hands of the Germans and Italians in Europe, and the difference is staggering. Additionally, the hostile show more terrain of of the Philippines made escape that much more difficult.

I was also unfamiliar with the guerrilla network in the Philippines. Without giving too much away, it was critical to the escapees' long-term survival.

I thought the last quarter of the book dragged a little bit and could've been summarized into a few pages, but overall, it was a quick read with some moments of white-knuckled terror. I highly recommend. show less

Great book, highly engaging and held my attention throughout most of the book, even when going through the end of the Bataan Campaign and the horrors suffered by the American and Filipino prisoners at hands of those animals of the IJA 14th Area Army. I don't like reading about their suffering' it grieves me so.

I knew little to nothing about the escape and its effect on US policy concerning the atrocities inflicted by the Japanese.I must admit the book got a bit slow when later when discussing the political wranglings, but I guess it needed to be told how Roosevelt squelched the stories of the torture and murder inflicted on captives of the Japanese.

If you served at Dyess AFB, Texas, you will want to read this book to learn about the man show more for whom the air base was named - Medal of Honor recipient, Maj (later Lt Col) William Dyess. show less

A moving account of the hardships faced by some of our soldiers. Reading this makes you wonder why the stories of what the Japanese did to prisoners was not disclosed earlier in the war. Why was FDR so pro-Europe that our Pacific vets (including CBI) were almost forgotten?

The actual escape in "Escape from Davao" might have been interesting but I just couldn't get to it. I found the book deadly boring and gave it up partway through.

An interesting go, but it really starts to unravel at the end so I didn't quite finish it.

Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War, is a non-fiction, military history book written by John D. Lukacs. The book is the story of the only large-scale group of American prisoners of war to escape from a Japanese prison camp in the Pacific Theater during World War II.