"[W]e began our advance toward the Mokmer Airstrip.... The road climbed a
ridge 15 or 20 feet high and we found ourselves on a flat coral plateau sparsely
covered by small trees and scrub growth.... As we moved westward along the road, two
of our destroyers were sailing abreast of the lead elements of the advancing column.
The first indication of trouble was the roar of heavy artillery shells sailing over
our heads... aimed at our destroyers.... Shortly after that our forward movement
stopped, and we heard heavy firing from the head of the column.... As we waited, we
began to hear heavy fire from the rear.... We were cut off and surrounded!"
In the enormous literature of the Second World War, there are
surprisingly few accounts of fighting in the southwest Pacific, fewer still by
common infantrymen. This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is
rare indeed, follows a foot soldier's career from basic training to mustering out.
It takes the reader into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines
during the long campaign to win the war against Japan. From basic training at Camp
Roberts through combat, occupation, and the long journey home, Francis Catanzaro's
account tells of the excitement, misery, cruelty, and terror of combat, and of the
uneasy boredom of jungle camp life. A member of the famed 41st Infantry Brigade, the
"Jungleers," Catanzaro saw combat at Hollandia, Biak, Zamboanga, and
Mindanao. He was a part of the Japanese occupation force and writes with feeling
about living among his former enemies and of the decision to drop the atom bomb.
With the 41st Division in the Southwest Pacific is a powerful, gritty, and moving
narrative of the life of a soldier during some of the most difficult fighting of
World War II.
