cover image Belly of the Beast: 6pow's Inspiring True Story Faith Courage Survival Aboard Infamous WWII Japanese

Belly of the Beast: 6pow's Inspiring True Story Faith Courage Survival Aboard Infamous WWII Japanese

Judith Pearson. New American Library, $13 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-451-20444-8

A writer actively involved in veterans' rights and POW organizations, Judith Pearson offers Belly of the Beast, the harrowing story of WWII POW Estel Myers. From Kentucky sharecropper to naval medical corpsman, then malnourished POW, Myers was herded with many other American soldiers into the almost airless hold of the Japanese prison ship Oryuku Maru. Three-quarters of Myers's fellow prisoners died there. (Oct.)