The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Obmascik (The Big Year) serves up a moving, intimate tale of two men, two families, and two countries that intersected at the forgotten WWII battle of Attu, an Alaskan island. Against a backdrop of racist fearmongering (the New York Times referred to the Japanese as “aboriginal savages,” and of immigrants from Axis countries only Japanese Americans were singled out for internment), Obmascik introduces readers to Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, a Japanese man who moved to California for medical school, and Dick Laird, an Appalachian coal miner who joined the armed forces to escape a dangerous, dead-end life underground. Tatsuguchi returned to Japan during a family crisis and was conscripted into the Japanese military in 1941; the two men’s paths crossed at the battle for the sparsely populated island of Attu in 1943. Tatsuguchi kept a diary—one that Laird would find after killing him with a grenade. The diary was copied and avidly passed around throughout the American military as a surprising insight into the humanity of the enemy. Laird, still haunted by having killed a man who loved America as much as he did, sought out Tatsuguchi’s daughter in 1983. Obmascik’s account of their relationship’s growth reinforces the compassion of everyone involved. This poignant, dramatic tale will captivate both younger readers less familiar with the details of WWII history and those who are passionate about it. [em](Apr.) [/em]