On New Year's Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married just a month earlier. The couple had worked in China as members of a community of foreign correspondents with ties to Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight, they barely escaped on a freighter-- the beginning of a tumultuous journey that would take them from one island outpost to another. While keeping ahead of the approaching Japanese, Mel and Annalee covered the harrowing war in the Pacific Theater-- two of only a handful of dedicated journalists reporting from the region.

In December 1941, Japan attacked multiple targets in the Far East and the Pacific, including Canadian battalions in Hong Kong. This intriguing account of Canadian intelligence gathering and strategic planning on the eve of the crisis dispels the assumption that the Allies were totally unprepared for war. Canadians worked closely with their US and Allied counterparts to uncover Japan’s intentions and to develop a strategic plan for defence. By highlighting Canada’s role as a Pacific power, this book sheds new light both on the Pacific War and on events that led to the creation of the Grand Alliance.

Product Description: Refighting the Pacific War looks at how World War II in the Pacific might have unfolded differently, giving historians, authors and veterans the opportunity to discuss what happened and what might have happened. Contributors to this alternative history include noted military historians William Bartsch, John Burton, Donald Goldstein, John Lundstrom, Robert Mrazek, Jon Parshall, Douglas Smith, Peter Smith, Barrett Tillman, Anthony Tully, and H...read more