MacArthur's Undercover War: Spies, Saboteurs, Guerrillas and Secret Missions

Castle Books, 2005. Hardcover. New/New. New hardcover in new dust jacket. 8vo. (6.5 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches) Text is clean and free of marks or underlining. Includes author's notes, index, photos, and maps. 272 pp.

Fast shipping in a secure book box mailer with tracking. The covert war General Douglas MacArthur
waged against Japanese forces in the Pacific arena was the largest undercover operation ever undertaken. Here, for the first time, is the complete
story of the legendary exploits and heroism of the
thousands of courageous individuals who fought
as spies, guerrillas, propagandists, and saboteurs
behind enemy lines.

When the Japanese war juggernaut overran the
Philippines, it took a near miraculous PT-boat
escape for MacArthur to make his way to safety in
Australia. He left behind a force of seventy thousand American and Philippine troops marooned on the Bataan Peninsula. To these brave men the general vowed, "I shall return."

Against overwhelming odds, MacArthur succeded. Crucial to his success was his massive covert war effort. MacArthur created his own undercover warfare agency, the super-secret Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB), to organize the many far-flung resistance groups. They were the coast watchers- jungle-wise miners, traders and planters, missionaries, and telegraph operators who occupied remote Pacific islands, living in the most primitive conditions while keeping a constant vigil for Japanese movement. They were American soldiers who escaped the Bataan Peninsula and were commandeering guerrilla armies in the interior mountain and jungle locations of the Philippines. And they were double agents operating right under the noses of the
Japanese in Manila, occupying positions close to
the Imperial Army and in the collaborationist
Philippine government.

The phenomenal success of MacArthur's
island-hopping"hit-'em-where-they-ain't"campaign was built on the accuracy of the intelligence gathered by the AlB. Early in the conflict, the Americans cracked the secret Japanese naval code and established a chain of intelligence radio-monitoring posts circling the Japanese empire from Alaska to Australia. The information garnered from their interceptions of Japanese transmissions and from operatives on the ground allowed MacArthur to pick soft targets- islands the Japanese had left relatively unguarded- for invasion. It was the steel nerves and unbounded resourcefulness of those who fought the secret war that paved the way for MacArthur's
"Great Return" to the Philippines and saved the lives of countless American soldiers.

In an action-packed narrative, MacArthur's
Undercover War tells of thrilling feats of valor-
impossible missions to blow up harbors, kidnap
heads of state, undermine currency, and arrange
prison escapes, all deep within enemy territory.
Firsthand interviews with veterans and information from previously unpublished documents
reveal a riveting tale of World War Il that has never
been fully told.