Conduct Under Fire; Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945

New York: Viking, 2005. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Jeffrey L. Ward (Maps). xviii, [2], 588 pages. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. DJ has sticker residue on back. Glusman was vice president and editor-in-chief of W. W. Norton and Company, the largest independent, employee-owned publisher in the United States, and the author of Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945. John A. Glusman began his publishing career at Random House in 1980, where he became managing editor of The Modern Library and an associate editor of Vintage Books. From 1984-86 he was editor-in-chief of Washington Square Press, where he published Saul Bellow, Joan Didion, and Graham Greene. His book Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945, based on his father's experiences as a prisoner-of-war in the Philippines and Japan, was published by Viking in 2004 and Penguin Press in 2005. Derived from a Kirkus review: Tales of courage, desperation and endurance in some of the worst moments of WWII. Glusman concentrates on recounting the wartime experiences of his father and three of his father's fellow Navy doctors, his larger story sprawls across miles of canvas and involves countless players. The elder Glusman and his three comrades were captured in May 1942, after Douglas MacArthur and a handful of senior staff were evacuated in the face of imminent Japanese victory. In Japanese hands, the doctors found themselves confronted with daily cultural conflicts: whereas the Americans thought of the Japanese as subhuman, the Japanese were certain that they were members of the master race. The Japanese had little sympathy for captives. A thoughtful, humane meditation on war and family history, full of myth-bursting truths.