The Jersey Brothers

A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home

De: Sally Mott Freeman

Narrado por: Cassandra Campbell

The extraordinary real-life adventure of three brothers at the center of the most dramatic turning points of World War II and their mad race to change history - and save one of their own.

They are three brothers, all navy men, who end up coincidentally and extraordinarily at the epicenter of three of the war's most crucial moments. Bill is picked by Roosevelt to run his first map room in Washington. Benny is the gunnery and antiaircraft officer on the USS Enterprise, one of the only carriers to escape Pearl Harbor and by the end of 1942 the last one left in the Pacific to defend against the Japanese. Barton, the youngest and least distinguished of the three, is shuffled off to the Navy Supply Corps because his mother wants him out of harm's way. But this protection plan backfires when Barton is sent to the Philippines and listed as missing in action after a Japanese attack. Now it is up to Bill and Benny to find and rescue him.

Based on 10 years of research drawn from archives around the world, interviews with fellow shipmates and POWs, and primary sources including diaries, unpublished memoirs, and letters half forgotten in basements, The Jersey Brothers is a remarkable story of agony and triumph - from the home front to Roosevelt's White House and Pearl Harbor to Midway and Bataan. It is the story, written with intimate, novelistic detail, of an ordinary young man who shows extraordinary courage as the Japanese do everything short of killing him. And it is, above all, a story of brotherly love: of three men finding their loyalty to each other tested under the tortures of war - and knowing that their success or failure to save their youngest brother will shape their family forever.

©2017 Sally Mott Freeman (P)2017 S&S Audio

Band of Brothers Meets Unbroken-a Remarkable Book

This is one of the most amazing stories I have ever read, rendered all the more amazing because it is pure fact, not fiction. Anyone who has any interest in the WWII action in the Pacific theater must put this on his/her reading list. As others have noted, it has echoes of "Unbroken", but not only does it cover the territory (and confirm) that book's recounting of the unspeakable horrors suffered by prisoners of war at the hands of the Japanese, it covers so many other aspects of the war in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to Bataan and the Philippines to the great land and sea battles including Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Leyte Gulf, the Coral Sea - all told from first hand accounts of the three brothers who were there and who could comment not only on the battles but on the commanders who ran them - MacArthur, Halsey, Nimitz, Turner and others. In addition, one of the brothers - the father of the author by the way - witnessed the early years of the war from the inner circle of the White House. He ran (actually, created) FDR's vaunted strategic "map room" and there interacted daily with the president and his war staff (as well as first lady Eleanor) before he, too, shipped out to join the war at sea. To have these three brothers all as first-hand witnesses to some of the major events of the war is itself astounding, and as you would expect, leads to some equally amazing - and heart-wrenching - tales from their home front, focusing on their indomitable mother, Helen. The author spent ten years researching this material not only from family archives but from sources scattered all over the world. She pulls it together beautifully. I couldn't put this book down. I walked extra miles just so I could keep listening and it left me in tears and emotionally drained at the end. Please read or listen to it; it is unforgettable. Brava Sally Mott Freeman!

Riveting, inspiring, devastating, beautiful

A patchwork of firsthand accounts, the result of painstaking effort to tell the hard-won truth of a missing Sailor and beloved family member. It puts the tragedy of the American military's unprepared response to the Japanese invasion under a microscope; I spent half of the book shaking my head in anger and disappointment, other portions longing help those imprisoned or killed in battle, the rest with pride swelling in my chest hearing the accounts of sheer bravery our military men exhibited. The events described in this book sparked a change across the world- from how each branch conducts business to the global standards of conducting war. It is a treasure among combat tales; this book devoured me.

Great book on ww2

I enjoyed the perspective of a ww2 pow's family on the war in the Pacific theater.

The Forest Gumps of WWII

I have read numerous books - fiction and non fiction - about the war in the Pacific. This story had no need to create characters on the scene of great events. These brothers were there - from FDR’s map room to the Doolittle raid, Pearl Harbor, and unfortunately Japanese POW camps. There is just enough color added to make the bare facts understandable. If you liked Unbroken you will love this book (unless you can’t bare to hear what about McArthur’s narcissism).

One of the beat ever!!

I loved this book.I cried at times and the detail was unbelievable.I felt like I was there.One of my very best reads ever.