Sorties Into Hell: The Hidden War On Chichi Jima - Softcover

In October 1946, Colonel Presley Rixey arrived by destroyer at the island of Chichi Jima to return 22,000 Japanese, who had been bypassed during the war in the Pacific, to Japan. While waiting for a Marine battalion to arrive, the colonel met daily with a Japanese commission assigned to assist him. When asked what had happened to American prisoners on the island, the Japanese hatched a story to hide the atrocities that they had committed.
In truth, the downed flyers had been captured, executed, and eaten by certain senior Japanese officers. Rixey's suspicion of a cover-up was later substantiated by a group of Americans returning from Japan who had lived on Chichi Jima for generations. It would take five months of gathering testimony to uncover all the details. Thirty war criminals were eventually tried at Guam in 1947, five of whom were hanged.
Sorties Into Hell is the story of the investigation, the cover-up, and the last hours of those Americans whose remains were distributed to the cooking galleys of Chichi Jima. Drawing on research into long-classified files, author Chester Hearn has added an important and largely overlooked chapter to the history of World War II, and his contribution will be welcomed by the general reader and serious enthusiast alike.