PROLOGUE STARTS AT 7PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8TH
WEBINAR, SIGN UP HERE
On Monday, February 8th, host Ben Steelman of the Star News will sit down (virtually) with author Kevin Maurer to discuss his new book, Rock Force: The American Paratroopers Who Took Back Corregidor and Exacted MacArthur's Revenge on Japan.
About the Author:
A former StarNews staffwriter, Kevin Maurer is the author of several books, including No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. No Easy Day spent several weeks at #1 on the New York Times best seller list, and it was the top-selling hardcover book in the industry in 2012. The book is being translated in more than a dozen countries and also debuted at #1 in the U.K. and Canada.
Maurer has covered the military for more than ten years. In 2003, he followed the 82nd Airborne Division during the initial invasion of Iraq. He returned to cover the soldiers more than a dozen times, most recently in 2010 where he spent ten weeks with a Special Forces team in Afghanistan. He has also embedded with American soldiers in east Africa and Haiti.
About the Book:
“Rock Force is a beautifully told story of war: the friendships, the courage and despair, and the terror… One of the most exciting books ever written about the Pacific War.” — Mitch Weiss, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Countdown 1945.
In late December 1941, General Douglas MacArthur, caught off guard by the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, is forced to retreat to Corregidor, a jagged, rocky island fortress at the mouth of Manila Bay. Months later, under orders from the president, the general is whisked away in the dark of night, leaving his troops to their fate. It is a bitter pill for a fiercely proud warrior who has always protected his men. He famously declares “I shall return,” but the humiliation of Corregidor haunts him, even earning him the derisive nickname “Dugout Doug.”
In early 1945, MacArthur returns to the Philippines, his eyes firmly fixed on Corregidor. To take back the island, he calls on the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, a highly trained veteran airborne unit. Their mission is to jump onto the island—hemmed in by sheer cliffs, pockmarked by bomb craters, bristling with deadly spiky broken tree trunks—and wrest it from some 6,700 Japanese defenders who await, fully armed and ready to fight to the death.
Drawn from firsthand accounts and personal interviews with the battle’s surviving veterans, acclaimed war correspondent and bestselling author Kevin Maurer delves into this extraordinary tale, uncovering astonishing accounts of bravery and heroism during an epic, yet largely forgotten, clash of the Pacific War. Here is an intimate story of uncommon soldiers showing uncommon courage and winning, through blood and sacrifice, the redemption of General MacArthur.
