Stephen L. Moore’s “As Good As Dead” is a stunningly frank depiction of eleven American POW’s survival and escape from the Palawan prison camp in the waning days of WWII’s Pacific campaign. Following the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in the early days of WWII, American POWs were famously marched along the Bataan peninsula to Camp O’Donnell, a distance of some sixty miles. From there, the Japanese command sent a detachment of prisoners to Palawan Island to build a landing strip, and it is here the body of the story takes place.
The American prisoners struggled as they endured a series of increasingly harsh base commanders and sadistic guards. They survived impossibly harsh working conditions and a grossly inadequate diet, which included “whistle-weed” soup and whatever scraps their Japanese guards would leave them. The story peaks in 1944 when it is clear Japan would lose the war and the order is given to exterminate the remaining prisoners by any means necessary including machine-gunning and burning alive in hand-dug air raid shelters after being doused with gasoline.
That anyone survived the Palawan Massacre is amazing. That these eleven survived the slaughter and then, with the help of Pilipino gruella fighters, eluded their Japanese hunters is the stuff of legend. Stephen L. Moore lays out the gruesome facts in splendid detail wrapped in an engaging narrative. A good read and an absolute must for any serious student of WWII. Three and a half stars for “As Good As Dead.” ( )

This is a very compelling story of the survival of 11 POWs from a Japanese camp in the Philippines in December 1944. Other prisoners were executed as American forces neared the islands. The story begins with the invasion of the PI three years earlier. ( )