While at sea in April and May 1945, immediately following his liberation from nearly three years of Japanese captivity, David L. Hardee put his experiences on paper. The career infantry officer had fought in the Battle of Bataan in the early stages of U.S. involvement in World War II, fallen into Japanese hands when the Americans surrendered, and survived the 66-mile Bataan Death March. Then came confinement in a series of squalid prison camps.

Frank Blazich, curator of modern military history at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, discovered the unreleased account while researching his dissertation on issues faced by prisoners of war. He fleshed out details and carefully edited the memoir, which recently was published by the University of Missouri Press.

Blazich details Hardee’s career and ordeal in a discussion of the book.