After Guam was secure in the late summer of 1944—except for a few Japanese holdouts who persisted for many years after the war — the United States set its sights on regaining the Philippines. The Japanese had captured the islands from the US right after Pearl Harbor. General Douglas MacArthur had every intention of taking them back — which is where Patrol Easy enters the picture in Rising Sniper.
To be honest, the story was inspired more than a bit by a childhood spent watching old WWII movies like The Guns of Navarone. But mostly this story was loosely based on the advance raids that Army Rangers made on small islands in Leyte Gulf, in order to secure the approaches to the beaches for the Leyte invasion. From those actual events, a plot was born around Hill 522, a Japanese stronghold on Leyte. The hill really had been turned into a fortress, although the battery that Patrol Easy intends to take out is the stuff of fiction.
That’s a good thing in this case, considering that the fight for Leyte would turn out to be difficult and costly enough. The guns in the story were based on those manufactured for the infamous Japanese battleship Yamato. As it turned out, even those massive guns couldn’t protect the Yamato, which was sunk by US forces.
Once again, some of the language and attitudes expressed by the characters are typical of men confronting a deadly enemy in the Pacific theater of 1944 but that we don’t find acceptable today. It’s also worth noting that while Ernie Pyle, Douglas MacArthur, and Tom O’Connell (my great-uncle) were real people, they are used fictitiously here.
The next book will pick up the story in the waning months of 1944 as the actual battle for the Philippines begins and General MacArthur prepares to wade ashore.
Deacon Cole and the rest of the gang are sure to lend a hand.