UNSUNG Buy · coming soon

A new book from War Monger & 1941 Files

The war you know. The stories you don't.

UNSUNG is 36 true stories from the Pacific War that the famous battles depended on and the history books skipped: the warning nobody acted on, the other side's view of the battle, the machines nobody thanked, and the years after the surrender that nobody filmed.

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PDF · 287 pages · Download straight after you buy

The cover of UNSUNG: Navajo Marines of the first assault wave on Saipan, June 1944.
  • 36true stories
  • 104archival photos & documents
  • 31original maps & diagrams
  • 36myths set straight
  • 287pages

Inside, you'll meet

The people the famous battles depended on

Every chapter changes how you see something you thought you already knew. Six of the thirty-six:

01

The Blip at Opana Point

Fifty-three minutes before the first bomb fell, two privates on a hilltop saw the whole Japanese strike force coming. The man they called told them not to worry about it.

05

The Scout Who Would Not Talk

A retired Solomon Islands police sergeant was tied to a tree, bayoneted and left for dead. He chewed through the ropes and crawled to the Marines with a warning that arrived just in time.

18

The General Who Had Seen America

As a young officer he drove his own Chevrolet across the United States and wrote home that America was the last country Japan should ever fight. Then he was sent to hold Iwo Jima against it.

22

The Shell That Knew Where the Plane Was

Japanese pilots came home puzzled: American shells were bursting beside them without ever hitting them. Inside each one was a tiny radio, and one of the best-kept secrets of the war.

27

Ten Gallons Every Seven Minutes

When the carrier Lexington was sinking, her crew ate the ice cream before they went over the side. Three years later the Navy spent a million dollars on floating ice cream factories.

36

The Last Soldier

Nine months after Hiroo Onoda came out of the jungle in 1974, soldiers found the real last holdout of the Imperial Japanese Army. He wasn't Japanese.

Look inside

Designed like the war deserves

A full-page photograph opens every story. Inside are maps drawn for the book, the original documents, a By the Numbers panel, and a Myth vs. Fact box in every chapter.

Two pages from chapter 1: the full-page opener, and the By the Numbers panel.
01Every story opens with a full-page photograph, and lands with the numbers.
A map of the radar track on 7 December 1941, and the original Opana radar plot.
02Maps drawn for the book, next to the documents themselves: this is the original radar plot from Opana Point.
The opener of chapter 36, The Last Soldier, and a map of the last holdouts of 1974.
03From Pearl Harbor to a jungle in Indonesia in 1974.
The first page of the Find Your Veteran guide, and the list of thirty-six myths.
04At the back: all 36 myths on one list, and a guide to finding your own family's veteran.

Every picture checked

No wrong ships. No wrong islands.

The most common complaint about history online is pictures that show the wrong battle, or even the wrong war. So every photograph in UNSUNG was checked against its archive record.

  • It shows what the caption says it shows.
  • It's credited, and wherever an archive number exists, it's printed with the picture so you can look it up yourself.
  • The sources behind each story are listed at the end of its chapter.
  • A map of where all 36 stories happened comes before the first one.
The book's map of where all 36 stories happened, with numbered pins across the Pacific.

The contents

Thirty-six stories in four parts

Each one stands on its own and takes about fifteen minutes to read. Start anywhere.

Part OneThe Ones Nobody Thanked

  1. 01The Blip at Opana PointOahu, Hawaii · 7 December 1941
  2. 02The Angels of BataanBataan, Corregidor & Manila · 1941 – 1945
  3. 03The Villages That Hid the RaidersZhejiang & Jiangxi, China · April – September 1942
  4. 04The Man in the DungeonPearl Harbor & Midway · December 1941 – June 1942
  5. 05The Scout Who Would Not TalkGuadalcanal · 20 – 21 August 1942
  6. 06"Did They Get Off?"Point Cruz, Guadalcanal · 27 September 1942
  7. 07The Man Who Knew the TideBetio, Tarawa Atoll · 20 November 1943
  8. 08The Pied Piper of SaipanSaipan & Tinian · June – August 1944
  9. 09Eight Hundred MessagesIwo Jima · February – March 1945

Part TwoWhat the Enemy Saw

  1. 10The Clerk at the ConsulateHonolulu · March – December 1941
  2. 11The Five Minutes That Never WereMidway · 4 June 1942 (and 1951)
  3. 12The Island They Named for HungerGuadalcanal · August 1942 – February 1943
  4. 13The Death Tokyo HidBougainville & Tokyo · 18 April – 5 June 1943
  5. 14A Million Men, a Hundred YearsBetio, Tarawa Atoll · September – November 1943
  6. 15What They Were ToldSaipan · June – July 1944
  7. 16The TurnOff Samar, the Philippines · 25 October 1944
  8. 17The Admiral Who Asked Them to DieMabalacat, the Philippines, and Tokyo · October 1944 – August 1945
  9. 18The General Who Had Seen AmericaIwo Jima · June 1944 – March 1945

Part ThreeThe Machinery Nobody Saw

  1. 19The Fleet That Came BackPearl Harbor · December 1941 – October 1944
  2. 20The Zero in the BogAkutan Island, Alaska · June – October 1942
  3. 21The Torpedoes That Wouldn't ExplodePearl Harbor, Australia & the Pacific · December 1941 – September 1943
  4. 22The Shell That Knew Where the Plane WasJohns Hopkins, Cincinnati & the Pacific · 1940 – 1945
  5. 23The Swamp Buggy That Crossed the ReefClearwater, Florida, to Tarawa · 1935 – 1945
  6. 24The LifeguardsWake, Truk, Chichi Jima & the Central Pacific · October 1943 – August 1945
  7. 25The Secret Harbor in the Middle of NowhereUlithi Atoll, Caroline Islands · September 1944 – 1945
  8. 26The Runways of TinianTinian, Mariana Islands · July 1944 – August 1945
  9. 27Ten Gallons Every Seven MinutesThe Coral Sea, Ulithi & Okinawa · 1942 – 1945

Part FourAfter the Last Shot

  1. 28The White PlanesKisarazu, Ie Shima & Manila · 19 – 21 August 1945
  2. 29The Fortress Nobody AttackedRabaul, New Britain · January 1942 – September 1945
  3. 30The Fox of SaipanMount Tapochau, Saipan · July 1944 – 1 December 1945
  4. 31Magic CarpetThe Pacific, Europe & home · June 1945 – September 1946
  5. 32Six Million StrandedManchuria, the Pacific & Japan · 1945 – 1958
  6. 33The Woman Who Wasn't Tokyo RoseTokyo, San Francisco & Chicago · 1941 – 1977
  7. 34The Raider and the Flight LeaderNagoya, Tokyo & Osaka · 1942 – 1950
  8. 35The Sword in BrookingsBrookings, Oregon · September 1942 – 1998
  9. 36The Last SoldierMorotai, Indonesia, & Taiwan · September 1944 – December 1974

Myth vs. fact

What you were probably taught

Every chapter has one. Three of the thirty-six:

Myth

Nobody saw Pearl Harbor coming.

Fact · Chapter 1

Radar saw it clearly, 53 minutes early, and the warning reached an officer on the phone. The failure wasn't the technology. It was the absence of anyone trained to believe it.

Myth

At Midway, the Japanese carriers were five minutes from launching when the dive bombers struck.

Fact · Chapter 11

Japanese action reports show the strike aircraft were still below in the hangars. A launch was probably the best part of an hour away.

Myth

Hiroo Onoda was the last Japanese soldier to surrender.

Fact · Chapter 36

The last holdout of the Imperial Japanese Army was found on Morotai nine months after Onoda: Private Teruo Nakamura, an Amis man from Taiwan.

Bonus guide

Find Your Veteran

For anyone with a grandfather, great-uncle or great-grandmother whose war is still a blank in the family. Step by step:

  • How to request a WWII service file, and what it costs
  • What to do if the file burned in the 1973 St. Louis fire
  • Where to find muster rolls, deck logs, morning reports and missing air crew reports
  • Free databases, and how to trace a veteran from Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand or Japan

Free chapter

Read the first chapter free

The free sample has the introduction, the map of all 36 stories, and the whole of chapter 1, The Blip at Opana Point: two privates who tracked the Japanese strike force for over half an hour on the morning of 7 December 1941, and the phone call that told them to forget it.

Download the free sample (PDF, 2 MB)

Who made it

From the makers of War Monger & 1941 Files

We make videos about the Second World War, most of them about the war in the Pacific. The stories our viewers remember and argue about in the comments are almost never the famous ones retold. They're the parts that got left out. This book is thirty-six of them.

War MongerThe Pacific War from both sides: the decisions, the machines and the mistakes.Watch on YouTube → 1941 FilesWhat happened next: the prisoners, the stranded, the holdouts, and the files that tell the rest.Watch on YouTube →

Questions

Before you buy

Is this a printed book?

No. UNSUNG is a PDF. You'll get a download link by email straight after you buy, and you can read it on any phone, tablet or computer.

Is it the same as your videos?

No. Some chapters grew out of our most-requested videos and go much further, with maps, photographs and sources a video has no room for. Many are stories we've never covered at all.

Are the photos real?

Yes. Every photograph was checked against its archive record, shows what its caption says it shows, and is credited. Where an archive number exists, it's printed with the picture.

How do I pay?

Checkout is handled by our payment partner, Lemon Squeezy, which accepts cards and other common payment methods and adds any sales tax or VAT that applies where you live.

What if I'm not happy with it?

Email us within 14 days of buying and we'll refund you. See the refund policy.

Thirty-six stories. One war you thought you knew.

287 pages, 104 archival photographs, 31 maps and diagrams, a Myth vs. Fact box in every chapter, and a guide to finding your own family's veteran.

Get UNSUNG · coming soon