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Tommy never had a chance to fire his weapon. He never even saw a combat soldier, but he ended up in a POW camp in Siberia for two years. His teenage brother was just doing his job in a Hiroshima factory when the atomic bomb fell on the city. Their father was just a peaceful minister, but ended up behind barbed wire for the four years of World War II.Three members of one family in the wrong places at the wrong times as half-way around the world government leaders they never met determined the fate of faceless millions.Tommy's family members had faces and survived to describe their ordeals. Wrapped in the context of how and why, they take us through what we now know of an often-hallowed war that was in fact characterized by a great deal of bungling, beginning and end.Seven decades after the end of World War II in 1945, newly available information still trickles out. Some myths are exploded, some opinions about certain aspects of the war changed.We don't even know if 20 million military personnel were killed or was it 30 million. Did 20 million civilians die as a direct result of the war or its atrocities, or did 30 million? Only an anal historian would care. Most have no faces to show the rest of us.When we think of WWII atrocities, the first that comes to mind is the Holocaust in Europe. Some may think of the forced diasporas of the Soviet Union, others the maniacal killing of innocent civilians, the war crimes. Tommy's Wars addresses three others: Pearl Harbor and the US internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs and the prisoners of war in slave-labor camps of Siberia and kept on the edge of starvation.What are the odds that three members of one Japanese family of innocent victims would end up at the wrong place and time of those three atrocities, have intimate ties to the United States in Hawaii, all survive and two are still around to tell their story, the third's experiences retold from meticulous government records combined with published accounts of two fellow internees?Three faces experiencing atrocities we now know need never have occurred. Three faces to follow as we learn fresh details, experiences and feelings that provide new and, at times, more accurate portrayals of stories told before in limited books or handed down through family lore.These are Tommy's wars, one family fighting to survive atrocities with the fortitude to overcome it all and eventually reunite to rebuild lives.The faces of Tommy's wars are augmented with context compiled through extensive research, including the latest information available about why they were where they were and when they were, what led to their atrocities and what was going on around them at the time. Together, they form an often-overlooked part of the puzzle of how a faceless war is conceived, conducted and concluded. At least its Pacific theater.The world population was just over two billion at the start of World War II and half of them were affected by the decisions of leaders divvying up its spoils well before its end. Tommy's Wars is about just three people, but their stories speak for faceless millions.
5.0 out of 5 starsA dramatic and cautionary World War II storyBy Stephen Ponder on July 24, 2015Format: Kindle Edition Verified PurchaseThis is a dramatic and cautionary tale about how a peaceful Japanese family from Hawaii was disrupted by the actions of the governments of both Japan and the United States during World War II. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI questioned the loyalty of the father, a Buddhist priest, before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He spent the war in internment camps on the U.S. mainland. In Japan, where his children had been sent to attend school, his sons faced conscription by the military as soon as they became old enough. One was working at a factory in Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb fell. Another son, the subject of this book, was sent to Manchuria late in the war and, after the Japanese surrender, spent two years in a Soviet labor camp in Siberia. When he was freed and tried to return to Hawaii, he found his U.S. citizenship had been revoked.The book documents the misfortunes of the Sarashina family, whose primary offense, the author notes, was being in the wrong place at the wrong time as various governments fought wars in which millions of ordinary people suffered. Eventually, Tommy, the book’s focus, was allowed to return to Maui and found work at one of its golf courses.The book is very readable. It is strongest when reconstructing the family’s experiences during the war. The book also contains an analysis of big power politics and a warm account of Tommy’s return to his home town of Lahaina, where he is now retired.Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNoReport abuse3.0 out of 5 starsA story that needs to be told!By Elaine G on September 27, 2015Format: Kindle EditionWe know of many WWII atrocities but not enough of what happened to the unfortunate men like Takuji Sarashina and his family. This story would be lost if it were not for this book. I'm so glad it is finally set in print!Comment Was this review helpful to you?YesNoReport abuse5.0 out of 5 starsWell written, well researched story of a survivor who ...By mason r. goodman on September 11, 2015Format: Kindle Edition Verified PurchaseWell written, well researched story of a survivor who is able to provide firsthand experience. His vanishing generation will leave a void and hopefully a lesson for the future.Comment Was this review helpful to you?YesNoReport abuse5.0 out of 5 starsThe Aloha Spirit lives on in this book through Tommy Tang!By Gayle Moss on December 28, 2015Format: Kindle EditionTommy is a true ambassador for the game of golf and the embodiment of the Aloha Spirit. We had heard brief snippets over the years about his war service and that he had been a POW in Russia, but very little beyond a few 2-stroke conversations.Howard Fields’ summaries of the historic events surrounding Tommy’s trials and tribulations are concise and refreshingly candid. He uses the most up-to-date information just released from WW II and pulls no punches on the bigotry and prejudices that under laid the decisions of war leaders on all sides.Fields recounts parts of history that are ignored or forgotten. Who knew that Roosevelt and Churchill signed away to Stalin the authorization to choose 500,000 Japanese POWs and assign them to slave labour in the gulags of Russia? Poor Tommy was caught in this net, after being trained by the Japanese Army to sacrifice himself by blowing himself up by crawling under Soviet tanks – in effect, becoming a tank kamikaze.I loved this book because it was so authentic. I highly recommend it.Comment Was this review helpful to you?YesNoReport abuse
