Story follows a young Navy Corpsman beginning with his enlistment, through combat against the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, and into his long journey to escape. The first few chapters covered the somewhat atypical life of a new enlistee. But from there, the story grew into an enthralling tale of survival during the dark period after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and invasion of key territories in the Pacific. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, along with its’ heroic characters, and didn’t realize that it was factual until reaching the epilogue. The narrator was excellent.