As U.S. forces drew nearer to victory in the Pacific, the Japanese army grew desperate, and its soldiers guarding Allied POWs more sadistic. Starved, shot, and beaten, many of the 2,146 prisoners of the Los Baños prison camp in the Philippines—most of them American men, women and children—would not survive much longer unless rescued soon. Deeply concerned, General Douglas MacArthur assigned to the 11th Airborne Division a dangerous rescue mission deep behind enemy lines that became a deadly race against the clock. Drawing from interviews, diaries, letters, and archival research, the author of And the Sea Will Tell recounts the story of a remarkable group of prisoners and the young American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas who risked their lives to save them.