Surviving the day

by Frank J. Grady

Frank Grady's remarkable account of his years as a prisoner-of-war - his capture, his interrogations, his labor, his survival strategies - offers a riveting portrayal of the heroic efforts required to outlast a hellish war. As head of the U.S. Army's cryptography department in the Philippines handling all incoming and outgoing messages for generals Douglas MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright, Grady was of special interest to the Japanese when captured in the spring of 1942. His memoir describes his first months as a POW in the infamous Cabanatuan camp and his subsequent transfer to Japan, where he attempted to outwit his interrogators about American cryptographic techniques. This book is more than the story of one man's survival. It is a moving account of wartime conditions that brought out the best and the worst in the prisoners, guards, and Japanese civilians. Grady perceptively depicts the uglier dimensions of human nature - betrayal, cowardice, greed, and wanton viciousness - but als