Hampton Sides

Ghost Soldiers Hampton Sides

On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected troops from the elite U. S. 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: march thirty miles in an attempt to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had spent three years in a hellish camp near the city of Cabanatuan. The prisoners included the last survivors of the Bataan Death March left in the camp, and their extraordinary will to live might soon count for nothing. As the Rangers stealthily moved through enemy-occupied territory, they learned that Cabanatuan had become a major transshipment point for the Japanese retreat, and instead of facing the few dozen prison guards, they could possibly confront as many as 8,000 battle-hardened enemy troops.