Last Letters from Attu
The True Story of Etta Jones, Alaska Pioneer and Japanese POW
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co
Published:17th Dec '09
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£24.99(9780882409818)
Etta Jones was not a World War II soldier or a war time spy. She was a school teacher whose life changed forever on that Sunday morning in June 1942 when the Japanese military invaded Attu Island and Etta became a prisoner of war.
Etta and her sister moved to the Territory of Alaska in 1922. She planned to stay only one year as a vacation, but this 40 something year old nurse from back east met Foster Jones and fell in love. They married and for nearly twenty years they lived, worked and taught in remote Athabascan, Alutiiq, Yup’ik and Aleut villages where they were the only outsiders. Their last assignment was Attu.
After the invasion, Etta became a prisoner of war and spent 39 months in Japanese POW sites located in Yokohama and Totsuka. She was the first female Caucasian taken prisoner by a foreign enemy on the North American Continent since the War of 1812, and she was the first American female released by the Japanese at the end of World War II.
Using descriptive letters that she penned herself, her unpublished manuscript, historical documents and personal interviews with key people who were involved with events as they happened, her extraordinary story is told for the first time in this book.
“Etta Jones was a nurse and teacher in the Alaska Bush. She was living on Attu when Japanese took the island in World War II and, with the rest of the civilian population, incarcerated in Japan for the rest of the war. Her letters and photographs have been used by her grand-niece, Mary Breu for this book.” * Anchorage Daily News *
"Etta Jones was truly an ordinary woman who did some extraordinary things. And that, in this adventurer’s book, is what makes a hero." * Fairbanks Daily News Miner *
"Etta Jones is a true American hero... If this were a work of fiction it would have ended just like it does. Good triumphs over evil. Good works are rewarded. In today’s turbulent times, Last Letters from Attu is just what the doctor ordered." * Anchorage Press *
"This remarkable book, while adding to our understanding of World War II in Alaska, is much more. It is the story of an important American, a woman of courage and resolve, an inextinguishable spirit." * Ray Hudson (Afterword) *
ISBN: 9780882408101
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 399g
320 pages