Days of Anguish, Days of Hope

Days of Anguish, Days of Hope is the heroic story of Chaplain Robert Preston Taylor who spent 42 months in Japanese prison camps during World War II. He survived the battle for Bataan in the Philippines, the infamous Bataan "death march," and the Cabanatuan prisoner of war camp. He was also one of the only survivors of the so-called "hell ships" that transported all the American army officers from the Philippines to Japan. American pilots -- who did not know the prisoners were in the holds of the ships -- bombed the Japanese ships and hundreds of POWs died. Taylor was wounded twice by the bombings. After being transported to Japan -- where he worked in the coal mines for several months -- he also was sent to Korea and on to Manchuria where he was rescued by the Russian army in 1945. When he returned to the United States he learned that his wife Ione -- who thought him dead for the past three years -- had remarried. At that time he thought that everyone, even God, had forsaken him, but then he remembered that God had been with him all through the terrible days of anguish in the battles and the prison camps. Author Bill Keith and Taylor became close personal friends during the three years Keith was involved in research for the book, research that included two trips to the Philippines and retracing the entire Bataan Death March, much of it on foot. On August 6, 1962, President John F. Kennedy named Taylor Air Force Chief of Chaplains with the rank of Major General. Days of Anguish, Days of Hope is a tribute to one of America's greatest heroes and of his miraculous survival during the War in the Pacific