| Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 14 reviews)
Sales Rank: 72056
Category: Book
Author: Brendan I. Koerner
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
Label: Penguin Press HC, The
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594201730
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.548
EAN: 9781594201738
ASIN: 1594201730
Publication Date: May 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Part history, part thriller, Now the Hell Will Start tells the astonishing tale of Herman Perry, the soldier who sparked the greatest manhunt of World War II? and who became that war?s unlikeliest folk hero
A true story of murder, love, and headhunters, Now the Hell Will Start tells the remarkable tale of Herman Perry, a budding playboy from the streets of Washington, D.C., who wound up going native in the Indo-Burmese jungle?not because he yearned for adventure, but rather to escape the greatest manhunt conducted by the United States Army during World War II.
An African American G.I. assigned to a segregated labor battalion, Perry was shipped to South Asia in 1943, enduring unspeakable hardships while sailing around the globe. He was one of thousands of black soldiers dispatched to build the Ledo Road, a highway meant to appease China?s conniving dictator, Chiang Kai-shek. Stretching from the thickly forested mountains of northeast India across the tiger-infested vales of Burma, the road was a lethal nightmare, beset by monsoons, malaria, and insects that chewed men?s flesh to pulp.
Perry could not endure the jungle?s brutality, nor the racist treatment meted out by his white officers. He found solace in opium and marijuana, which further warped his fraying psyche. Finally, on March 5, 1944, he broke down?an emotional collapse that ended with him shooting an unarmed white lieutenant.
So began Perry?s flight through the Indo-Burmese wilderness, one of the planet?s most hostile realms. While the military police combed the brothels of Calcutta, Perry trekked through the jungle, eventually stumbling upon a village festooned with polished human skulls. It was here, amid a tribe of elaborately tattooed headhunters, that Herman Perry would find bliss?and would marry the chief ?s fourteen-year-old daughter.
Starting off with nothing more than a ten-word snippet culled from an obscure bibliography, Brendan I. Koerner spent nearly five years chasing Perry?s ghost?a pursuit that eventually led him to the remotest corners of India and Burma, where drug runners and ethnic militias now hold sway. Along the way, Koerner uncovered the forgotten story of the Ledo Road?s black G.I.s, for whom Jim Crow was as virulent an enemy as the Japanese. Many of these troops revered the elusive Perry as a folk hero?whom they named the Jungle King.
Sweeping from North Carolina?s Depression-era cotton fields all the way to the Himalayas, Now the Hell Will Start is an epic saga of hubris, cruelty, and redemption. Yet it is also an exhilarating thriller, a cat-and-mouse yarn that dazzles and haunts.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Revelations October 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a heart breaking tale of injustus occurrring in the armed forces during WW11.Things of which I was only marginally aware as I was only 10 years old at the end of the war. It is well written and well referenced.
Let's hope the hell is over... September 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The tale of Herman Perry is beyond incredible. The details of his personal journey are thrilling and touching and it is remarkable that the story hasn't been told hundreds of times before. That said, I expect it to be told from now on. (No doubt a movie will be in the making soon - it has all the required elements in abundance.) Koerner manages to make the story into a complete and compelling narrative, no small feat, I think, given the dearth of material available on this matter.
The bigger story surrounding Perry's individual trials, the institutional racism employed throughout the US armed forces throughout World War II, was a real eye-opener for me. The book is filled with details of the humiliation and suffering, both large and small, of black soldiers and officers. It is a wonder, as I believe Koerner himself expresses in the book, that there not greater riots and insurrections beyond those that did occur and were contained; the injustice is gross.
All in all, a thrilling and informative book that I thoroughly enjoyed. If all historical biographies were this pleasant to read my shelves would be full of them. A great book.
 a folk hero to African-American engineers August 3, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
_Now the Hell Will Start_ is ostensibly the story of Herman Perry, an African-American private who murdered a white officer, eluding the Army's search for him for months (even escaping imprisonment) before he was finally caught and executed. Through this story we learn of an oft-neglected theater in World War II, and of the deplorable conditions in which soldiers worked and fought, made worse by a Jim Crow Army. That Perry mentally cracked under such conditions is certainly understandable.
The "Lido Road" was supposed to be a supply line to assist Chinese General Chiang-Kai Shek. At a cost of $164 million (in 1945 dollars - around $1.8 billion today) and an estimated 2 men per mile, it was a boondoggle of the first order. Constructed entirely by hand, men had to contend not only with Japanese booby-traps and monsoon rains that frequently washed away their efforts, but also suffer flash floods, leeches, lice, typhus, malaria, dysentery, and (literally) man-eating tigers.
Added to this was the appalling treatment of African-American soldiers who built the road in a segregated Army that treated German POW's better than Black troops. Koerner makes Perry's case a microcosm for the maltreatment of African-American soldiers, and the regular injustices they faced - for example, while being searched for, Perry (rightly) fears that the MP's will shoot to kill rather than attempt to capture him and take him to trial. Koerner's history of the this part of the war, and of Perry's part in it was excellent.
Perry sought and found refuge among the native Naga in the jungles of Burma, the primary reason the Army couldn't find him. (In accordance with the prejudical racial views of the time that held that African-Americans were lascivious sub-humans, they spent the majority of their time searching for him in brothels in Calcutta.) I was less enthused with his writing of Perry's time on the run - Koerner overly dramatized Perry's time with the Naga, an event that in and of itself was dramatic enough.
It is a well written history: the strategic details between Stilwell, Chaing and Roosevelt contrast powerfully with the suffering and pointless drugery of the enlisted soldiers, their plight compounded by the Army's racial policies. The story of one soldier's experiences - and his resistance, resiliance, strength and brilliance makes for riveting reading. Recommended.
Victims of Jim Crow July 31, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
Among the many strange and sad tales of World War II, one of the most peculiar ones is that of Private Herman Perry, who died in the jungles of Burma, one of the Americans sent there for the expensive and doomed Ledo Road that was to link India and China. Perhaps his story has been forgotten because of the futility of that particular expedition; perhaps it was because Perry was executed as a murderer; perhaps it is because his story is part of the shameful Jim Crow attitude of the Army, and of the nation, at that time. Whatever the reason, there are many important aspects of history surrounding Perry's story, and Brendan I. Koerner has done an admirable job covering a previously untold story in _Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II_ (Penguin Press). Although Koerner has written most extensively on technology, he was researching military executions when he came across Perry's story, and became obsessed with telling it. He has produced an insightful book of history, in addition to telling Perry's sad and forgotten tale.
Perry was drafted after Pearl Harbor, but there was a delay in his entry because the Army didn't have enough segregated facilities to train black enlistees. He was one of the fifteen thousand American troops assigned to Burma to build the Ledo Road, whose ostensible purpose was to keep supplies flowing into America's Chinese Allies. Perry and the other soldiers worked sixteen hours a day. They got rations of corned beef and rice, and water with bacteria in it. Most of them got malaria. They fought off leeches and lice. Some were mauled by tigers. Perry's carefree disposition would not last in such an environment. He shot and killed a Lt. Cady when Cady attempted to arrest him, and he fled into the jungle to join a camp of Naga tribesmen, headhunters who had a mistrust of the strange newcomers to their region. When he was caught, he was sentenced to hang, but he escaped, and successfully eluded capture by the Army, tantalizing them with near-misses. His eventual capture was inevitable, and he was driven to the gallows on 15 March 1945. The Army worried that since Perry had symbolized the frustrations of the black soldier, there might be an attempt to attack the convoy, and the officers were told that in such a situation, they were to kill Perry before defending themselves. There was no such attack.
Perry's family in Washington knew little of what was happening to him on the other side of the world. They were bewildered by what they knew of his situation, his trial, and his death. They did not know even where he was buried, but Koerner has played a role last year in bringing Perry's ashes back to his remaining sister. There was a China-Burma-India Veterans Association until attrition closed it in 2005; anyone who served three weeks in the region could join, but not one black was seen at the meetings, for it seems they had no nostalgia for their time there. Perry's story deserves the remembrance in this exciting and illuminating book. He was a clever guy, not a beacon of morality but also not born to be a murderer. Even if his life was not particularly important, his actions played out in a stupid and brutal arena of war, during a time when the Army and American society deliberately and overtly advocated oppression of black Americans. Understanding these times is still important; the crimes here (and they are more than the murder of Lt. Cady) did not have to happen.
A Great Read July 23, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Crafting narrative non-fiction, especially in an historical context, is extremely challenging. Novelists can make up facts, but the non-fiction writer must make do with what he or she has. Yet Brendan Koerner has managed to produce a disturbing yet fascinating portrayal of a WWII soldier who kills an officer and goes native in the jungles of Burma. Koerner himself traveled to Burma to retrace some of his protagonist's steps, offering juicy gems and observations from people he interviewed. It's a powerful work, rare in this age of cookie-cutter narratives and celebrity obsession. (Full disclosure: I am a colleague and friend of Brendan's, so don't take my word for it. See the Washington Post review, as well as many others, which also give him kudos.)
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