The story of Anatahan is a true story that out-Hollywoods Hollywood. It has been a best-seller in Japan and the subject of a fine motion picture written and directed by Josef von Sternberg.

On June 12, 1944 American plane attacked some wooden ships carrying supplies to Truk, the Japanese naval base. Most of the crews, including the wounded Maruyama, author of this book, got ashore on tiny Anatahan. They were to remain there for seven years; some were to die there. Efforts were made to inform them that World War II had ended, but they rejected all such efforts as "enemy propaganda" until the evidence of war's end became too strong. Then they surrendered to the U.S. Navy and were flown to Tokyo.

On Anatahan they had been forced to go primitive. Food was a big problem. They subsisted on pig potatoes, land crabs, lizards and fish caught by hooks laboriously fashioned from old nails. It was easy, however, to make coconut wine, and drinking parties were frequent. A smashed B-29 they found in the jungle was a treasure trove. Maruyama, who had been a musician in Japan, made a samisen from its wires.

There was violence on the island as military discipline melted away in the jungle's heat. There were mysterious accidents, knife-play, bullying by two men who got hold of pistols found in the wrecked B-29.

And there was a Japanese woman living with her "husband" on the island when Maruyama and his companions landed. There were rivalries, and she became an obsession of the sex-starved men. They were in despair when she finally disappeared from the island. It was through her that the outside world was finally able to convince the men that Japan had lost the war.

Anatahan is an exciting postscript to the Pacific War - a tale marked by sex and violence, by primitive struggle and continuous hardship, a tale of ironic adventures told with simplicity and directness.

It has been translated from the Japanese by the Oriental scholar, Younghill Kang, author of The Grass Roof and other well-known books.