Commentary from the Judge, 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
BREAKING LIBERATOR’S SHACKLES was submitted for the WRITER’S DIGEST Self-Published Book Awards. It did not win, but I am happy with the commentary provided by the judge. The following is copied from this commentary:
“Terry Wilson’s Breaking Liberator’s Shackles is one of the most inspirational war novels I’ve read! True to life events of being a P.O.W. in a Japanese internment camp come to life as Grant Metzger gives his son advice before his son’s deployment. Grant is freed from emotional bondage as he recounts survival tactics he and his colleagues used to survive the brutality they encountered as prisoners…
…Thank you for the privilege of reading your book. I liked how you inserted your faith into the story without being “preachy.””
Book Review by Bob Edmonds published on November 6, 2014 in the McCormick Messenger. Mr. Edmonds has long written weekly book reviews for this newspaper, and is noted as both an author and historian. To date he has published fifteen books. He is a past president of the South Carolina Historical Society and a recipient of the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian award.
Breaking Liberator’s Shackles: Inspirational novel of an American Airman’s enslavement as a Japanese Prisoner of War, by Terry L. Wilson, 219 pages.
In the disastrous months following Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Army captured thousands of Allied prisoners. It has been reported that more than one in four of these POW’s died at the hands of their captors from diseases of malnutrition like beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy, and from epidemic diseases of the tropics: malaria, dysentery, tropical ulcers, and cholera. POW’s were denied medical treatment. They were starved. The Japanese looted the International Red Cross food and medical packages sent. It is impossible not to be seized by the horror of the POW’s ordeal. It has been said that if the war had lasted another twelve months there might not have been a POW left alive.
Terry L. Wilson writes, “The characters depicted as the crew of the B-24 Liberator in Breaking Liberator’s Shackles are fictional, but the aircraft, tail number 273312, and the mission are real as are the events the fictionalized crew experienced. The world was at war, and inhumanity was practiced by both Nazis and Japanese. Prisoners of war captured by Japanese were regarded as little more than slaves, and their endurance was remarkable.”
In Wilson’s book, Grant Metzger’s nightmares ceased almost two decades ago… until tonight.
Brutalities he and other POWs sustained from Japanese soldiers are vivid again. Terror of war-time imprisonment torments him, but new fears compound his emotions. His son, Doug, is about to deploy to Vietnam. As a Green Beret, Doug is likely to operate behind enemy lines. Grant fears his son could be captured and forced to endure similar inhumane treatment. Engulfed in anxiety for his son, Grant will reveal past horrors he has never shared with anyone. His secrets of survival may one day save Doug’s life.
In this latest book, Terry Wilson brings vision, authenticity, and eloquence in his compelling narrative with an eye for detail, an ear for contemporary idiom, and a masterful feel for irony. Breaking Liberator’s Shackles makes for an enjoyable reading experience.
A Vietnam era veteran and retired architect who practiced throughout Ohio, in Philadelphia and in Baltimore, Terry Wilson now resides with his wife in McCormick County, South Carolina.
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