Lighter Than A Feather Author:David Wertheimer "...be resolved that duty is heavier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather." — THE NAME OF THE PLAN---DOWNFALL. — "Lighter Than A Feather" is the dramatic story of the epic battle for Kyushu, based on the assumption that the atomic bomb was not dropped, and that Downfall actually did take place. Written by the author of "Von Ryan... more »'s Express," it is the most ambitious, brilliant and generally exciting novel ever ro come out of the Pacific war, a monumental feat of unrelenting action and superb characterization.
"Lighter Than A Feather" is narrated by the participants of both sides. These are some of the people who make up the cast: Cadet Hiroshi Arai, a seventeen-year old kamikaze pilot torn between fear of certain death and a warrior's code of honor: war-happy Lester Waddell, expert marksman, who suddenly realizes that for weeks he's been killing the same Japanese over and over again; Miho Naito, a pretty young girl who has the misfortune to surrender to Staff Sergeant "Stud" Simmons: Maurie Stokes, chaplain's assistant, who with patient tolerance discharges what seems to be his primary assignment--looking (vainly) for Japanese Christians: and Jiro Matsuyama, sixty-one, a little deaf and blind in one eye, sitting in the ashes of his home, watching the battle.« less