Contemporary Authors

• The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2017

1. The Jersey Brothers : A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and his Family's Quest to Bring Him Home LCCN 2016021592 Type of material Book Personal name Freeman, Sally Mott, author. Main title The Jersey Brothers : A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and his Family's Quest to Bring Him Home / Sally Mott Freeman. Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Published/Produced New York : Simon & Schuster, [2017] Description xiv, 588 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm ISBN 9781501104145 (hbk.) 9781501104169 (pbk.) CALL NUMBER D767.4 .F78 2017 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• NPR - https://www.npr.org/2017/05/29/530617202/the-jersey-brothers-highlights-the-enduring-legacy-of-world-war-ii

  'The Jersey Brothers' Highlights The Enduring Legacy Of World War II
  4:08
  Download
  Transcript
  May 29, 20174:33 PM ET
  Heard on All Things Considered
  GLEN WELDON

  Twitter
  Tumblr
  Sally Mott Freeman's book, The Jersey Brothers, recounts the story of three men swept up by Word War II. The youngest brother gets captured in the Philippines, and the two others struggle to bring him home. NPR explores why stories of World War II remain so compelling to us today.

  ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

  World War II ended more than 70 years ago, but the stories of those who fought in it continue to fascinate us. If you search on Amazon for books about World War II, you'll find over 600 books published just this year. This Memorial Day, NPR's Glen Weldon looks back at one book out this month that sheds light on the enduring legacy of that war. It's called "The Jersey Brothers."

  GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: To tell the story of the war's impact on her family, author Sally Mott Freeman consulted hundreds of sources, but she kept the focus very personal. In fact, the book begins with an early memory of visiting her grandmother in New Jersey. She was outside playing with her cousins. It was early evening when the bats come out, and the adults were drinking cocktails on the porch.

  SALLY MOTT FREEMAN: And we could hear voices rise. We could hear a glass break. And my mother was crying and, you know, we were doing our best to eavesdrop to find out what the problem was. And we did hear the name Barton and what happened to him and why.

  WELDON: Barton Cross was Freeman's uncle. As for what happened to him...

  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

  UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Nipponese planes began bombing Manila in early December.

  WELDON: The family found out later that Barton was injured in the early days of the war when the Japanese attacked Cavite Navy base in the Philippines. He was loading supplies onto a submarine when planes reduced the dock he'd been standing on to flaming splinters.

  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

  UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: The air attacks continued as the invading ground forces grew closer to the Philippine capital.

  WELDON: The family got news he became a prisoner of war after the Japanese seized the hospital he was being treated in. But Barton's name never showed up on any prisoner manifests, and he never came home. His ultimate fate remained a mystery, one that would spark that cocktail hour argument years later and fuel endless debate among the cousins.

  FREEMAN: We continued to talk about this as teenagers, young adults and so forth. It was sort of a parlor game we played. What did happen to him? Well, dad said - well, but my cousin said - well, Aunt Rosemary always said that - and it never came to a satisfactory resolution.

  WELDON: Many decades later, Freeman got that resolution. She pored over her father's wartime correspondence, her grandmother's diaries. She combed the National Archives. She even went to the Philippines to look for medical records. They told a grim story. Barton and thousands of other Allied prisoners had been packed into a succession of Japanese transport ships and moved from prison camp to prison camp.

  FREEMAN: You cram them in the hull of a ship where there is no light and there's no air. And they sit there, sometimes for weeks on end without food or water. I think many of them became their basest selves.

  WELDON: Norman Matthews was a survivor of what came to be known as the hell ships. He spoke to The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2008 about that truly horrifying experience.

  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

  NORMAN MATTHEWS: Some of them went crazy - killing each other, eating each other's blood.

  WELDON: And then, somehow things got even worse.

  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

  UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Ship after ship is pounded by explosive shells, poured into them in fiery streams of destruction.

  WELDON: The Japanese Navy didn't mark these ships as prisoner transports, so they often came under attack by Allied bombers and battleships.

  (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

  UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: A transport gets a direct hit.

  (SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)

  WELDON: More than 20,000 Allied prisoners of war died on the hell ships, and like Barton, every one of them had a story. And the only reason we know Barton's story is that his niece, Sally Mott Freeman, spent nearly 10 years researching it - a process of fits and starts.

  FREEMAN: As my research grew - and it wasn't anything but linear - I would find somebody who led me to another person who led me to an archive or a cache of letters or a set of diaries.

  WELDON: She's got some advice for anyone who, like her, is obsessed with preserving these stories for future generations. Your search might take you far away to chase down some key document or government record, but your most important resource is probably a lot closer.

  FREEMAN: Collect every single archive that you've got under roof now. If these relatives are living or if those who spent a lot of time with people who fought in World War II, get it down either in audio or on paper because it starts at home.

  WELDON: Glen Weldon, NPR News.

  Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

  NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

• Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Sally-Mott-Freeman/e/B072P5Z6HD

  Sally Mott Freeman
  Sally Mott Freeman
  Follow
  Sally Mott Freeman was a speechwriter and PR executive for 25 years before launching her research for this book. After penning speeches for an FCC commissioner and later its chairman, she became the agency’s spokesperson and News Media Division Chief following the court-ordered breakup of AT&T, one of the most tumultuous periods in FCC history. Sally was also a VP at Fleishman Hillard, a global public relations firm, as well as Communications VP for two technology trade associations.
  Sally is Board Chair Emerita of The Writer’s Center, the premier independent literary center in the mid-Atlantic. She graduated from St. Anne’s Belfield School in Charlottesville, which has honored her with its Distinguished Alumna Award, and received a degree in English Literature from Sweet Briar College, which also has honored her with its Distinguished Alumna award. She and her husband John have four children and five grandchildren.

  What the critics are saying about Sally's book:

  An Amazon bestseller and Best Book of May 2017: Sally Mott Freeman's The Jersey Brothers is the well-researched true story of three brothers living out a very personal narrative against the backdrop of WWII. Eldest brother Benny was an officer on the USS Enterprise, one of the only vessels to survive Pearl Harbor; and middle son Bill was assigned by Roosevelt to the Map Room in Washington. Youngest brother Barton was sent to the Philippines, where he was expected to be relatively safe—but after a Japanese attack, he was listed as MIA. The Jersey Brothers is the story of a family’s frantic efforts to find and free the youngest brother, while he fights to survive life in a Japanese concentration camp. Author Sally Mott Freeman takes an intimately human approach to this war story, adding a meaningful and memorable chapter to our understanding of the Greatest Generation." --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review

  • Named an Amazon top 100 Books of 2017; an Amazon Best History Book of 2017; and
  an Amazon Best Biography/Memoir of 2017;

  • Named one of Ten Best History Books of 2017 by Smithsonian Magazine

  • Named a Best Book of 2017 by Military Times, Navy Times, and Marine Corps Times;

  • Named one of best audiobooks of 2017, and a top-five finalist in the history category by
  AudioFile Magazine

  “Highly dramatic history. [Freeman’s] book is liable to break the hearts of Unbroken fans, and it’s all true.”
  – The New York Times

  “So powerful, so richly researched” Peter Baker - The New York Times

  “A masterpiece of storytelling, infused with heroism and adventure. This moving portrait of three brothers is a brilliantly researched and written history of America’s wartime role in the Pacific.”
  – Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of Those Angry Days

  “An evocative real-life tale of agony and triumph about brotherly love and a young American who discovers his personal courage amidst the tortures of war. Freeman had me rooting for these Jersey boys on every page.”
  – James Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers

  “Better than fiction because it is real.... The Jersey Brothers demonstrates that a well-told story is just that, whatever its genre.”
  – New York Journal of Books

  “A gripping, deeply moving saga of an American family whose experiences cast a new light on one of the most harrowing and heroic periods in American history. In their devotion to each other and to their country, these three brothers inspire us with courage, intelligence, and exceptional resilience.”
  – Sally Bedell Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen

  “The Jersey Brothers shines in singularity. A blend of history, family saga and family questions, [Freeman’s] first book proves to be a winning and moving success.... A decade in the making, The Jersey Brothers adds an authoritative entry to the vast canon of war literature, one that elicits cheers, tears and a few jeers.... Freeman’s dogged investigative skills, the truth they reveal and her ability to render it with grace combine to make her book — a gripping story of courage and carnage, heroism and horror, devotion and death — unforgettable.”
  – Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “A captivating tour-de-force that immediately stands tall with the best of other World War II combat literature.... Freeman weaves together a story that will tug at the emotions of anyone who has ever known someone who has worn our nation’s uniform in peacetime or at war.”
  – San Antonio Express-News

  “In her moving new epic The Jersey Brothers, Sally Mott Freeman captures a story of love, devotion and perseverance shared by three inspiring siblings caught in the epicenter of some of the war’s most crucial actions… A rare look into the deepest personal emotions of a family of America’s Greatest Generation.”
  – The Dallas Morning News

  “The Jersey Brothers brings welcome comparisons to Laura Hildebrand’s Unbroken... both masterfully written stories of endurance and sacrifice that tell bigger truths than the experience of individuals during wartime.”
  – Naval History

  “Deserves a translation to screen as compelling as “Saving Private Ryan.’’ The Jersey Boys lasting message is: If we learn from our past we can prevent such atrocities in the present. This book is so much more than a summer read; it should be a required one.”
  – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “The Jersey Brothers captures the real-life story of three brothers whose bond to family and love for country take them to extraordinary lengths at one of the most pivotal points in American history. From the decks of the USS Enterprise to the depths of the Japanese prison camps, Sally Mott Freeman takes readers on an epic journey in this remarkable tribute to the Greatest Generation.”
  – Senator John McCain, New York Times bestselling author of Thirteen Soldiers

  “A terrific book that I was just totally captivated by.”
  – Hillary Rodham Clinton

  “A great summer read by a splendid writer.... The characters are vividly drawn, the action riveting, and the suspense almost overwhelming.”
  – Karl Rove, New York Times bestselling author of Courage and Consequence

  “A searing story of courage, love, and family. The Jersey Brothers is impressively broad in scope—from Roosevelt’s White House to the great battles of the Pacific to prisoner of war camps deep in the Philippine jungle—and brimming with endlessly fascinating details that only real soldiers could know.”
  – Jay Winik, New York Times bestselling author of 1944

  “Do we need another book about WWII? If it is as engaging as The Jersey Brothers, the answer is a resounding yes.... The Jersey Brothers is an important addition to the historical record; it's also a spellbinding cliffhanger.”
  – New Jersey Monthly

  “Richly informed by Freeman’s deep research, The Jersey Brothers is a powerfully evocative story of three brothers and their remarkable love, courage, and adventure during a decisive moment in World War II.”
  – Don Katz, founder and CEO of Audible and author of Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America

  “An obvious labor of love.... A touching, suspenseful and deeply troubling story of one family’s patriotic devotion and betrayal.... Meticulously researched and compelling history.”
  – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “As engaging and readable as a fine novel.”
  – Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “Freeman’s riveting account reads like fiction, and proves that the well of compelling war narratives has nowhere near run dry.”
  – Business Insider

  “Author Sally Mott Freeman takes an intimately human approach to this war story, adding a meaningful and memorable chapter to our understanding of the Greatest Generation.”
  – The Amazon Book Review (Best Book of the Month)

  “This true tale would make the perfect Father’s Day gift.... A touching, intimate tale of family, loyalty, and the harsh realities of war, this well-researched true story is bound to please any dad – just don’t be surprised to find him bawling his eyes out by the final page.”
  – BookTrib

  “A riveting war story. But it is a family story as well, its gripping moments in time meticulously assembled by Freeman.”
  – Bergen Record

  “Too exciting to be quite believable as fiction; luckily, it’s entirely true.... Deeply researched, intelligently judged, vividly presented.... And at its heart [The Jersey Brothers is] a serious, indeed deeply moving, family novel: you’ll remember the mother of these guys as vividly as the brothers themselves.”
  – Sullivan County Democrat

  “This story of pain and brotherly love... makes the perfect choice for a summer read.”
  – Asbury Park Press

  “This nonfiction book is one that reads like a novel.”
  – Fredericksburg Free Lance Star

  “Freeman proves to be a strongly motivated researcher, who poignantly conveys a sorrowful experience encountered by thousands of American families in WWII.”
  – Booklist

  “A touching story.... Provides insights into Japanese treatment of POWs and the daily life of these prisoners.... Recommended for readers looking for personal accounts of World War II.”
  – Library Journal

• Book Reporter - https://www.bookreporter.com/authors/sally-mott-freeman

  Sally Mott Freeman
  Sally Mott Freeman was a speechwriter and media and public relations executive for twenty-five years. She is currently Board Chair of The Writer’s Center, the premier independent literary center in the mid-Atlantic. She graduated with a degree in English Literature from Sweet Briar College, which tapped her for its 2016 Distinguished Alumna award, and also studied Renaissance Literature at the University of Exeter, England. THE JERSEY BROTHERS is her first book.

• Simon and Schuster - http://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Sally-Mott-Freeman/486252964

  Sally Mott Freeman
  Sally Mott Freeman was a speechwriter and media and public relations executive for twenty-five years. She is currently Board Chair Emerita of The Writer’s Center, the premier independent literary center in the mid-Atlantic. The Jersey Brothers is her first book.

• Sweet Briar College - http://sbc.edu/news/a-race-against-time-qa-with-the-jersey-brothers-author-sally-mott-freeman-76/

  ‘A race against time’: Q&A with ‘The Jersey Brothers’ author Sally Mott Freeman ’76
  Posted on August 22, 2017 by Janika Carey
  Sally Mott Freeman ’76 has been on the road pretty much nonstop since releasing her first book, “The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home,” in May. In between readings, plane rides and TV interviews, the Saving Sweet Briar board member and 2016 Distinguished Alumna took a moment to talk about the fascinating story behind her debut — and the power of the Sweet Briar network.

  Sally Mott Freeman
  Sally Mott Freeman
  What is the book about?
  “The Jersey Brothers” is about the desperate search by my father’s family for Barton — a Navy Supply Corps officer and the youngest of three brothers — who was listed as missing after a Japanese air attack on Manila at the start of World War II. Middle brother Bill, my father, was a naval intelligence officer and overseer of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secret White House map room. Guilt-ridden over helping Barton secure the very orders that put him in harm’s way, Bill promptly began searching for Barton from the map room’s well-sourced environs. Benny, the eldest of the three Annapolis-trained brothers, was gunnery officer on Adm. Halsey’s storied carrier, the USS Enterprise, which barely escaped annihilation at Pearl Harbor. From his Pacific vantage point, Benny helped Bill search for their brother, in between Enterprise’s short-handed salvos against the Japanese navy, then the most powerful in the world. Wounded Barton, meanwhile, was taken prisoner straight from his Manila hospital cot after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Unknown to his family and beyond its protective tether, prisoner Barton rose to every desperate circumstance and became a moral leader among his fellow prisoners of war under progressively dire conditions.

  What does the book mean to you?
  Closure – what happened to Barton, who was unaccounted for at the end of World War II, had been a long-repressed family mystery. While it may have receded in time, its corrosive effect on my father and his family of origin had not. After much digging, I did find out what happened to him, and it was emphatically not what officials told the family at the time.

  Was the book on your mind for many years? What inspired you to write it?
  Yes, it was. The inspiration had been building for decades. We started hearing about this beloved youngest brother — my Uncle Barton — as children, but the explanations of what happened to him never squared.

  Was there a particular event that made you decide, ‘I’m going to do this’?
  Yes — when I discovered my father’s Naval Intelligence and White House correspondence files tucked in a back corner in my parents’ attic in Charlottesville. In it was an electrifying document trail of my father’s initial search for Barton, as well as other illuminating archives central to the story.

  It took 10 years to research and write ‘The Jersey Brothers.’ What were some of the challenges? Did you encounter obstacles you hadn’t anticipated?
  In order to accomplish my objective, I needed to develop a timeline and build a fact pattern, and in order to do so I needed to find and speak to dozens of people. And that was a race against time from the start. When I began searching for various wartime colleagues of all three brothers, fewer than 20 percent of World War II veterans were alive, fewer still by the time I finished. But I did find all the key people, and flew to meet and interview each and every one of them.

  The Jersey Brothers book coverI made crucial headway in those interviews, thanks also to the corroborating contents of these veterans’ exhumed trunks and storage boxes, some stashed away for more than a half-century. Scattered beneath faded Purple Hearts or Legions of Merit were troves of pertinent archives; some item in each box either solved a piece of the puzzle or offered fresh leads — in-theater radiograms, unpublished memoirs, official memoranda, All-Hands directives, silk maps detailing escape routes, historically significant correspondence, including a hand-edited letter from FDR.

  The slowly building Veterans History Project database also helped me break many an impasse. One such VHP interview — of a retired Navy nurse who cared for wounded Navy patients after a Japanese air attack on their base near Manila — filled a five-month hole in my developing timeline of Barton’s whereabouts. A related lead came during a phone conversation with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery’s (BUMED) historian in Washington, D.C. I had called to get the contact information for the retired Navy nurse. The historian also happened to mention the recent arrival of several old boxes filled with medical records of former American POW’s in the Philippines.

  This was about 2008; the documents had been uncovered at Cañacao — the old base hospital at Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines where Barton was stationed. The cache was discovered during the clearing of the then-shuttered building in preparation for its demolition. Dated from 1941 to 1945, these turned out to be the complete records kept by the naval medical staff who cared for hundreds of sailors wounded in the air attack on Cavite in December 1941 — before being taken prisoner themselves, along with their patients, one of whom was Barton.

  This was one of my top ‘Indiana Jones moments.’ I immediately jumped in the car and drove to BUMED, about 30 minutes from my home. The archivist led me to an unheated storage area where the boxes had been placed. I barely noticed the icy floor, where I sat cross-legged for hours opening every box and reading through every single page. Here were the day-to-day medical records of Barton and the other Navy wounded. The doctors, medics and pharmacists’ mates doggedly tallied their patients’ conditions, as well as the mounting devastation around them, right up to their capture. Duty-bound, they continued the record keeping throughout their imprisonment — documenting where and how they were quartered, patient conditions and mortality, and the stunning progression of cruelty by their captors.

  Sally Mott Freeman on CBS
  Freeman spoke to CBS about her book in July.
  How did it all come together in the end?
  From these various accumulating troves, a story arc much broader than my original quest (determining the fate of my missing uncle) began to emerge. By this point, the project had outgrown my dining room, and I sublet a small office walking distance from my home. It wasn’t much, but it was quiet, had ample file space and book shelves, and room to write. It also had a white board on which I continuously updated the three brothers’ respective story arcs and timelines. To avoid getting overwhelmed, I filled one information or calendar gap at a time. And I wrote draft after draft after draft.

  I also took several military history and nonfiction writing courses. While I had been a professional writer my entire career, this was a very different pursuit in a very different genre, and I wanted to learn everything there was to know about it. The courses and seminars also helped me build associations with archivists, historians and other history writers. We really supported one another, and that was very important to the process.

  Fast-forward: One of my colleagues (a source for the story, in fact) introduced me to my literary agent, who took me on after reading the manuscript. She put it out for competitive bid among the publishing houses in New York, and I ultimately went with Simon & Schuster — and they have been absolutely fantastic to work with.

  You must have discovered lots of (family) surprises during your research. Can you talk more about that?
  I was astonished when my cousin, in town for my mother’s funeral, placed our grandmother Helen’s wartime diaries — thought to have been lost — on my desk. Here was a daily record of Helen’s prescient and canny war commentary rendered in her powerful, matriarchal voice, but also threaded through were searing, deeply emotional entries about her youngest son’s disappearance and eventual notification that he had been wounded and taken prisoner. As a child, I had a very specific impression of my grandmother — but limited, as any child sees a grandparent, I suppose. When I read through those diaries, I came to see her in an entirely different light. That was in 2009, by which point I had a pretty decent manuscript draft. But I knew immediately that her voice had to be woven into the story, so I threw the draft away and started over. That was more than a little painful, but I have no regrets.

  How has your research — and the book’s release — impacted your relationship with family members? How did they respond?
  I interviewed every member of my family during the research process. They all had memories and insights into this personal story, and their recollections were incredibly helpful. In fact, they were very supportive throughout my long research and writing journey. Perhaps they would have been less excited if I’d uncovered an axe murderer in the family, but happily there were no such unfortunate finds, and all were thrilled with the end result!

  How did researching and writing this book alter your perspective on history — the events of World War II in particular, but also the act of remembering, documenting and telling history in general?
  A few things here: My views on Gen. MacArthur and his wartime staff were greatly altered during the research process. Frankly, the most damning materials, particularly with respect to actions taken by his sycophantic staff, came from his own archives — MacArthur Memorial Archives in Norfolk, Va.

  Sally Mott Freeman's yearbook photo
  Freeman’s senior photo in the Briar Patch
  Regarding writing about history itself, I am reminded of a quote by Rudyard Kipling: “If history were told in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” That is, the power of a story about people, not abstract events — what they did in reaction to events, how they felt, how they behaved, good or bad — is what resonates with readers, and is remembered. I approached my research and writing with this truism in mind. “The Jersey Brothers” closely follows the historic plot points of World War II, especially the Pacific Theater, but at its core is a story about one family’s struggle, told against the backdrop of the deadliest conflict in human history.

  What are you working on now/next?
  I am still on book tour, but am sketching out several possible ‘next projects’ in my limited spare time. Not quite ready to say where that will lead!

  Looking back at your college experience, how has Sweet Briar influenced your life and career?
  My Sweet Briar experience was terrific, and it had a direct impact on my career — in more ways than one. First, my English professors were superb; they not only taught me literature, but also how to write. My degree was in English, of course, and writing became central to my career, beginning with that first job after graduation. This brings me to the power of the vaunted SBC network: Michela English ’71 and Bev Crispin Heffernan ’75 visited Sweet Briar my senior year to talk to students interested in pursuing jobs in government. At the time, Michela and Bev worked at a small regulatory agency, The Federal Energy Administration (FEA). It was a riveting presentation, and after graduation, I applied for a writer-editor position at the FEA. And, boom! I got the job, and was on my way.

  What were you involved in at Sweet Briar?
  I rode horses and did theater my first two years, and was also involved in one of the political party clubs. Plus — full disclosure! — I spent quite a bit of time up at UVa.

  I studied abroad my whole junior year at the University of Exeter in England, where I also rode, did theater, and played on the tennis team. Back at Sweet Briar my senior year, I was more studious, and frankly wasn’t much of a joiner at that point. Most importantly, I made many lifelong friendships during my SBC tenure. These grew stronger yet as the years rolled by, and we remain close to this day.

  What are some of your favorite Sweet Briar anecdotes?
  There are so many I could list here. I think the most memorable was the night that hundreds of my fellow students came streaking down the quad. Streaking was all the rage at the time, but it had never occurred to me that Sweet Briar would join those ranks. I recall it was dark and quite late at night. I was returning from Babcock where we had been in a long dress rehearsal for “Much Ado About Nothing.” And, whoa! Suddenly, a blur of what seemed like hundreds of naked women came sprinting down the quad. With apologies to the Bard, that memory “will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.”

• San Francisco Chronicle - https://www.sfchronicle.com/lifestyle/article/Book-Author-Luncheon-Jersey-Brothers-12284764.php

  Book & Author Luncheon: ‘Jersey Brothers’ graphically reveals Japanese treatement of WWII POWs
  By Elaine AyalaOctober 17, 2017

  0

  Sally Mott Freeman spent more than a decade digging into her family story of three brothers fighting in WWII, the youngest of which, her uncle, was taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines. Photo: Courtesy Victoria Korzec / Victoria Korzec Photography http://Www.victoriakorzecphotos.wordpress.com
  Photo: Courtesy Victoria Korzec
  IMAGE 1 OF 2 Sally Mott Freeman spent more than a decade digging into her family story of three brothers fighting in WWII, the youngest of which, her uncle, was taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines.
  “The Jersey Brothers,” Sally Mott Freeman’s debut book, has been described as nonfiction that reads like a historical novel.

  It’s a family saga, doggedly researched, that unearthed startling conclusions. The story of three brothers with impressive Navy pedigrees brims with cinematic appeal and tells a wider story about World War II’s Pacific Theater.

  MOST POPULAR
  Ferlinghetti speaks out at 99, his voice as vital as ever Exclusive: The Silicon Valley quest to preserve Stephen... Sierra foothills dam, part of SF’s Hetch Hetchy system,... Exclusive: Tempe police chief says early probe shows no fault... Giants’ Madison Bumgarner fractures pitching hand after... Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now nearly 4 times the size of... For Jane Kim, now’s the time to talk about cleaner streets
  Freeman’s central character, her uncle Barton Cross, was a Navy ensign wounded in Manila just after Pearl Harbor and left behind in a hospital unit. Cross became a Japanese POW and remained unaccounted for during the war — despite heroic efforts by the family to locate him and bring him home.

  Freeman’s grandmother, Helen Cross, was Barton’s overprotective handful-of-a-mother who badgered politicians and military officers long after the war.

  MORE INFORMATION
  The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home

  By Sally Mott Freeman

  Simon & Schuster, $28

  “Had my grandmother been in charge,” Freeman said in a phone interview, “the war would have been over in 1943.”

  Freeman’s father, Bill Mott, who went on to became an admiral, was the faithful son called upon — as was his brother Benny — to help protect Barton, and track him down after his capture by the Japanese.

  Barton was his mom’s favorite, her youngest son, a half-brother to Bill and Benny. Barton may have represented for his mother a second chance after divorce, which carried a negative stigma at the time.

  Initially, Bill, who ran FDR’s top-secret Map Room in the White House, got Barton a spot in the Naval Supply Corps in hopes of keeping him out of harm’s way.

  The POWs brutal treatment by their captors is sometimes difficult to read.

  “It was so shocking to me,” the author said of a Japanese document that revealed what happened to the favored son.

  Kirkus Review described the book as a “suspenseful and deeply troubling story of one family’s patriotic devotion and betrayal.”

  eayala@express-news.net Twitter: @ElaineAyala

3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 1/12
Print Marked Items
The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval
Officer in the Pacific and His Family's
Quest to Bring Him Home
Dennis Edward Flake
America in WWII.
13.4 (Dec. 2017): p60+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 310 Publishing LLC
http://www.americainwwii.com/
Full Text:
The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home
by Sally Mott Freeman, Simon and Schuster, 588 pages, $28
WHEN READING a nonfiction history book, the end is normally well known. Readers are hoping to
expand their knowledge of the means of getting to that end. Those details bring pleasure to serious students
of history. Occasionally, they can pick up a book that gives them the information and analysis they desire,
while also providing the guilty pleasure of a fictional mystery novel. The new history book The Jersey
Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home provides this
dual benefit. It greatly expands the reader's knowledge of the Pacific theater during World War II as it grips
the reader with the harrowing and mysterious ordeal of one of the three titular Jersey Brothers. The fate of
this brother is not revealed until the very end of the book. At times, the reader will want to skip ahead to the
conclusion, but it's imperative to follow the chapters.
Author Sally Mott Freeman has a personal connection to the three Jersey Brothers; she is the daughter of
one and a niece of the other two. She grew up hearing interesting and painful stories about the brothers'
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 2/12
wartime service from family members. A professional speechwriter, she decided to research these stories,
which proved to be a lengthy and arduous process. After 10 years, she has produced a comprehensive book
that would make most professional historians proud. The only criticism is that the work could easily have
been three books instead of one.
The three New Jersey-born protagonists--Bill and Benny Mott and half-brother Barton Cross--attended the
US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, but only two graduated. The youngest, Barton, dropped out
and finished college at a traditional university. Bill, who was a US Navy lawyer and staff officer, was able
to secure a commission for Barton in the presumably safe US Navy Supply Corps. Benny was a gunnery
officer who was stationed on the USS Enterprise (CV-6) at Pearl Harbor.
Benny's carrier was the most decorated warship in US Navy history. The Enterprise escaped the infamy of
Pearl Harbor because it was delayed in its return there from maneuvers. She participated in most of the US
Navy exploits of the early fighting in the Pacific. She was hit many times, but refused to sink. She was also
repaired numerous times, and sent back to sea duty. Freeman's description of Enterprise's service is
fascinating. After several dangerous and exciting years on board, Benny was reassigned as a staff officer in
Washington, DC.
Bill's service early in the war was secretive and invaluable. He was essentially a cofounder of the White
House Map Room. He routinely briefed President Franklin Roosevelt on military operations and covert
matters, developing a close relationship with Roosevelt and his wife. He was able to use his position to get
information on his missing brother, Barton, in the Philippines. Eventually, his desire to help find Barton
made him request sea duty in the Pacific. There, Bill served as the personal assistant and then flag secretary
to the commanding admiral of a joint expeditionary force. He witnessed horrific naval fighting at Iwo Jima
and Okinawa, including suicidal attacks by Japanese airplanes and boats.
The most gripping story in the book is about his youngest brother, Barton. The US Navy Supply Corps
turned out not to be very safe. Barton got orders in the fall of 1941 to proceed to the USS Otus (ARG20), a
submarine tender (a ship that carried supplies for cramped subs), based at Cavite Naval Station in the
Philippines. His base at Sangley Point was attacked by Japanese airplanes hours after the assault at Pearl
Harbor. He was wounded by shrapnel during the raid and was taken to Sternberg Hospital in Manila. His
ship was able to escape to Darwin, Australia.
Unlike the American and Filipino soldiers fighting later on Bataan and Corregidor, Barton was taken
captive very early in the war, on January 1, 1942. His wounds were still active when his captors moved him
abruptly from the hospital to Bilibid, the notorious prison in Manila. From there, he was sent to other
prisons--to Cabanatuan, to Davao Penal Colony, back to Cabanatuan and Bilibid, and to Japan twice. His
itinerary and experience at the horrific Japanese POW camps could be a case study of Japanese brutality
during the war. Amazingly, he endured, and encouraged others to do the same.
Barton's brothers and family, especially his mother in New Jersey, never gave up the search for information
about him. Their story proves that in wartime, not knowing the fate of a relative can be worse than
knowing. This book is well worth reading cover to cover. And don't jump ahead to the end.
DENNIS EDWARD FLAKE
Hummelstown, Pennsylvania
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Flake, Dennis Edward. "The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's
Quest to Bring Him Home." America in WWII, Dec. 2017, p. 60+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521592383/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f8520820.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 3/12
Gale Document Number: GALE|A521592383
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 4/12
Freeman, Sally Mott: THE JERSEY
BROTHERS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Freeman, Sally Mott THE JERSEY BROTHERS Simon & Schuster (Adult Nonfiction) $28.00 5, 16 ISBN:
978-1-5011-0414-5
The plight of three brothers and their mother during one of the most shameful episodes of World War II.The
abandonment of American servicemen in the defense of the Philippines in 1942 propelled Freeman--a
former speechwriter and public relations executive and current board chair of The Writer's Center in
Bethesda, Maryland--to re-create the tragic story of her uncle, Barton Cross, who suffered a long
imprisonment in Japanese POW camps. In a fluid, restrained, and deeply researched narrative, the author
returns to the awful chaos just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when Cross, a Supply Corps officer on the
submarine tender USS Otus, was wounded by shrapnel in the subsequent Japanese air attack on Cavite
Navy Base, Manila, and inexplicably left behind by his ship at Sternberg Hospital. Moreover, while Gen.
Douglas MacArthur had ordered the evacuation of the Army wounded on the last vessel to depart Manila
before the city fell to the Japanese, the 30-some Navy wounded were again neglected. They were eventually
transported over the next three years--along with thousands of other captured American servicemen--from
one miserable Japanese POW camp to another. "The macabre displays," writes Freeman, "were intended to
humiliate the captured Americans and brandish the new Japanese dominion over the Filipinos." Meanwhile,
Cross' two older half brothers, Benny and Bill, "lifelong protectors" and "Annapolis-minted officers," along
with their mother, Helen, frantically lobbied to find news of their lost brother, as conditions in the camps
were notoriously bad, and several of the POW ships were bombed late in the war by U.S. attacks. Freeman
has reopened the long-closed inquiry into her uncle's account and scoured the diaries and letters that Helen
wrote to Washington, D.C., as well as those written by fellow prisoners. The result is an obvious labor of
love, a touching, suspenseful, and deeply troubling story of one family's patriotic devotion and betrayal. A
grieving family ultimately finds closure in this meticulously researched and compelling history.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Freeman, Sally Mott: THE JERSEY BROTHERS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668412/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=304d39ca.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668412
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 5/12
Freeman, Sally Mott. The Jersey
Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the
Pacific and His Family's Quest To Bring
Him Home
Matthew Wayman
Library Journal.
142.4 (Mar. 1, 2017): p92.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Freeman, Sally Mott. The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest
To Bring Him Home. S. & S. May 2017.608p. illus. notes, bibliog. ISBN 9781501104145. $28; ebk. ISBN
9781501104176. HIST
Freeman's (board chair, the Writer's Ctr.) latest book is an investigation into her uncle's fate. Barton and his
brothers Benny and Bill were navy officers during World War II. While serving in the Pacific theater,
Barton was captured during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. The primary theme is the family's
attempts to determine Barton's whereabouts during and after the war, with the conflict in the Pacific as the
backdrop. The narrative provides insights into Japanese treatment of POWs and the daily life of these
prisoners. Some chapters are nearly documentary histories, with transcribed correspondence among family
members. Some flaws hinder the book's value, including its length and that many conversations are not
cited. Interviews conducted more than 60 year after World War II form the basis for much of the content.
VERDICT A touching story that would have been better in abbreviated form. Recommended for readers
looking for personal accounts of World War II, instead of a history.--Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State
Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Wayman, Matthew. "Freeman, Sally Mott. The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and
His Family's Quest To Bring Him Home." Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 92. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A483702163/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4729854e.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A483702163
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 6/12
The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval
Officer in the Pacific and His Family's
Quest to Bring Him Home
Gilbert Taylor
Booklist.
113.16 (Apr. 15, 2017): p2+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home.
By Sally Mott Freeman. May 2017. 576p. Simon & Schuster, $28 (97815011041451.359.
Intending to write a family history focusing on her uncle, Arthur Bertram Cross Jr., a U.S. WWII naval
officer and prisoner of the Japanese, Freeman found herself researching deeply into the POW archives.
Cross had two older half-brothers, also naval officers. One, William Mott (the author's father), was wellpositioned
to pursue leads, first as an assistant to President Roosevelt responsible for the maps on which
FDR tracked the war and later as a staff officer involved in amphibious landings. The other half-brother
served on the aircraft carrier Enterprise. Both men's involvement in air-sea battles allowed Freeman to
connect the family's private anguish about Cross' safety to the wider course of the Pacific War. By late
1944, battles resumed in the Philippines, and the Japanese decided to ship their POWs to Japan. Freeman
relies on postwar revelations and interviews with surviving prisoners who knew Cross to depict the transfer
operation in its brutal inhumanity and finally discover her uncle's fate. Freeman proves to be a strongly
motivated researcher, who poignantly conveys a sorrowful experience encountered by thousands of
American families in WWII.--Gilbert Taylor
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Taylor, Gilbert. "The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to
Bring Him Home." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2017, p. 2+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492536035/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5ac0add3.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492536035
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 7/12
Clueless about Dad's gift? There's hope
Keith Herrell
BookPage.
(June 2017): p19.
COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
With Father's Day approaching, it's time to wrap that present you've had hidden away for months. Wait, you
have nothing hidden away and no idea what to buy Dad? Here are five books that will be even more
welcome than a box of golf balls.
What Father's Day list is complete without an unabashedly sentimental--yet realistic--look at the father-son
relationship from first-person experience? Two and Two: McSorley's, My Dad, and Me (Little, Brown, $27,
288 pages, ISBN 9780316231596), by Rafe Bartholomew, fills that bill admirably. It also serves as a history
of McSorley's Old Ale House, a 163-year-old institution in New York's East Village, as well as a
compendium of anecdotes about things that can only happen at a beloved neighborhood bar (nowadays,
alas, also a frequent tourist stop). Bartholomew, a sports writer and editor, writes lovingly of his father,
known as "Bart" over the course of his 45-year bartending career, and also gives us some of his own
coming-of-age glimpses along the way. If you can survive St. Patrick's Day at McSorley's, we learn, you
can survive just about anything. But just when you think this is strictly a fathers-and-sons book, some of the
best writing appears in the chapter dealing with the author's mother, Patricia, who conquered alcoholism
only to find life had an even bigger punch in store for her.
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Fatherhood takes a back seat to brotherhood in The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific
and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home (Simon & Schuster, $28, 608 pages, ISBN 9781501104145),
but the family ties are just as strong. They extend to the author, Sally Mott Freeman, a former speechwriter
and public relations executive who is the daughter of one of the brothers. Her curiosity piqued by a family
argument, she sought to unravel the story of her uncle Barton's life as an MIA naval ensign during World
War II (it's no spoiler to note that he was actually a prisoner of war) and the efforts of his two brothers--also
Navy men--to find and rescue him even as they fight their own battles. Meanwhile, the home fires are
tended by a tenacious mother who never hesitates to pick up her pen and give the powers that be--all the
way up to President Roosevelt--a piece of her mind. Tenacious in her own way, Freeman uses archives,
interviews and diaries to uncover Barton's tragic story along with those of his brothers and fellow prisoners,
who endured unspeakable horrors in Japanese prison camps as war raged in the Pacific.
TEAMS AT THE TOP
Want to see Dad exercise his long-dormant debating skills? Just give him a copy of The Captain Class: The
Hidden Force That Creates the World's Greatest Teams (Random House, $28, 352 pages, ISBN
9780812997194) and watch him search for his favorite team in author Sam Walker's Tier One ranking. He'll
hunt in vain for baseball's Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s, or the Michael Jordan-led
Chicago Bulls. (Hint: He'll find Jordan in the chapter titled "False Idols.") Rest assured, the New York
Yankees (1949-53 edition) did make the cut, along with the Collingwood Magpies of Aussie Rules football
and 14 other teams. If your team isn't on the list, Walker is ready with the reasoning for the snub (for
example, the lack of a "true championship," i.e., Super Bowl, for part of their existence kept the 1960s
Green Bay Packers from Valhalla). And perhaps not surprisingly, given Walker's background at The Wall
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 8/12
Street Journal (he founded its daily sports report), the book doubles as a guide to success in business, with
pointed commentary on what makes leaders effective or ineffective (go easy on the vitriol directed at
teammates, Mr. Jordan).
WHAT A CATCH
Dad can get in touch with his inner Walter Mitty with Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark
from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean (Knopf, $26.95, 320 pages, ISBN 9780451493484). The
seemingly sane author, Morten Str[empty set]ksnes, and an eccentric artist friend decide they want to haul
up a Greenland shark--bigger than the great white, and thus the world's largest flesh-eating shark--from the
oceanic depths off the coast of Norway. Think Moby-Dick, but shorter and funnier with enough random
factoids to fill a whale's belly. Waiting for a shark to bite (the line, that is) gives Str0ksnes plenty of time to
muse on such topics as Norwegian history and mythology, seafaring tales, space exploration and even the
shark itself. (The "drunkenness" referred to in the title comes from eating the flesh of the Greenland shark,
which contains compounds used in the nerve gas trimethylamine oxide.) Ranging over a full year, the quest
for more than a nibble yields satisfying insights into friendship, aspirations and the thrill of the chase. When
the end comes, it's almost anticlimactic.
CLIMBING HIGH
Warning: Reading The Push: A Climber's Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits (Viking,
$27, 336 pages, ISBN 9780399562709) can be a queasy experience, for at least a couple of reasons. For
starters, the author of this absorbing memoir, expert rock climber Tommy Caldwell, spends a fair amount of
time thousands (yes, thousands) of feet above ground level, protected only by a web of ropes, attempting to
conquer the Next Big Climb. His targets include El Capitan's 3,000-foot Dawn Wall in Yosemite National
Park, which he conquers in 2015 with climbing partner Kevin Jorgeson. But Caldwell's relationship with his
gung-ho, adventure-guide father is also cringe-inducing and provides insight into his motivations and
doubts, along with at least one failed relationship. If Caldwell's name rings a bell, it's possibly because one
of his international expeditions ended with him and his companions--including the woman who would
become his first wife--being held hostage by militants in Kyrgyzstan in 2000, escaping only when Caldwell
pushed a captor off a nearly sheer dropoff. Somehow the captor survived, but it's clear the incident still
haunts Caldwell. Between the thrills, this book will haunt the reader, too.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
BY KEITH HERRELL
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Herrell, Keith. "Clueless about Dad's gift? There's hope." BookPage, June 2017, p. 19. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492899135/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0ba80005.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 9/12
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492899135
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 10/
The Jersey Brothers
World War II.
32.2 (Aug. 2017): p73.
COPYRIGHT 2017 World History Group, LLC
http://www.historynet.com/
Full Text:
THE JERSEY BROTHERS
A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home
By Sally Mott Freeman.
608pp. Simon & Schuster, 2017. $28.
This well-researched account tells the engaging story of the author's uncle--captured in the Philippines and
shuttled among Japanese POW camps-and his brothers' efforts to find him.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Jersey Brothers." World War II, Aug. 2017, p. 73. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495831342/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3382361a.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495831342
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 11/1
Awaiting a homecoming
Thomas Rzeznik
America.
217.10 (Oct. 30, 2017): p48+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 America Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.
http://americamagazine.org/
Full Text:
The agony comes from not knowing. That was the pain endured by the family of Barton Cross, a Navy
serviceman taken prisoner by the Japanese when they invaded the Philippines in April 1942. In this moving
account, Sally Mott Freeman recalls the efforts of Barton's two brothers, both prominent naval officers, to
learn his whereabouts and secure his safe homecoming.
Through Freeman's remarkable gifts as a writer, the history of the Jersey brothers comes alive with gripping
narrative and masterful storytelling. Her work relates with emotional intensity the brothers' plight and the
strength of the bonds that kept them united in the midst of war. It also draws attention to the grief endured
by their mother. Upon news of Barton's capture, she implored her other two sons to use their connections to
obtain information about his status. She also wrote letter upon letter to those in command, urging them to do
everything in their power to secure the release of those in enemy hands.
Telling Barton's story has been a labor of love for Freeman, the daughter of his brother Bill. The book
reflects her personal quest to come to understand her uncle's history and the stories that went unspoken
within the family. Yet more than a family tale, the book also provides a gripping account of the war's Pacific
theater. With impressive research, she details military strategy, provides riveting accounts of combat and its
costs and recalls the power struggle between the admirals and General McArthur over plans and priorities.
Those who know war only from a distance will come to appreciate the remarkable courage of those who
served and the trials they endured. Especially moving are the detailed descriptions of the plight of prisoners
of war. Though often forgotten in our histories, they were ever on the minds of their families. The book
reminds us how inhumanely many were treated, especially when their captors failed to abide by the norms
laid out by international conventions.
More than the tale of one family, The Jersey Brothers recounts the story of the struggle shared by every
family that waits anxiously for word of a loved one in time of war.
Thomas Rzeznik is an associate professor of history at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J.
The Jersey Brothers A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home By
Sally Mott Freeman Simon & Schuster. 589p $28
Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Rzeznik, Thomas. "Awaiting a homecoming." America, 30 Oct. 2017, p. 48+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A514406541/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=45db2771.
Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A514406541
3/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521859809745 12/

Flake, Dennis Edward. "The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home." America in WWII, Dec. 2017, p. 60+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521592383/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018. "Freeman, Sally Mott: THE JERSEY BROTHERS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A487668412/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018. Wayman, Matthew. "Freeman, Sally Mott. The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest To Bring Him Home." Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 92. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A483702163/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018. Taylor, Gilbert. "The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2017, p. 2+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492536035/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018. Herrell, Keith. "Clueless about Dad's gift? There's hope." BookPage, June 2017, p. 19. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492899135/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018. "The Jersey Brothers." World War II, Aug. 2017, p. 73. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495831342/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018. Rzeznik, Thomas. "Awaiting a homecoming." America, 30 Oct. 2017, p. 48+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A514406541/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.

• Star Tribune
  http://www.startribune.com/review-the-jersey-brothers-by-sally-mott-freeman/430215213/
  Word count: 612

  BOOKS 430215213
  REVIEW: 'The Jersey Brothers,' by Sally Mott Freeman
  NONFICTION: A sweeping account of one family's determined effort to find a prisoner of war and bring him home.
  By CHUCK HAGA Special to the Star Tribune JUNE 23, 2017 — 3:09PM
  American soldiers at a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines in 1942. Associated Press
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  American soldiers at a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines in 1942. Associated Press
  TEXT SIZE
  0
  EMAIL
  PRINT
  MORE
  In the literature of war, the telling of POW-MIA stories — the dogged search for information and answers, the happy repatriation of survivors, or the somber identification and return of remains — has become an earnest genre of its own. The eventual cooperation of former enemies, advances in forensic science and the computerization of records have led to the recovery and homecoming of so many. Just this month, the remains of Marine Warren Nelson, 20 years old when he was killed in action during the South Pacific battle of Tarawa in 1943, were returned to Lakota, N.D., for burial with full military honors.

  It took just the length of World War II, but great effort and determination, for the Mott boys of New Jersey, Navy officers Benny and Bill, to track the story of their younger brother. Barton was captured after he and other Navy personnel were wounded in the Japanese conquest of the Philippines shortly after Pearl Harbor.

  “The Jersey Brothers” is nearly 600 pages of intense, thoroughly researched family and world history, as engaging and readable as a fine novel. It took author Sally Mott Freeman — the daughter of Bill Mott, niece to Benny and Barton — 10 years to piece together the story of Barton’s capture, imprisonment and torture and his brothers’ relentless drive to find him.

  The Mott brothers were in remarkable position to press the search. Bill Mott, like Benny a 1930s graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, was an intelligence officer who spent a good part of the war overseeing President Franklin Roosevelt’s secret “map room” at the White House, often conferring with the president himself and with important visitors, including British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Benny served as a high-ranking officer on the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carrier that was spared from the attack on Pearl Harbor, participated in later decisive battles and led the resurgent U.S. fleet to victory in the Pacific. (This is indeed a Navy story, with several disdainful shots aimed at Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur.)

  The grim narrative is built through interviews with former POWs who recounted sadistic beatings and beheadings, starvation and untreated disease at camps in the Philippines and aboard “hell ships” that carried many to Japan. Through those painful accounts supported by research in American and Japanese archives, diaries, unpublished memoirs and other documents, Freeman offers a grimly detailed account of what life was like for her uncle those three turbulent years of captivity. She details big-picture strategy and paints intimate scenes of despair with dialogue, settings and characters that ring true. She also documents the anguish and anger of her grandmother, Helen, waiting at her home in New Jersey for the son she had tried desperately to keep out of harm’s way. Helen besieged Roosevelt and top naval authorities with pleading and accusing letters, demanding to know why more wasn’t being done to find and rescue her youngest.

  Chuck Haga, a former Star Tribune reporter, teaches newswriting at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

  The Jersey Brothers
  By: Sally Mott Freeman.
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 588 pages, $28.

• New York Journal of Books
  https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/jersey-brothers
  Word count: 854

  The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home
  Image of The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home
  Author(s):
  Sally Mott Freeman
  Release Date:
  May 8, 2017
  Publisher/Imprint:
  Simon & Schuster
  Pages:
  608
  Buy on Amazon

  Reviewed by:
  Robert Davis
  “The Jersey Brothers demonstrates that a well-told story is just that, whatever its genre.”

  The brothers Benny and Bill Mott made their family of Eatontown, New Jersey, one with the U. S. Navy. Graduates of the Naval Academy; they served in important positions during World War II and even enlisted their sister.

  This family's story is now told in The Jersey Brothers by media executive Sally Mott Freeman, Bill Mott's daughter. The book is extensively researched and has the benefit of surviving family papers, including the diary of the brothers' mother Helen Estelle Chamberlain.

  Benny commanded the anti-aircraft batteries on the famed aircraft carrier Enterprise, including when it was all that reminded of America's carriers in the Pacific fleet. He and his shipmates risked death in battle on more than one occasion. Despite the best efforts of many people, the Enterprise finally succumbed to the scrap metal yard after the war.

  Bill Mott should have washed out of the Navy because of his eyesight, but his ambition in other fields brought him back into the service and into a critical role in the highest echelons of power. Later he served in action in the Pacific. His career was improbable, but the needs of World War II created many thousands of such unlikely stories.

  The brothers' ambition also included their half-brother Barton Cross. He became "bilge" (flunked out) of the Academy, but Bill managed to obtain for their baby half-brother a commission as ensign in the Navy Supply Corps in the Philippines.

  Barton thus began a series of misadventures of epic scale. He arrived in the Philippines in November 1941, just in time to be wounded in the Japanese attack on Cavite base on December 10, two days after Pearl Harbor. Douglas McArthur's incompetence left the Philippines open to invasion and Barton's ship the Otus left him behind in its hurry to escape.

  A bureaucratic omission left all of the Navy's wounded behind. Barton was transferred from one facility to another as all of the prisoners suffered constant abuse by their captors. The prisoners died "daily from gangrenous wounds, disease, and starvation, but also from dispair." Barton's fate would be different.

  Despite Bill's connections, including a personal friendship with President Roosevelt, Barton Cross disappeared with thousands of other American servicemen in the Philippines. As the title of the book implies, the story of finding him is a major thread in this book.

  The Mott-Cross family was exceptional in many ways. They were largely English. The children of divorce, the Benny and Bill had issues within their second family and English-born stepfather Arthur Barton Cross. Their mother Helen was one of the country's few women college graduates. The author writes that Benny and Bill "always seemed to be seeking her attention and that Barton was always trying to break free of it."

  These difficulties were mitigated somewhat by the local prominence of the estranged father's Mott family. Even if treated as second children, Benny and Bill still lived in a comfortable upper middle class family that most Americans could only aspire to; the Mott-Cross family managed in the Great Depression.

  Bill and Benny had always looked after little brother Barton, and then they did whatever they could to bring him home. A good book could be written on American brothers serving together in World War II, including in the sudden mass death in the sinking of a single ship. As the author notes, on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor alone, "1,700 men perished, among them 23 sets of brothers."

  Millions of such stories of American families in World War II could be told. Each such history is memorable and, with good writing, an important personal way to experience the history of those times on different levels.

  The Jersey Brothers could stand as a model for such work. It is better than fiction because it is real and adds in educating and in suspense by being based on facts. The Jersey Brothers demonstrates that a well-told story is just that, whatever its genre.

  The author could have made the identity of the characters easier to understand, at least at the beginning of the book. Even Freeman's own relationship to the characters really goes unexplained. Too often, the author fills in gaps in information with colorful narrative.

  Robert S. Davis is an award-winning professor of genealogy, geography, and history. His writing credits include more than 1,000 contributions as books, articles, and reviews in historical, library, education, and archival journals related to the South. He is also a frequent speaker.

• Washington Independent Review of Books
  http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/the-jersey-brothers-a-missing-naval-officer-in-the-pacific-and-his-familys
  Word count: 902

  The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home
  By Sally Mott Freeman Simon & Schuster 608 pp.
  Reviewed by Paul D. Pearlstein
  July 15, 2017
  Though rich in details, this WWII-era saga feels disjointed and overly long.

  The Jersey Brothers is both a history book and a memoir. Author Sally Mott Freeman’s main theme is her attempt to learn what happened to her uncle Burton in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Using short, interspersed chapters of family, military history, and related topics, she also highlights the wartime careers of her uncles.

  Burton Cross, along with his two older half-brothers, Bill (Freeman’s father) and Benny Mott, served as naval officers during the war. As a favor to their doting mother, the brothers attempted to protect Burton by getting him a non-combat assignment in the Philippines. They succeeded, but Burton was eventually captured by the Japanese after the surrender of the Philippines and never returned home.

  Burton and his injured fellow naval officers and sailors were abandoned in Manila after General Douglas MacArthur surrendered and escaped from the Philippines. MacArthur rescued only his injured Army soldiers, intentionally leaving behind the remaining hospitalized Navy personnel to fend for themselves.

  The POWs were brutalized by the Japanese. The author describes the prison life and cruel treatment they endured. Escapes were rare. If captured, both the escapees and the remaining POWs were severely punished. A few POWs did escape with the help of anti-Japanese guerilla forces. Some got back to headquarters in Australia and then to America.

  These survivors gave detailed testimony describing the inhumane treatment they endured. Unfortunately, the material was so graphic that the military concealed the information until it was finally leaked and published in the New York Times. The POWs’ report was read aloud by General George Marshall at the Allies’ 1943 Quebec Conference to urge the British to increase their support for the war in the Pacific. Unfortunately, it came too late for Burton and his fellow prisoners.

  As Freeman recounts, plans to rescue the POWs were made but were frustrated and delayed by rival egos and bureaucrats at MacArthur’s headquarters. After extensive discussion and preparation, the rescue plans were scuttled because the prisoners had been moved by the Japanese.

  The author’s naval family ties are clear. She relates the internecine rivalries between the Navy and the Army commands in the Pacific. MacArthur is described as a no-holds-barred, tone-deaf, egotistical hindrance when it came to following orders from anyone or cooperating with the Navy. (It’s ironic, then, that the MacArthur Memorial Archives are located in the Navy town of Norfolk, VA.)

  Much of the book is also a paean to the author’s father, Bill Mott. As a Naval Academy graduate during the Depression, he was not offered a commission upon graduation. Instead, he worked in the U.S. Patent Office and attended law school at night. After finally receiving a commission as a reserve officer, he went on active duty. Bill had a successful first assignment in intelligence working in the White House Map Room.

  In the White House, Bill had direct dealings with Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and most of the top military brass. Feeling guilty about this safe assignment, he applied for sea duty to get into the “real” war.

  Despite the reluctance of Roosevelt to let him leave, Bill was assigned to the flagship USS Rocky Mount as a military lawyer and intelligence specialist. There, he was involved in the planning and invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He stayed in service after the war and ultimately retired as a rear admiral and chief of the Navy JAG.

  The eldest Mott brother, Benny, was immersed in some of the most ferocious naval battles in the Pacific. He was a skilled gunnery officer responsible for the Sky Deck on the USS Enterprise during the Battle of Midway. At Midway, the battle group experienced relentless attacks by the Japanese air force and ships.

  At the end of the three-day engagement, the U.S. had won an extraordinary victory, having sunk four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser. Bill and other gunnery personnel shot down over 300 enemy aircraft. However, the fight was also extremely costly to the American fleet and their aircraft. The USS Enterprise was severely damaged but was able to limp back to Pearl Harbor.

  The author spent an extraordinary 10 years researching The Jersey Brothers. She traveled around the world reviewing records and interviewing POW survivors of the Japanese camps. Unfortunately, too many “irresistible” facts and stories from her extensive research muddy the flow of the book.

  The tale is a kaleidoscope of her family’s involvement in the war, the battles in the Pacific, and the civilian and military politics of that time. All interesting material, but the overall result feels rather disjointed. Freeman’s attempt to create suspense by withholding details of Burton’s fate until the book’s end also seems contrived and ineffective.

  This book has some wonderful military history and wartime material, but it could’ve used a slashing red pencil and a substantial reorganization.

  Paul D. Pearlstein is a retired lawyer and aspiring writer.

• My San Antonio
  https://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/arts-culture/books/article/Book-review-A-family-searches-for-a-WWII-POW-in-11129819.php
  Word count: 975

  Book review: A family searches for a WWII POW in captivating ‘Jersey Brothers’
  By Vincent Bosquez, For the Express-News Published 12:00 am, Wednesday, May 10, 2017

  IMAGE 1 OF 3
  Growing up, I only saw my father, a Marine Corps Korean War veteran, cry once.

  It was during the Gulf War, when we were having breakfast in our neighborhood Mexican restaurant, and the subject of my younger brother, a Marine in a combat zone, came up for discussion.

  “I don’t know what I would do, how I would handle it, if a casualty officer showed up at my door,” he said with tears slowly streaking down his face. “I know how ugly war is. I would do anything, give everything I have, if it would bring him home to me safe and sound.”

  The familial wartime sentiments of my father have been shared by parents of military combatants throughout the ages.

  Fortunately for us, my brother did return safely, but for other parents and family members, the outcome isn’t always joyful.

  “The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home,” by Sally Mott Freeman, is a heartbreaking look into the lives of a Navy household from New Jersey that had three sons in uniform at the start of World War II.

  Entertainment Channel
  Now Playing
  Right Now: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Make a Suprise...
  InStyle

  Lourdes Stephen reflexiona sobre su despido de Univision...
  People en Español

  'Once Upon a Time' Jennifer Morrison, Josh Dallas, Ginnifer Goodwin,...
  Entertainment Weekly

  Schreiber: 'We've got to do something about gun violence'...
  Associated Press

  Gymnast Effortlessly Executes Sitting Back Flip...
  Storyful

  Marvel-Themed Lands Coming to Three Disney Parks in 2020...
  Entertainment Weekly

  Lionel Richie To Scott Disick: “Leave My Daughter ALONE!”...
  Hollyscoop

  Justin Bieber’s Post Selena Breakup Makeover: Which Celeb Had The...
  Hollyscoop

  Roselyn Sanchez, Dascha Polanco grew up wearing tailored threads...
  Associated Press

  Kendall Jenner The Reason Blake Griffin Is LOSING Games?...
  Hollyscoop
  The brothers were at the center of three distinct yet seminal parts of the war. The oldest, William “Bill” Mott, was picked by President Roosevelt to run the first White House Map Room, while Elias “Benny” Mott, the middle brother, was the anti-aircraft officer on the USS Enterprise, which was on assignment when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but would go on to become the most decorated warship in American naval history.

  The youngest brother, Barton Cross, was a half-brother to the first two and considered by some to be the least distinguished of the three, since he failed to graduate from the Naval Academy like the others. His mom’s favorite child, and a bit spoiled, Barton ended up serving with the Navy Supply Corps because his mother wanted him out of harm’s way.

  The book centers on Barton, who was listed as missing in action while serving in the Philippines after a Japanese attack on the Cavite Navy Yard, the U.S. naval installation near Manila.

  More Information
  The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home

  By Sally Mott Freeman

  Simon & Schuster, $28

  His subsequent MIA and POW status sent the family into turmoil as his brothers used every resource available to them to locate him, while his mother, who was always his champion, struggled to cope with the lack of information on his whereabouts.

  In a letter to Barton’s mother after the war, one of Barton’s fellow POWs reports that they were together in camps scattered throughout the Philippines in cities such as Luzon, Davao, Mindanao and Manila.

  They were also placed on a ship bound to Japan that was subsequently sunk, but were recaptured again and treated to even harsher conditions, given only grains of rice to subsist on daily.

  The author’s maiden name and that of the two elder brothers is not a coincidence. Bill Mott was Sally’s father, and Barton was her uncle, and it was Barton’s experience as a POW with limited information known to family members that led her on a 10-year-long search to excavate and reconstruct the harsh final years of his life.

  From records the National Prisoner of War Museum, Navy bases, hospitals and former prison camps in the Philippines to diaries, memoirs and a dust-covered cardboard box, Freeman weaves together a story that will tug at the emotions of anyone who has ever known someone who has worn our nation’s uniform in peacetime or at war.

  Despite the shocking and horrific revelations of what American POWs endured under Japanese forces, one positive theme echoes throughout the book: love.

  It’s the love of a family battling insurmountable odds for any bit of news on a captured family member. It’s the love of captured service members under the harshest conditions struggling to keep each other alive. And it’s the love of one man for his fellow men and his quest to get them home safe.

  “The Jersey Brothers” is a captivating tour-de-force that immediately stands tall with the best of other World War II combat literature.

  While this is Freeman’s first book, it’s a sure bet that military historians and bibliophiles everywhere will be anxiously awaiting her next one.

  Vincent Bosquez is a retired Marine Corps captain and coordinator of Veterans Affairs at Palo Alto College.

• New York Daily News
  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/barton-cross-low-risk-wwii-post-descend-torture-death-article-1.3117422
  Word count: 1647

  Silver-spooned Barton Cross saw low-risk WWII post descend into writhing mess of torture, death

  Tweet

  email
  Cross was held at Bilibad Prison by Japanese forces.
  Cross was held at Bilibad Prison by Japanese forces. (COURTESY OF JOHN TEWELL)
  BY
  SHERRYL CONNELLY
  NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
  Saturday, April 29, 2017, 5:02 PM
  Strings were carefully pulled to ensure Barton Cross, the coddled youngest son of a New Jersey family, would return home intact from World War II.

  And then the plan unraveled.

  Barton instead disappeared into the pits of hell, taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines. His two half-brothers, both distinguished Navy officers, launched a frantic search of the South Pacific for clues of what happened to their mother's favorite son.

  The horrifying truth of Barton's war is now laid bare in sickening detail in “The Jersey Brothers” — a very personal story to the author, Sally Mott Freeman.

  American troops rescue Army POW Jessica Lynch in 2003
  She is Barton’s niece.

  Barton, a product of his mom Helen's happy second marriage, was her beloved. His older half-brothers, Benny and Bill Mott, were schooled early to protect him.

  So it was that in 1941, Barton, 23, scored a highly coveted position in the Navy Supply Corps, a near-certain ticket to survival. Bill, who ran President Franklin D. Roosevelt's command center in the famous White House Map Room, was the agent behind the posting.

  The handsome Navy officer left his weeping mother at the family home in Oceanport, N.J. The tears came despite repeated assurances that this was the best place for Barton to land, since Supply Corps never saw a combat.

  Former German POW leaves $485G to Scottish village
  Barton Cross raises a glass at a NYC bar before he departs for the Phillipines.
  Barton Cross raises a glass at a NYC bar before he departs for the Phillipines. (COURTESY OF SALLY MOTT FREEMAN)
  He joined his oldest brother, Benny, in the South Pacific, though the elder sibling was directly in harm's way aboard the legendary USS Enterprise.

  Barton served on the USS Otus, a repair ship that fled Cavite Naval Yard in the Philippines after the Japanese bombing of Dec. 10, 1941.

  The young Garden State scion, wounded by shrapnel in the attack, was left behind in the hospital when his ship departed.

  The ultimate betrayal followed with Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Dec. 31 orders to evacuate the Army wounded to Australia. No mention was made of the Navy patients.

  The small contingent of 30 abandoned Navy wounded remained huddled in the hospital wards. The Japanese soldiers burst through the doors the next morning.

  Barton, as an officer, was immediately suspect to the Japanese. He concealed the involvement of his brothers in high-level combat and espionage.

  Those connections would not serve him well — and he had already refused to use them before. He asked a hospital nurse to cable his family that all was well before the capture. Barton didn't want them exerting any undue influence to extract him from the Philippines.

  Bill and his wife, Edith Grace.
  Bill and his wife, Edith Grace. (COURTESY OF SALLY MOTT FREEMAN)
  The captives were immediately subjected to a starvation diet, denied quinine to prevent malaria, and forced on long marches carrying the wounded and dying.

  At Cabanatuan City, POWs from fallen Bataan and Corregidor gave the others a foretaste of the cruelty ahead, relating the gruesome details of the Bataan Death March.

  Among other horrors, the Japanese drove trucks over the wounded and stuck bayonets into the columns of captives marching past — randomly slicing their throats.

  At the Cabanatuan stockades, the Japanese wore masks to throw food over the barbed wire. The undisposed waste and spread of malaria was a toxic brew, killing men off by the hundreds.

  In October, Barton was one of the lucky 1,000 relatively able-bodied men chosen for transfer to the Davao Penal on Mindanao. His festering wounds had finally healed.

  Brother Benny was simultaneously seeing fierce action aboard the Enterprise. From his privileged position at the White House, Bill was able to ease Helen's constant concern for Barton with the possibility that her youngest was placed on a rescue ship to Australia.

  Both brothers felt they could never do enough in their mandate to bring news of Barton to Helen.

  Bill and Benny pose with Barton Cross after his graduation from Christ School.
  Bill and Benny pose with Barton Cross after his graduation from Christ School. (COURTESY OF SALLY MOTT FREEMAN)
  Bill left the White House for active duty in 1942 with a strong hunch Barton was on Mindanao. Perhaps fortunately for Helen, he was gone before three escapees from Davao detailed the savage abuses at the camps.

  Barton had shared barracks with one of the escapees. Along with other prisoners, he was subsequently imprisoned in a grim enclosure of double-decker cages swarming with bedbugs and rats.

  The men were released after thirty days spent crouching in feces and returned to the main camp — where the squalor had worsened. In retaliation for the escapes, the prisoners were starved. Loathing for the escapees surged, but Barton wasn't among the haters.

  The sweet young man, once too soft to handle the hazing at Annapolis, had now matured to the point that his overprotective family would hardly recognize him.

  Barton made it a point of duty to forge the starving, desperate men into a caring community. They shared even the sparsest rations with the wounded, and rallied around whoever seemed to be slipping into despair.

  Over three long years, he relentlessly projected "optimism and cheer," according to his fellow captives, and exacted fairness from increasingly desperate men. They loved him for it.

  The three frustrated escapees were barred from exposing the horrors of their captivity at home, although all were convinced a public shaming would force the Japanese to curtail the depravity.

  Barton Cross poses at Lilac Hedges, the family home in Oceanport, N.J., with his mother and stepfather, Helen and Arthur Cross.
  Barton Cross poses at Lilac Hedges, the family home in Oceanport, N.J., with his mother and stepfather, Helen and Arthur Cross. (COURTESY OF SALLY MOTT FREEMAN)
  The tale remained untold until January 1944, when it was revealed in a 14-part newspaper series. Helen couldn't be stopped from reading it. One of the last entries in her diary told of her total devastation.

  "A million bayonets pierce my heart — my dear one, my lad of peace and kindliness — where are you?” she wrote. “I die for you in your pain. No food, no solace in this life until Barton comes! ... I will not even call on the name of God again."

  By the end of 1944, Barton was back at Bilibad, a fortress prison outside of Manila, where he was one of the 1,160 prisoners forced aboard the Oryoku Maru for transport to Japan.

  Hoarded into three holds below deck, without enough oxygen and hydration, many POWs ripped open their own veins — or those of the men standing next to them — to drink blood.

  Others beat fellow prisoners to death for no reason, while still more died gasping for air. But there was no escape from the carnage as the hatches remained closed through the long night.

  A squadron of Navy Hellcats finally brought the Oryoku Maru to a dead halt 400 yards offshore in Subic Bay in mid-December 1944.

  Barton dragged another man to shore, then returned to do the same for POWs who couldn't swim.

  Author Sally Mott Freeman. To accompany editorial review of The Jersey Brothers book by Sally Mott Freeman. (Photo by Victoria Korzec Photography)
  (VICTORIA KORZEC PHOTOGRAPHY)
  The Jersey Brothers book by Sally Mott Freeman
  Sally Mott Freeman's "The Jersey Brothers."

  The Americans were recaptured on shore, with more than 300 of the original 1619 prisoners already dead from their time in the hold.

  In the winter of 1945, a sympathetic commander freed Bill to search for Barton. He learned that Barton was still alive and the family had reason to hope.

  But the news, in the end, was not good.

  In his last weeks, Barton was starved to emaciation, left for days sitting in a glaring sun, surviving on only drips of water a day and tossed into the fetid holds of one ship after another.

  On Jan. 9, 1945, the Enoura Mara took direct hits, turning its hold into a pit of "ripped flesh, severed limbs, and crushed skulls." Still, Barton survived.

  He lived until the Brazil Maru pulled into Moji on Jan. 29. Barton was carried to shore by one his closest friends, joyful at finding him alive. It was on the dock, wrapped in a Japanese soldier's coat, where Barton took one last breath that he failed to exhale.

  Helen Cross — who learned of her son’s death via cable, rather than from a Navy official — harangued the Navy for years over its failure to protect her boy.

  When the author visited her uncle’s family Lilac Hedges estate as a child, she noticed there were so many pictures of Barton that it was as if his mother had no other children.

  It was the puzzle of what had happened to this mysterious Uncle Barton that led Freeman to sort through official accounts and yellowed letters while conducting many interviews to reassemble the WWII hero’s odyssey of horror.

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/books/2017/07/02/Saving-Barton-Cross-Jersey-Brothers-Sally-Mott-Freeman/stories/201707020008
  Word count: 671

  'The Jersey Brothers' is the true tale of three brothers during WWII's darkest days
  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette logo
  VIRGINIA KOPAS JOE
  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  JUL 1, 2017 9:00 PM
  Save the family — or save the world — is a question for the ages. “The Jersey Brothers” shows that true heroes try for both. The book’s subtitle: “A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home” tells you what to expect in this 500-plus page read that’s perfect for the long July 4th holiday — a time when we pause to reflect on America’s heroes.

  And “The Jersey Brothers” are true American heroes whose real life story — make that stories — need to be told. Part history and part family memoir, the book chronicles the extraordinary adventures of three brothers, all Navy men, at the center of some of the most dramatic turning points of World War II.

  "THE JERSEY BROTHERS: A MISSING NAVAL OFFICER IN THE PACIFIC AND HIS FAMILY’S QUEST TO BRING HIM HOME"
  By Sally Mott Freeman
  Simon & Schuster ($28).
  Bill and Benny Mott and Barton Cross are brothers from New Jersey — hence the book’s title. Annapolis grad Bill is picked by FDR to run the first Map Room in Washington. Annapolis grad Benny is an anti-aircraft officer on one of the only carriers to escape Pearl Harbor. Youngest brother Barton Cross is from their mom’s second marriage. He is not academy fodder and is placed in the Navy supply corps mostly because his overbearing mother (Helen Mott Cross could be the 1940s model for today’s helicopter moms) wants her youngest — arguably her favorite — out of harm’s way. But the plan misfires when Barton Cross is sent to the Philippines and goes missing in action after a Japanese attack. Now his older brothers go on a mission to save him. And the devil is in the details.

  First time author Sally Mott Freeman is the real life daughter of Bill Mott. How she learns Barton’s story (kept as a family secret) is as mesmerizing as the parts of the book that meticulously document WWII military strategy and politics. Another strength of this page-turner is how the author alternates chapters toggling between family letters to the White House and scenes from the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Guadalcanal and the taking of Saipan.

  I would be remiss not to note that many readers will be disturbed with the grim descriptions of the plight of American POWS in Japanese prisoner camps (Barton Cross and about 20,000 others end up in such camps), and horrific scenes from the Bataan Death March and other WW II atrocities.

  War is hell, indeed.

  But it is family that dominates the heart of these Jersey Boys. The narrative shows how the Mott/ Cross and extended family react to Barton’s plight, and how they cope with often dodgy wartime information. To tell the story of the war’s impact on the world at large — as well as its lasting toll on her family at home — Ms. Freeman did 10 years of painstaking research. She pored over her dad’s wartime letters and her grandma’s diaries. She combed the National Archives. She traveled to the Philippines to search for medical records. She conducted interviews with many POWS, including Sen. John McCain, who knows a thing or two about enemy torture. That Vietnam War hero called the book “a remarkable tribute to the Greatest Generation.’’

  Ms. Freeman is a speechwriter and media executive, and “The Jersey Brothers” is her first book. It deserves a translation to screen as compelling as “Saving Private Ryan.’’ “The Jersey Boys” lasting message is: If we learn from our past we can prevent such atrocities in the present. This book is so much more than a summer read, it should be a required one.

  Virginia Kopas Joe: vkjoe@post-gazette.com.

• Dallas Morning News
  https://www.dallasnews.com/arts/books/2017/05/25/jersey-brothers-sally-mott-freeman-review
  Word count: 1233

  OOKS AT MAY 25 SHARE
  FACEBOOK
  TWITTER
  EMAIL
  Print This Story
  Written by
  Profile image for Stephen L. Moore
  Stephen L. Moore, Special Contributor
  Connect with Stephen L. Moore Email
  Don't miss a story. Like us on Facebook.
  LIKE DALLAS NEWS' FACEBOOK PAGE

  World War II was a harrowing experience for America, both in the experiences of young men cast into battle and in the silent torture of families back home left to grieve for loved ones officially listed as missing in action. In her moving new epic The Jersey Brothers, Sally Mott Freeman captures a story of love, devotion and perseverance shared by three inspiring siblings caught in the epicenter of some of the war’s most crucial actions.

  The Jersey Brothers, by Sally Mott Freeman(Simon & Schuster)
  The Jersey Brothers, by Sally Mott Freeman (Simon & Schuster)
  The three Mott-Cross brothers, born to the same mother from two marriages, hailed from a higher social order than did many American servicemen. During the first year of war, Benny Mott was the gunnery officer of the aircraft carrier Enterprise. As such, he was thrust into the heart of the Pacific War, experiencing the early island raids, the battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal campaign at sea. His older brother Bill was selected to run the White House Map Room for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a position that provided him considerable insight into military intelligence.

  The Jersey Brothers relates the quest of Bill and Benny to find answers regarding the fate of their youngest sibling, Barton Cross, a wounded Supply Corps officer captured by the Japanese in 1942 during the fall of the Philippines. Freeman follows the struggles faced by the brothers as they claw for minute details regarding Barton, and also takes the reader deep into the homefront anguish of a mother unafraid to unleash her despair and frustration on the highest level of political and military leadership.

  Bill and Benny Mott posed with Barton Cross after his graduation from Christ School in June, 1934. The older brothers took an active interest in Barton's academic performance and wanted him to follow them to the U.S.  Naval Academy. From The Jersey Brothers, by Stephanie Mott Freeman.(Mott family photo)
  Bill and Benny Mott posed with Barton Cross after his graduation from Christ School in June, 1934. The older brothers took an active interest in Barton's academic performance and wanted him to follow them to the U.S. Naval Academy. From The Jersey Brothers, by Stephanie Mott Freeman. (Mott family photo)
  As the war progressed, Bill yearned for a role in combat, a wish that was granted when he became the flag secretary and legal officer for Adm. Richmond “Kelly” Turner, Allied Commander of the Fifth Fleet. As such, Bill was on hand as the Allies endured bitterly contested campaigns at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Amid such actions, the author discusses small groups of POWs who escaped their Japanese prisoner camps and reveals little-known plans made to attempt guerrilla-led raids to free other prisoners.

  Benny Mott (left) and two unidentified officers try to relax aboard the carrier Enterprise at the end of the Marcus Island raid, March 4, 1942. From The Jersey Brothers, by Stephanie Mott Freeman.(U.S. Navy)
  Benny Mott (left) and two unidentified officers try to relax aboard the carrier Enterprise at the end of the Marcus Island raid, March 4, 1942. From The Jersey Brothers, by Stephanie Mott Freeman. (U.S. Navy)
  Through his unique senior position, Bill is able to glean periodic details regarding the survival of Barton in his harrowing journey through various hell-holes run by the Japanese. Freeman provides the larger framework of the Allied progression toward victory in the Pacific, but Barton's ordeal as a POW keeps the story moving. The reader is left to shudder over the unspeakable suffering each time hundreds of prisoners are packed like cattle into the vile, steaming holds of cargo ships that navigate submarine-infested waters toward their next destination. During the late months of the war, Japanese “hell ships” carrying Barton and his comrades — traveling without Red Cross markings — would be subjected to merciless assaults from U.S. carrier aircraft.

  Bilibid Prison was such a desolate, crumbling facility that the Filipinos had closed it before the war. The Japanese reopened Bilibid to serve as a way station for processing prisoners of war being shipped to Japan. Baron, Charles and their ensign fraternity were held at Bilibid a number of times during their imprisonment and passed through its forbidding gates one last time on Dec. 13, 1944, to board the Oryoku Maru, the last ship out of Manila Bay before it was sealed off to enemy shipping. From The Jersey Brothers, by Stephanie Mott Freeman.(John Tewell)
  Bilibid Prison was such a desolate, crumbling facility that the Filipinos had closed it before the war. The Japanese reopened Bilibid to serve as a way station for processing prisoners of war being shipped to Japan. Baron, Charles and their ensign fraternity were held at Bilibid a number of times during their imprisonment and passed through its forbidding gates one last time on Dec. 13, 1944, to board the Oryoku Maru, the last ship out of Manila Bay before it was sealed off to enemy shipping. From The Jersey Brothers, by Stephanie Mott Freeman. (John Tewell)
  Well-versed military readers will not be derailed by the occasional slip on fact-checking. For example, SBD dive bombers from the carrier Yorktown actually knocked out a third Japanese carrier during the same five minutes that Enterprise SBDs took out two other flattops — vs. the text stating that the third Japanese carrier was “torpedoed” by Yorktown fliers many hours later.

  Sally Mott Freeman, author of The Jersey Brothers(

  )
  Sally Mott Freeman, author of The Jersey Brothers (

  )
  The final chapters are suspenseful and leave the reader urging Barton to continue hanging on as his treatment declines from inhumane to unimaginable. As a daughter and niece of these three brothers, Freeman has obviously poured her soul into researching and writing this book, drawing on diaries, military documents, family archives and letters written by former American POWs.

  The result of her 10-year research project is a rare look into the deepest personal emotions of a family of America’s Greatest Generation, a family whose primal instincts to protect and rescue one of their own are sorely tested in a multi-year struggle for answers.

  Stephen L. Moore’s latest World War II book is As Good as Dead: The Daring Escape of American POWs From a Japanese Death Camp

  The Jersey Brothers
  A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home

  Sally Mott Freeman

  (Simon and Schuster, $28)

  Plan your life
  Sally Mott Freeman will discuss The Jersey Brothers June 14 as part of Authors Live! At Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. The 7 p.m. event is free and open to the public. A 6 p.m. reception, by reservation only, is $30 per person and includes a copy of the book. For more information and reservations: 214-523-2240 or hpumc.org.

• Columbus Dispatch
  http://www.dispatch.com/entertainmentlife/20170716/book-review-the-jersey-brothers-shows-wars-horrors
  Word count: 361

  Entertainment & Life
  Book review: ‘The Jersey Brothers’ shows war’s horrors
  MOST POPULAR
  Never Miss A Story
  Subscribe to The Columbus Dispatch

  OUR PICKS
  By Virginia Kopas Joe / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  Posted Jul 16, 2017 at 4:00 AM
  It’s a question for the ages: Save your family or save the world? “The Jersey Brothers” shows that true heroes try for both.

  Part history and part family memoir, the book chronicles the extraordinary adventures of three brothers, all Navy men, at the center of some of the most dramatic turning points of World War II.

  Bill and Benny Mott and Barton Cross are brothers from New Jersey. Annapolis grad Bill is picked by FDR to run the first Map Room in Washington. Fellow Annapolis grad Benny is an anti-aircraft officer on one of the only carriers to escape Pearl Harbor. Youngest brother Barton is from their mom’s second marriage. He is not academy fodder and is placed in the Navy supply corps, mostly because his overbearing mother wants her youngest — arguably her favorite — out of harm’s way. But the plan misfires when Barton is sent to the Philippines and goes missing amid a Japanese attack.

  His older brothers go on a mission to save him; the devil is in the details.

  First-time author Sally Mott Freeman is the real-life daughter of Bill Mott. How she learns Barton’s story (kept as a family secret) is as mesmerizing as the parts of the book that meticulously document WWII military strategy and politics. Another strength of this page-turner is how the author alternates between family letters to the White House and scenes from the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Guadalcanal and the taking of Saipan.

  Some readers will be disturbed by the grim descriptions of the plight of American POWS in Japanese camps (Barton and about 20,000 others end up in such places), as well as horrific scenes from the Bataan Death March and other atrocities.

  War is hell, indeed — both for those doing the fighting and their loved ones at home.

Word Count