One of the best kept secrets of World War II is the story of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB), the Pacific theater's equivalent of the OSS. Inserted miles behind enemy lines, AIB agents established intelligence networks and guerrilla armies in advance of invasions, all the while living off the land and avoiding enemy patrols. This is one agent's extraordinary account of fifteen harrowing months fifteen hundred miles behind Japanese lines.

Largely forgotten or overlooked by historians, the AIB was formed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to provide tactical intelligence for his Pacific campaign after he discovered that the Allies were operating from National Geographic maps and articles. In 1943, twenty-three-year-old radio operator and cryptographer Bob Stahl volunteered for an AIB penetration team bound for Samar in the Philippines.

Moving frequently to avoid Japanese patrols and outlaw Filipino groups, Stahl and his Filipino guerrillas lived in crude camps in disease-infested jungles as they reported Japanese troop strengths and shipping movements to MacArthur and conducted sabotage operations.

Riveting, informative, and often humorous, this is the first and only detailed memoir that describes the difficult existence and tremendous dangers experienced by clandestine agents and Filipino partisans living under Japanese occupation. It is also a rare inside look at the color and complexity of wartime peasant society and culture that is filled with valuable insights for future partisan special operations.