soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:00:49 -0400, Dave Smith
wrote:

>"Flyboys: A true Story of Courage" and came across an account attributed
>to a marine that was lifter right out of "The Naked and the Dead.".
>Other than that little chip off the author's credibility, it was a
>terrific book that describes Japan's long time isolation,

I thought it was absolute dreck. He speaks of aircraft carrier decks
being slippery with spilled jet fuel. He says that the B-25 Mitchells
were called "Billies." He makes the implicit argument that the
Japanese butchery of American PWs in the 1940s were justified by the
mistreatment of Native Americans at Wounded Knee and elsewhere.

Like Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima (which, unlike Flyboys, I
admired as a work of artistic creation), it's an exercise in moral
equivalence that I find altogether unconvincing.

But back to Manchester: the book was sold hard to me after I admired
American Caeser, so I bought a secondhand copy. It's still sitting on
my desk two years later, half read. I have no desire to go back to it.


Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
new from HarperCollins www.FlyingTigersBook.com