From the Sea to the Moon Twenty-three-year-old Lieutenant Thomas O. Paine boarded the giant Japanese submarine with some trepidation. It was September 1945, and Japan had surrendered just days earlier. “I recall my mixed emotions as we pulled alongside her towering hull and scrambled…onto her foredeck,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir. “I was excited …
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Kiffin Yates Rockwell set out to settle multiple scores with the ‘Boche’ over France. In early August 1914, the French consulate’s office in New Orleans received an unusual letter. Just days after France entered World War I, two American brothers had written to volunteer for the French army. Although the United States would not officially …
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David Hammond’s painting Uncommon Chivalry highlights a rare compassionate act in the midst of combat more than six decades ago. In it he depicts Republic P-47D pilot Major Bill Dunham circling over a Japanese flier he had just shot down over the Philippine Sea in December 1944. Dunham is shown tossing his own lifejacket to …
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The Maid of Harlech It’s unusual that somebody comes across the wreck of a World War II aircraft who has the forbearance to not only leave the wreckage undisturbed but to maintain secrecy about its location, and then to search out a like-minded aviation archaeologist who will treat the discovery in a professional manner. But …
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Winged Victory by V.M. Yeates This is absolutely the best novel on World War I aviation bar none, not only because it is rigorously authentic but because it is beautifully written. The irony is that the author, V.M. Yeates, a Sopwith Camel pilot for the RFC and RAF, wrote it when he was very ill …
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The God Machine: From Boomerangs to Black Hawks, The Story of the Helicopter by James R. Chiles, Bantam Books, New York, 2007, $25. From its unusual title to the final page, this is a fascinating history of the development of the helicopter and its use in peace and war. Not only does Chiles review the …
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Berlin Airlift: The Salvation of a City by Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell, Pelican Publishing, Gretna, La., 2008, $24.95. The division of Germany after World War II into four occupation zones, with Berlin buried deep inside the Russian sector, was not an amicable one. The Soviets harassed vehicles on the supply route to Berlin at …
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Red Baron: The Life and Death of an Ace by Peter Kilduff, David & Charles Ltd., Cincinnati, Ohio, 2007, $30. As the highest-scoring fighter pilot of World War I, Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, more widely known as the Red Baron, has been the subject of countless books—a good many of them focusing on the controversy …
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Pan American Clippers: The Golden Age of Flying Boats by James Trautman, Boston Mills Press, 2007, $49.95. The story of Pan American Airways and the magnificent flying boats that marked the beginning of international air travel has been told many times, but not with the illustrative detail that James Trautman now brings us. He captures …
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Rupert Red Two: A Fighter Pilot’s Life From Thunderbolts to Thunderchiefs by Jack Broughton, Zenith Press, St. Paul, Minn., 2008, $26.95. There are two words on the cover of this book that should make anyone—aviation enthusiast or not—buy it: “Jack Broughton,” a true American warrior-hero, a great writer of best-selling books, a magnificent pilot and …
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Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and his American Volunteers, 1941-1942 by Daniel Ford, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2007, $15.95. The Burma Air Campaign, 1941-1945 by Michael Pearson, Pen & Sword Books Ltd., Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK, 2007, $39.95. When Daniel Ford’s history of the American Volunteer Group, Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and his American Volunteers, …
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A running dogfight raged over the city’s rooftops in July 1944. Tommy Hayes was one of the most capable fighter squadron leaders of the U.S. Eighth Air Force. When I talked with him in 1998, I asked if there was any World War II mission that stood out from all the others. “It is hard …
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It’s easy enough to design a bad airplane, but it takes real gumption to put it into production despite all signs to the contrary. There are many reasons why less than first-rate aircraft are produced in quantity. The most dominant factor is the perceived urgency of the need. If war is threatening, or if an …
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Frederick Libby became America’s first ace while flying as an observer-gunner in a spindly British pusher-propelled biplane. The apprentice airman could scarcely believe his situation. Yesterday he had been a supply truck driver with the Canadian Ordnance Corps. Today he was flying as an observer in the Royal Flying Corps, looking down from 10,000 feet …
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Built in vast numbers, Aleksandr Yakovlev’s fighters were among the most important Allied aircraft of World War II. Yakovlev aircraft have become as closely associated with World War II Soviet air power as Messerschmitts are with the Luftwaffe, Spitfires with the Royal Air Force and Zeros with the Japanese. More Yak fighters were built than …
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