Flyboys by James Bradley - Finished May 2005 - score 9
Among other things, Flyboys is a well-told account of 8 navy flyers shot down over the little known Japanese island of Chichi Jima, during the waning days of World War II, in the Pacific.
A bit north of it's better known neighbor Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima served as a Japanese radio outpost during WWII. As US marines fought pitched battles on Iwo Jima, navy flyers fought a violent and dangerous air bombing campaign to knock out the Japanese radios, and general military presence, on Chichi Jima. James Bradley focuses on 8 flyers shots down during that campaign, and traces their final days through testimony and stories from Japanese soldiers who were there.
A compelling, and at times heartwarming book, it is by no means a light read. Bradley takes a square, no-nonsense, head-on look at the historical context leading up to WWII, and makes clear just how horrible war can be. From the Japanese atrocities, such as the Rape of Nanking, to beheadings and, yes, cannibalism, Bradley also manages to put a human face on what was, for an entire generation of Americans, the Japanese animals that Americans fought so hard to destroy during the early 1940s.
From personal stories of the families that knew them, recollections from both the 1940s and today, we get to know each flyer as they travel the path fate set out for them, and of the one flyer that fate spared, who went on to become the 41st President of the United States.
Commentary on Gen. Billy Mitchell, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Gen. Curtis LeMay, President Roosevelt, as well as Japanese Emporer Hirohito and the commanding officers on Chichi Jima, flesh out the motivations of the warriors who fought the battles.
The fate of these flyers, and the American cover-up of the occurrences on Chichi Jima, and the unvarnished truth of war are told eloquently and gracefully, but be warned, they are also told graphically and vividly.
