Flyboys

Chichi Jima is an obscure island north west of Iwo Jima. During WWII it was the site of powerful radio transmitters which enabled communications with far flung Japanese outposts in the Pacific. It was in the interests of the US military to silence them hence a series of attacks by US Naval aviators in 1945. This is the same battle that the late George Bush Sr. participated in and was shot down with the loss of his two man crew. As such are the fortunes of war: Ensign Bush bailed out of a burning plane, alighted in the water and a submarine surfaced to rescue him, someone else bailed out of another plane, fell into the hands of the Japanese and disappeared. A number of planes were shot down, with numerous fatalities and several Americans falling into the hands of the Japanese. The central point of the book is the fate of the courageous American prisoners who didn't survive captivity and the abhorrent behavior of some of the Japanese officers...Memoriam eorum retinebimus...

Fantastic book

Gostei do livro, embora tenha achado monótonas algumas descrições das biografias de alguns "flyboys". Muito interessante a descrição da situação politica, econômica e militar do Japão antes e da WWII o que esclarece as causas do conflito e o comportamento bélico das forças armadas japonesas.

This is not your typical story about the war in the Pacific. It meshes the fate of a few aviators (or flyboys, I should say) shot down in the Pacific with a wider picture, reaching far into the past, into how United States expanded westwards and what Americans did in the Philippines, showing it in parallel with heinous Japanese crimes in China.So what is this book? It's an insight into what makes a man in distress tick as well as what makes history as a whole tick. It will open your eyes about a number of very dark episodes, not only regarding World War 2. If you have a view of Americans as being flawless knights in shining armor, then sorry, but your view of the world will probably be shattered after reading as little as the first two chapters.The author was obviously trying to find a good balance between reliability and readability. It has to be said that some sacrifices were made in the field of the former in favor of the latter, but it is NOT a fictionalized account. It's made to be popular history.

This book was excellently written and filled in a gap of knowledge on the Pacific War that I was lacking. As a history student, I have slogged through a lot of poorly written history accounts and truly enjoyed this one. On the subject matter, a lot of it is rather horrifying and gruesome to learn but is well supported with research. Bradley gives lots of background information and also gives accounts from both sides. He connects the readers with the 'flyboys,' tells of atrocities on both sides, and explains the extremist mentality of the Japanese that is at the heart of the war and the cause of the sheer number of casualties.One of the comments in the reviews on this book has been that in it Bradley justifies the actions of the Japanese against the Americans, especially the POWs, by comparing Americans' actions of war with the Japanese. While I respect their opinion, I feel this is a misleading statement for readers who haven't read the book and completely disagree with it. To oversimplify a little, I feel Bradley was trying to show the importance and necessity of the aviators and bombers in the war while at the same time not trying to sugarcoat anything. As well as argue that the Japanese higher officials should have ultimately been more responsible for their actions than the average Japanese civilian or soldier who was blindly obeying orders. And ultimately, he shows that many Pacific veterans, including former president George Bush, "have made their peace."Ultimately you may not agree with Bradley's interpretation of the Pacific War, nonetheless it's undeniable he completes his main goal of telling the 'flyboys' untold story and gives a complete version rather than just a generic tale of aviators and a few words on what the eight downed aviators had to deal with. You can come to your own conclusion after but I would recommend this as a well researched account.