Customer Reviews

Doomed at the Start: American Pursuit Pilots in the Philippines, 1941-1942 (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is one you will not want to put down. The situation faced by the pursuit pilots, their equipment, and ground crews points out dramatically how the U.S. was unprepared for WWII. Incredible reported incidences of P-40 pilots bailing out of their aircraft prior to combat so they would not have to go against the Zero and training tables for the pilots so they could eat horded food to have enough energy to fly are included. This book describes in detail the everyday occurrence of heroism in the worst of circumstances. Many of the descriptions come from interviewing people who were there. While digesting these amazing stories, you are constantly aware that, for most of the participants, the best they can hope for is surviving the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp. The contrast between the situation in the Phillipines and P-40 tactics in China are analyzed at the end. I am reading this book again and including the footnotes at the back in the next reading. Steven Spielberg, this is your next movie!

For those that study the early months of America's entry into WWII, the disaster at Clark field resonates like Pearl Harbor. The story of the fighter pilots based in the Philippines is one of bravery and honor, but against a relentless enemy, their doom was sealed.

Bartsch has written an excellent history covering the not so popular topics of disaster and defeat. However, it is the individual human story that shines through the flames and smoke that choked America in the early days of 1942.

This book really touched me and it answered a lot of question running in my mind ever since I was a small boy. The booked mesmerized me so much that I picked up an old P-40B model in my model stacks and started making a replica of Joe Moore's No. 41 P-40B, then later named "P-40 Something". It is my mission to revisit the airfields at Clark, Iba, the Bataan fields, Lahug, and the rest. When I was reading this work of art by Bartsch, I can feel as if I was there to witness it on hand because of my familiarity with the places mentioned.

Mr. Bartsch, if you happen to read this review, I would appreciate if you can get in touch with me in my e-mail. I would like to congratulate you (eventhough through an electronic handshake via e-mail) for making the world aware that there were a bunch of heroes fighting and doing their darn best with only little of what they had for my country during the early days of the war.

Very well researched and referenced piece of primary history. Chronological telling of the 24th Pursuit Group's story from prior to Pearl Harbor through the fall of Bataan/Corregidor. Written factually but with a compelling, story telling narative with frequent footnotes to more fully document important details. Gives a good look at US Army and USAAF preparedness and command at that time in our history. I bought the book in order to get more information about a relative who was in the 17th Pursuit Squadron and who was KIA during this time period. More emphasis is given to several selected group personnel due to the existence of their biographies and that they lived to be interviewed by the author.

William H. Bartsch's book Doomed At the Start helps fill a gap left by historians concerning the events that played out in the western Pacific during the opening months of World War II. It describes a reluctant nation's hurried efforts to prepare for war, and the serious mistakes made as a result. Young, poorly trained men were sent up in obsolete aircraft to fight an opponent who already had extensive combat experience. Largely ineffectual early warning systems and accidents cost the Far East Air Force and the US Army Forces in the Far East dearly.

Other good books about the early war in the Pacific would include: Through the Valley of the Kwai by Ernest Gordon; Ship of Ghosts by John D. Hornfischer; Yangtze Patrol by Kemp Tolley; and Pigboat 39 by Bobette Gugliotta.

Doomed from the Start is an excellent, detailed account of American fighter squadrons that tried to defend the Philippines in 1941-1942. Weaknesses in command, training, and equipment are identified. This should be required reading for airforce and naval aviation officers.

A rare gem... This real-life story reads like fiction. The fledgeling
American air warriors flying obsolescent P-40's - not the best fighter, though the only one they had - and obsolete P-36's during those desperate days fought bravely against the best the Japanese army and navy had in terms of both, men and material, the former mostly veterans of the China conflict. This book does them justice.
For the WW2 aviation fan, shortcomings of the Custiss fighter, as well as its good points, are treated with a degree of detail seldom found in other
publications.
M. Vázquez.

I was very distressed at the implications and conclusions drawn at many places in this book.

Parts of the book are directly contradicted by accounts of participants such as Allison Ind or by Walter D. Edmonds, who conducted interviews thirty years closer to the event.

Unfortunately at certain points, Bartsch denigrates or ignores important sources of information and the reader is unable to tell that he has done this.

I am concerned that students and the public are reading this book and accepting it as absolute truth.