Customer Reviews

Face of a Hero

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Book deserves all the praise it has gotten. At age 18 I was an aerial gunner who flew 28 missions out of Italy. This remarkably accurate book brought me back in haunting ways to times that seem like a dream to me now. Falstein's hero knew what he was fighting for. He felt others did not. In fact, however, like Falstein, a big percentage of WWII airmen I knew were idealistic in the better sense of that word. A mad man was tying to enslave the world and they in their own way were trying to stop him. That simple! Great book.

As an earlier review said, this is a straight memoir, not a novel per se. And as such, it is thoroughly clear-eyed, insightful and moving. A "Old Man" (34 year-old) B-24 Liberator gunner rides crew with the young boys who rapidly become old men as well. Falstein's ruminations show the men as they ineluctably crumble on the inside with each successive mission in their vulnerable, lumbering bombers -- not knowing exactly what they are fighting for, but knowing, simply, that they must go on. A stunning memoir, one of the finest out there; worth more than many others put together.

Face of a Hero is a book i first read back in 1951 when i was a teenager and WW2 was still fresh in my adolesent mind and altho at that time there were many things i could not fully fathom, it was a book i never forgot, but the book never again was to be seen until a recent visit to a bookstore almost 50 years later. Having now once again read it as a senior citizen I realize why i never forgot it. This war story carries an impact that i personally feel Catch 22 does not, that of a mans feeling down deep inside and certainly not one of heroics. If you look for a flag waving novel filled with statistics of how many planes (we) shot down or bombs dropped, read something else. But if you wish to share a mans terror at 10,000 ft. or the smell of death in a hospital room. This i feel is a class A read

This book primarily describes the effects of being bomber gunners flying from a base in Italy in World War II. With great insight into the characters, the author shows how the war powerfully affects all. It follows the gunners on their missions, into the local towns and in their barracks and base. It also shows the effects of the war on the townspeople. It left me powerfully moved, sad, and with an understanding of the emotional horrors of war. It is the best war book I have ever read.

This memoir is closer to Fussell's Doing Battle, Thomsen's My Two Wars or Manchester's Goodbye Darkness than Heller, Vonnegut or Herr. In 1950 memoirs about schizzy post adolescent bomber crews were far from the main in war publishing. The destruction of young men in air combat was not yet popularized, anti-heroes were not admired, readers were not considering the sorrow, the pity, and the insanity. The editors tookFalstein's diary stripped out the dates, replaced the writer with the fictional Ben, and the book was forgotten. Heller takes the same story amplifies the comedy, expands the insanity, writes a real novel around the diary experiences; and delivers that product to his editors just when anti-heroes are becoming cool. Monster bestseller.If you are looking for the war experience Falstein and Thomsen are the choice, looking for entertainment its Heller or Vonnegut. Put this book up on your shelf of memoirs, that is where it belongs.

This memoir is closer to Fussell's "Doing Battle", Thomsen's "My Two Wars" or Manchester's "Goodbye Darkness" than Heller, Vonnegut or Herr. In 1950 memoirs about schizzy post adolescent bomber crews were far from the main in war publishing. The destruction of young men in air combat was not yet popularized, anti-heroes were not admired, readers were not considering the sorrow, the pity, and the insanity. The editors took Falstein's diary stripped out the dates, replaced the writer with the fictional Ben, and the book was forgotten. Heller takes the same story amplifies the comedy, expands the insanity, writes a real novel around the diary experiences; and delivers that product to his editors just when anti-heroes are becoming cool. Monster bestseller.If you are looking for the war experience Falstein and Thomsen are the choice, looking for entertainment its Heller or Vonnegut. Put this book up on your shelf of memoirs, that is where it belongs.