Customer Reviews

The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid--America's First World War II Victory

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The author of this book says that he only learned of the Doolittle mission a few years ago. One wonders why Viking, his publisher, the publisher of such distinguished WWII authors as Prof. Ronald Spector, commissioned this author to write on the Doolittle raid.

The book is full of basic factual errors and strange assertions about combat and World War II. It tells us that American battleships were armed with torpedoes and that Mitchell B-25 bombers had diesel engines. (Both are not the case.) More importantly and even more bizarrely, it states that if the U.S. didn't win the battle at Midway, Japan's empire would still be "intact today."

One would be better served (and informed) watching the movie "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," which was produced with technical advisers who actually flew the mission.

The author would have been too.

I really, really wanted to like this book. I'd just finished Hornfischer's outstanding "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" and wanted some more inspirational reading. I'm about half finished listening to this book in its MP3 version, and have noted the following:
1) the author has no - and I repeat no - required knowledge of the US Navy. There are many, many small, factual errors that are really annoying - referring to the HMS Repulse as a "cruiser", describing the Japanese torpedoes as "two feet long", etc, etc. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of the US Navy in WW2 should have been given an opportunity to preview this book before publication.
2) Overuse of military jargon - bombs referred to as "cabbages", torpedoes as "eels" by such a rank amateur was just too much.
3) this really doesn't apply to the book itself, but the reader on the MP3 version had no idea regarding correct pronunciation of naval terms - (en-sine, indeed.)
I find that when there are so many factual errors in an area that I'm familiar with, I have a tough time accepting the new - often interesting on its face - data that an author brings up. It's too bad that such a terrific topic couldn't have been treated more professionally. I read "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo" as a kid and really was looking for some new information. I blame the editors completely for this second rate attempt.

Ever since I saw "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo" on TV as a kid, the Doolittle Raid has been one of my favorite American military missions. The bravery exhibited by Col. Doolittle's Raiders and Bull Halsey's Task Force 16 is an example of American audacity, ingenuity and courage at its finest.
I've read several other accounts of the Doolittle raid, and Nelson does a fairly good job of presenting the preparation, attack and evasion phases of the operation. But he distracts the reader away from the focus of the book by going off on tangents, breezing through Pearl Harbor, Midway and the German U-boat offensive.
My main compliant with this work is that Nelson clearly doesn't know much about World War II, and even less about aviation. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, but apparently he didn't bother to let anyone with some expertise read his manuscript. That's too bad. If he had, he would have learned that no one EVER refered to North American's B-25 as a "Billy" or a "B" (since the Raider's used B-25B models). He also would have learned that B-25's were constructed from aluminum, not steel and that taxing an aircraft is not how one transitions it to flight. He also would have learned that Guadalcanal is not a coral atoll and that the cave fighting he describes there did not occur until later in the Pacific War.
All in all, I give Mr. Nelson points for telling the Raiders' story. In many sections, the book is hard to put down. But I wish he'd done more thorough research, as his errors detract from the overall effort.

By Bill Marsano. Craig Nelson, who would rescue the Doolittle Raid from oblivion, is an odd choice for the job. Despite parents who were both involved in WWII aviation and who "filled my childhood with stories of daring raids [and], secret missions," Nelson says, "I didn't know a thing about it." Astonishing--still, writing on a clean slate, unencumbered by what everyone else has written and said, can be insightful and fresh. That's something Nelson should bear in mind next time.

There are good things here--the words of the 16 bomber crews themselves, their wives and sweethearts, and other participants. They make fascinating reading from beginning to end--the hasty, secretive training; the daring if slightly hare-brained idea itself (launching B-25 bombers from an aircraft carrier was a first, and the crews had practiced only on land); the raid itself; the crews' subsequent and usually succesful evasion of the Japanese after landing in China. There are harrowing tales from prison by crewmen who were captured and brutally mistreated, and follow-ups on the flyers' later combat service and postwar lives. Almost all of this material comes from archives or published sources. There's little new here, but 60 years after the fact that's understandable: Nelson says one of the surviving raiders died even as he was arranging an interview); Never mind: The raiders' own words tell most of the story and tell it well for those with "entry level" interest.

Unfortunately, a lot of the book is written by Nelson himself, and he isn't much of a writer, what with his clunky prose style (the aircraft carrier is a "giant city of steel" and a "steel behemoth") and frail grasp of idiom (radio tubes "warmed into gear"). He often strays far from his point (really, German U-boats are not germane to this story). To push his claim that the raid was America's "first victory." Nelson prefers cheerleading to facts. First, it was a success but not a victory--it was a hit-and-run raid plain and simple. Second, it wasn't even the first raid: The Navy had been attacking Japan's Pacific bases for months before Doolittle's raid. Nelson's failure to even mention those raids is inexcusable. He adds comic-book touches--prattling about "flyboys" and "bell bottoms," calling bombers "egg layers," torpedos "eels" and ships "tin"--and a whiff of the locker room, too: Doolittle, Nelson says, had "balls the size of your head" (each? both?) and "balls of steel."

The factual errors are minor technical slips, but their sheer quantity suggests ignorance, haste and poor research by Nelson, and negligence by his editor. Nelson's B-25s have "steel fuselages" and "diesely" engines that are "turbines"; a take-off run is a "taxi," and they could outrun Japanese Zeroes. Which is more ludicrous, Nelson's "Klondike mecca of Nome" or his claim that the Wright Brothers' fourth flight (852 feet) was "shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747"? The book lists about 300 sources, but many seem irrelevant "padding" (such as "Ethnic Narcissism and Infertility in Japan"), and one-third seem woefully unauthoritative--they're nothing more than TV shows, press clippings and websites. Was Nelson concerned with getting the story right--or just getting it written?

I was only able to read as far as page 146 before I was turned off by the author's lack of knowlege of the subject. For instance, on the page mentioned above he quotes Lt Joyce as saying "my rear gunner was firing." He did record the fact that the tail guns had been removed and replaced by broom sticks. Where was his editor? Other reviewers have also pointed out other glaring errors committed all before page 146 such as diesel engins, "Billys", and B's taxiing, and so on. The first half of the book left much to be desired, I will not read the rest of the book.

Although this is a great subject for a book. It is one of the most poorly written books I've ever read. The authors strangely refers to the B-25 bombers as 'Billys', refers to the airmen by their nicknames which is very confusing, refers to the gunners as bubble boys which I found insulting and needs a lesson in basic aviation before he writes another book on the subject. My advice to prospective readers is to purchase any book by C.V. Glines as he is the official historian of the Doolittle Raiders.

On April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25 bombers piloted by all volunteer crews lifted off from the flight deck of the carrier USS Hornet. Their target: Tokyo. Conceived by President Roosevelt and commanded by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, this raid was designed to strike back at the Japanese as well as avenge the Pearl Harbor attack. The Hornet was supposed to cruise to within 400 miles of the Japanese coast, but the task force was detected by Japanese fishing boats while they were still over 600 miles from their target. Doolittle wasted no time in launching his strike, all the while knowing that it would now be virtually impossible for the planes to reach their pre-arranged landing sites in China. Although the damage done to Tokyo was slight, the psychological impact of the raid on the Japanese military was considerable. The raid forced the Japanese to keep more of their planes in the home islands for defense and also sped up the planning for the ill-fated Midway campaign in which the Japanese navy would lose four aircraft carriers.

This book does a good job of describing the planning involved in the attack as well as the attack itself and the subsequent aftermath for the crews. However, there are some factual mistakes, and I felt that the section dealing with the actual bombing could have had a little more detail, and only one chapter really delved into the eight crew members who were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Only four of these men made it home. Three were executed by the Japanese and one died in prison. I would have liked to have seen a little more attention in this area. The part of the book dealing with the plane which landed in Vladivostok, the internment of its crew, and their subsequent escape to freedom through Persia is a definite high point. I was mesmerized by these men's heroic efforts to regain their freedom. I also enjoyed the final chapter which gives a brief synopsis of the major personalities involved with the raid and how their lives during and after the war played out.

I recommend this book for the following reasons. I enjoyed the recollections of the surviving raiders very much. Hearing the description of the raid from the men who actually participated in it made the book much more enjoyable. Also, the book flows in a manner which is easy to read and understand. Although technical, it is not so much so that the reader becomes bogged down.

For more information on the Doolittle raid, I would also recommend "The Doolittle Raid" and "Four Came Home" by Carroll V. Glines.

A Hundred Feet Over Hell: Flying With the Men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the DMZ, Vietnam 1968-1969

It is unfortunate that the story of the Doolittle Raid was handed to a talentless writer with no knowledge of the war in the Pacific and WWII aviation. The many egregious technical and historical errors - which could fill many pages on their own - coupled with a cringe-making style make reading this book sheer torture. The publisher also bears a heavy responsibility for putting it in the hands of an editor who is clearly as ignorant of flying and aerial warfare as the author. I tried a number of times to get through "First Heroes", but without success. I suspect that readers who have given it more than two stars are family friends of the author; if not, they certainly have no feel for facts or what passes for good writing. Never have I bought an account of WWII that so deserved to be pulped before it ever left the publisher's warehouse.

Evaluating this book is difficult. It has some very good strengths and some glaring weaknesses. One the one hand, it is an exceptionally well-written and comprehensive account of the Doolittle Raid. Nelson, using a number of interviews, develops fully the personalities of the various veterans on that mission. He is particularly good about doing so with Doolittle who died before he started this project.

On the other hand, there is nothing particularly new about this book. His thesis that the raiders" were the first American heroes of the war is correct but fairly obvious. Nelson has looked at almost no original source material. His interviews were conducted 50 years after the fact and memories fade with time. The organization of the book leaves something to be desired. Nelson gets going with his narrative, then stops to provide background and then the process starts all over again. He often uses the wrong terms. Most glaringly, calling the U.S. Army Air Forces the "Air Corps," an old term that was dropped before Pearl Harbor. In short, if you have read a lot on the war, all of what Nelson has to say will be familiar to you. If not, this might be a good book to read.

I'll preface my review by saying that I am a big history buff, and especially love military history. And while I found the subject matter of "The First Heroes" to be quite compelling, the writing is so leaden that the book is virtually unreadable. I also have to quibble with the title since the heroic and doomed stand at Wake Island occurred months before the Doolittle raid was just as important as an early psychological victory in the American war against Japan. The most pertinent comment that I can make about "The First Heores" is that I became so bogged down by its lack of narrative force that, despite being an avid reader, I couldn't finish it.