Customer Reviews

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

The publisher deserves some criticism for misrepresenting this book on the cover, dust jacket copy and all that stuff. I thought I was picking up an Ambrose-like narrative kind of story of the WWII fighter pilots. Instead, the book starts with a "big picture" historical view of what the author clearly views as two imperial powers colliding, with little understanding of each other. In other words, US - Japan relations went from Perry's opening of Japan (a destructive act, in the author's view, that was necessary because Chichi Ima, the centerpiece of the story, was needed for US merchant shipping purposes) to total, savage, unconditional war by 1941. (Of course, Japan had been at war already in China and elsewhere in the region; and the US and Britain had been playing behind-the-scenes roles that mattered a great deal in those years.)

"WWII" is thought of as one big thing when it was also, and perhaps more so several linked disputes and hostilities. So, the author provides an interesting and important view, helping readers see the historical line of sight in terms of Japan and the US. The sort of moral equivalency (some other reviewers here called it "liberal guilt") that grows out of this analysis is disturbing -- and unexpected, because nothing about the book's packaging hints at this tone. I felt like I was reading something of a piece with, well, most US history books written these days that are not forgiving or "patriotic" about any of the brutality that's occurred since Europeans hit the shores.

However, having set up the book this way, the author has given himself the breadth to write eloquently about the horrors experienced by both sides of the conflict. The book may spin off into too many directions -- for example, trying to determine whether the atomic bombs were even worth it since the destructive power of the napalm bombing of Tokyo and other cities may have been worse. There are other writers and other books that are more thorough and thoughtful about this topic, although the images the author creates of the taciturn, cigar smoking Curtis LeMay letting loose the incendiary raids is unforgettable -- and does cause an American to have to look in the mirror.

The personal accounts are really the heart of the book and are important on many levels. This has to be one of the first books to put together historical sources to tell a narrative like this. And that narrative is gruesome, so be prepared.

Finally, Bradley may be right that Hirohito should've been prosecuted as a war criminal, not set up as a titular, spiritual head the way MacArthur did it. How would history have been different? I'm definitely interested in reading more about this from other authors.

A well researched and well told story of navy flyers and more than the specific stories of men the rise of naval aviation's and its new found role in war.

Please be aware this book contains some horrific details of the murder and muliation of US service men by Japanese forces in the Pacific which may be well beyond the comfort level of some readers.

There was much about this book I found compelling:

The Flyboys themselves were wonderful, admirable characters which demonstrate once again the debt owed to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and those who fought along side them.

Flyboys is one of a number of books which at long last are addressing openly the horrifying facts of Japanese behavior in the Pacific theater. Unfortunately, this is coming generations too late to avoid the near universal denial of such things in Japan over the last 60 years.

The US knew far more of the details of prisoner treatment and execution than if shared with the public or with families.

However, there was one huge negative I never could quite overcome and that was the author's continual effort to compare US actions such as the use of fire bombing Tokyo to the actions of Japanese officers in the field which are not moral equals. To question whether the use of napalm was an effective war measure is fair. to use it to justify sadistic murder and canibalism strains jouranlistic, even novelistic credulity to the breaking point.

As the son of a WWII vet Bradley of all people should understand that war, any war no matter how unavoidable, is an obsenity requiring good men to place the great deal of their humanity aside so that they may restain an even greater evil. Yet somehow it escapes the author that horrific, although impersonal US bombing, no matter how you want to define the morals of war on the civilian population, does not require the same level of moral depravity that is required to kill a defenseless prisoner by hand and then remove from their still warm and quivering flesh, their internal organs so that you may dine on these morsals. One action reflects even in the worse case a perhaps flawed methodology of trying to end the war, while the other reflects deeply personal sadism and evil.

For all its virtues and flyboys has many this comparison left me dismayed.

I am old enough to have lived through the war and remember it well. I never knew why Japan declared war on the U.S., even though I have taken every history class offered throughout my school career. "Flyboys" is probably the most brutal book I have ever read, almost too difficult in places. I am grateful to James Bradley for having written this book, I now understand why America dropped the Atomic Bombs and put an end to that war. "Flyboys" is a must read.

The Japanese have NEVER acknowledged their war atrocities. Their textbooks and museums hide their horrible behavior during WWII; the average Japanese knows little if anything about the Rape of Nanking, or the slaughter of millions in Manchuria and Korea, or the vicious treatment of POW's by their troops.

Even in the U.S. we've hidden, and continue to hide, the horrors committed by the Japanese against our POW's. "Flyboys" details the sickening treatment by the Japanese of a small group of American Naval Aviators shot down during attacks on the tiny island of Chichi Jima.

After the war, the courts-martial of the Japanese involved in this affair were sealed and classified Top Secret - because of fear of retribution against Japan by a horrified America. The cover-up lasted until Bradley, who wrote Flags of Our Fathers (about Iwo Jima) heard from a reader who told him the story of Chichi Jima. Bradley, then uncovered the full story via the Freedom of Infomation act and wrote this very powerful book.

It's a horrible story; one that should not be hidden, but instead should be told and retold.

I found myself torn by this book. I was in awe of the bravery and patriotism of the naval aviators portrayed. That part of the book was inspiring. I was disgusted by "liberal guilt", or whatever else you want to call it when someone says our bombing of Japan renders us no better than the Japanese at that time. There is no moral equivalence whatsoever between our actions and Japan's actions. They attacked us (never mind what they did to the Chinese). They started the war and refused to surrender.

The US was faced with 2, and only 2, alternatives to ending the war. First, they could implement the devastating campaign of bombing. This involved a minimum number of American casualties. Second, we could have invaded Japan. Analysts estimated the number of American deaths from such a strategy in the hundreds of thousands, if not over a million. Sorry. The first and foremost responsibility of our government is to look out for the welfare of its own citizenry, not the citizenry of a fanatical nation hell-bent on world conquest and genocide.

Coming from the son of a Navye corpsman wounded at Iwo Jima, I found Bradley's views puzzling. Would he have preferred that his Dad be forced to invade Japan?

I found this book more intriguing than Bradley's Flags of our Fathers, which I also enjoyed a great deal. Fly Boys is fascinating on several levels. Bradley does an admirable job giving a quick history of flight, and highlights those who predicted the dominance of the "third dimension" in future wars.

The story then shifts to the 'fly boys' of WWII, more deeply focusing on a group involved in attacking Chichi Jima and the Japanese mainland toward the end of the war. Several were shot down, some were captured, some made it back, one became our 41st President. Without going into too much detail, the fates of some were extremely grave, way beyond what I would have expected.

What I particularly enjoyed about Fly Boys is Bradley's objective and highly disturbing look at the morality of man in times of war. The same atrocities are viewed as either a war crime or an heroic act, depending entirely on the perspective; and many of these atrocities are graphically described in the book. This book is extremely graphic, and very gruesome, and while repulsed by the behavior of the Japanese, I was also taken aback by the behavior of our own country in past wars that was at times equally reprehensible. War is hell, and other than "The Forgotten Soldier", this book makes that about a clear as any I have read.

I learned a great deal in this book: details about the end of the war, the American rationale for the firebombing of the Japanese mainland, what the Japanese did in China prior to the War, and more. I highly recommend this read to anyone wanting to learn more about the impact of air power in WWII, or even to those with less interest in the war who want to realize just how good we have it today.

This book confused me. It's not that the book was difficult to read; in fact, it's a very easy read. The problem with the book is that rather than just telling the story of the flyers, the author delves into a litany of moral equivalence and cultural relativism to make the barbaric conduct of the Japanese seem to be no different from that of the United States. Indeed, a book which one would think to be a sympathetic portrayal of pilots who fought, died and were brutally killed by the Japanese seems to turn the concept on its head. In the first 107 pages, he effectively blames the US for `ethnically cleansing' the Native Americans, stealing half of Mexico and then greedily using gunboat diplomacy to open up Japan to trade while we invaded an uninhabited island named Chichi Jima, where the `Flyboys' fought in WWII. In 1862 when Japan's first steam ship seized Chichi Jima back, the author notes sagely, that the Japanese had `learned their lessons [of conquest] well." In other words, it's our fault became militaristic

Most galling of all is the author's deliberate attempt to draw parallels between America's actions Philippines to the Rape of Nanking and the invasion of China by Japan. It would have been one thing to say the Japanese used America's methods and occupation of the Philippines as proof that America was hypocritical, but then to provide facts which gives an even portrayal of America in the Philippines. However, if one were to read his version of the Philippines/American experience, you'd think all Americans were genocidal war mongers. He chooses the worst quotes from US military figures and the worst examples of barbarity of the 4 year insurrection, making it seem these events and speakers are emblematic of the American conduct at the time. It's a dead lie.

He claims that in 4 years America caused the deaths of 250,000 in about four years which he says is `serious killing' since Hitler and Tojo killed 400,000 in 8 years, making our monthly kill rate as high as Hitler and Tojo as US `civilizers' of the Philippines. First, this number is a blatant mischaracterization. Americans did not kill 250,000 people. Stanley Karnow, the author of the seminal work on Vietnam and author of a similar book on America in the Philippines, is no American apologist and no right wing militarist, yet in his book, In our Image, he disagrees with the author's perspective. 200,000 people did die, but only if you account for famine (i.e. no food production) and disease caused by the side effects of war. Second, Tojo and Hitler deliberately set out to kill any non-German and non-Japanese to provide living space for their `superior' peoples. As seen below, that was not our goal in the Philippines. Third, logic would dictate that if the US were as brutal as he claims, how did we beat the Filipinos? We usually had no more than a 40,000 men in arms there and were weeks away from America. The reason Karnow points out is simple. We proved to the Filipinos that we were different from colonizers. Those same `barbaric' soldiers in the Philippines were opening schools in remote villages and teaching peasants how to read, something only rich Spanish allied Filipinos were entitled to. In ten years, the literacy rate jumped from 20 to 50%

Americans passed laws limiting how long we could stay, requiring that Americans could not own vast tracts of land. Americans bought land from the Catholic church and gave it to the people. No money ever left the Philippines, all tax revenue went to the government. Americans doubled the survival rate of children because we established inoculations and health clinics. Within 10 years, Filipinos were running their own government and had the first modern constitution and national assembly four years after we arrived. Philippines President, Manuel Quezon, is famous in the Philippines for complaining of the difficulty of fostering a national identity under such benevolent control. He said, "damn the Americans, why don't they tyrannize more?" I doubt the Chinese said that about Japan nor Europe about Nazi.

His comparisons make even less sense after he goes through the grotesque litany of butchery and savagery of Japan in China. Raping every woman they met, wiping out every person in Nanking, killing 250,000 in one region because the Doolittle raiders landed there... it turns my stomach. Trust me, I know some American soldiers and leaders committed evil acts in the Philippines and in WWII, but to attempt to use those discrete incidents into a theme of Americanism is wrong. He even goes so far as insinuating that our decision to cut off oil from Japan made Japan expand the war and attack us at Pearl Harbor. Without the embargo, Japan might not have felt the need to attack South East Asia for its oil, limiting the war only to China and no where else in Asia.

Why did I read the book if I hated it so much? Very simple. The person who recommended it to me did so because I love history. When he described the author's viewpoint of our conduct in the Philippines, I was stunned at how one sided he was. I had to read the book to see it for myself. There are so many who don't know history that a propaganda effort, disguised as history, serves only to push a perspective, not the truth. My kind of history is the way I like my news. Give me both sides and let me decide. This author knows history doesn't support the view that the US was as bad as Japan in 1941 so he bends the truth to prove his viewpoint.

To be frank, I feel sorry for the surviving Flyboys who were interviewed and the families of the deceased Flyboys whose true story is allegedly finally told in this book. I think he took advantage of some old men, old loves, their families and some real American heroes to make a buck. I wonder how many of those men and women who read the book and saw an America they recognized. I know I didn't.

Two words sum up James Bradley's Flyboys: muddled mess. The root of Bradley's book, the capture and horrific deaths of American pilots on Chichi Jima is absolutely compelling, and the author does his best to unearth information to shed light on this almost forgotten event. Most significantly, Bradley manages to find Japanese witnesses that supplement sketchy written documentation.

Flyboys' ultimate demise is the authors attempt to tackle the issue of moral equivalency between Japanese atrocities in World War Two and American atrocities, primarily against Native Americans in the 19th century. As most historians know, this moralist-type approach is a potential quagmire. Bradley strives to be balanced, but he does not manage to present that in his book, resulting in him getting caught on the slippery slope of 'they did bad things, but look what we did...' When the author must bring up the history of the Indian Wars in a book that is supposed to discuss the Second World War, that is a clear indication the author is struggling to find some parameter to the subject matter.

I commend Bradley for trying to be fair, but he just does not do a very good job of presenting the story. Flyboys spends at least 60% of the book addressing the issue of moral equivalency, and the remaining 40% discussing the core story of the flyers. Many people will undoubtedly be angered when Bradley calls the four presidents on Mount Rushmore `white supremacists', and when he completely rips Theodore Roosevelt.

My biggest gripe is that, while it is true the Indian Wars was not exactly the high point of U.S. history, Bradley softpedals Japan's actions from the 1850s to the end of World War Two. He argues that Japan was a peace-loving, almost pacifistic nation before the United States forcibly pushed the country on the path of imperialism with the Perry expedition. He says the `Spirit Warriors' misappropriated Bushido and turned it into a vehicle for aggression, dehumanization, rape, and murder. This then uses this issue to excuse the actions of many average Japanese soldiers who committed atrocities. Bradley claims that most soldiers were essentially conditioned to follow the Spirit Warriors, not being able to differentiate right from wrong. He later contradicts himself when he tells of sympathetic Japansese on Chichi Jima who apparently did recognize what was happing was just wrong. Daniel Goldhagen claimed in his book, 'Hitler's Willing Executioners', that many non-Nazi Germans were perfectly aware of the Holocaust and voluntarily went along with it. Bradley makes no attempt in his book, to examine if this possibility occurred in Japan.

Bradley may be somebody trying to come to terms with his family's history, so he is perhaps trying a bit too hard to come across as being completely balanced. Or it may be that he does not want to come off as being a racist (unlike the late Iris Chang, who felt free to pull no punches in her scathing critique of Japan's China campaign). Without such intensity, 'Flyboys' comes across as a flaccid mess.

After reading Flyboys in all its horrific detail and the attrocities carried out by both sides during WWII, you might be surprised that I was most moved and surprised by the story of the former president of the United States George H. W. Bush. Having lived through the Reagan and Bush presidencies I assumed that I had a relatively accurate picture of George Bush both as V.P. and President. I knew, as most people did, that he was the child of priviledge. The media told me that he made his fortune in the (gasp) Oil Industry and was a toady for corporate types. The press also portrayed him as a wimp. I remember the Doonesbury columns that wouldn't even show a caricature of him. He was so insignificant that Trudeau represented him with a mere blip on the page. Of course I knew he served in WWII but I assumed he had some cushy appointment that kept him out of harms way.

You can immagine my surprise when I read the account of his service in this book. Here was a man who volunteered to serve his country and became the youngest navy flyer in the service at that time. He flew 58 combat missions including the ill fated attack on chichi jima. Despite his heroic actions both before and after being hit by flack, he had to bail out after giving his crew the best possible chance for survival, even at the detriment to his own safety. His courage and sacrifice earned him the distinguished flying cross and several other citations. Only through the grace of God did he avoid the fate of the other flyboys discussed in this book. How such a man could have been vilified and marginalized by a vicious and partisan press that has to look up the meaning of words like courage and sacrifice is beyond me. I hope to God that all those smarmy, arrogant, self important critics of what can only be described as a great man have the opportunity to read this account of his heroic service. Gary Trudeau isn't fit to lick George Bush's boots.

I was suprised in reading this book that it is not just the story of a group of US aviators during WWII. This book also covers the history of Japan and the US over the last couple of hundred years which culminated in the conflict. It explains the reason behind the military fanaticism of the Japanese soldier during that period, but also peels back some layers of United States history to reveal some uncomfortable details of our past as well which many readers may not be familiar with. The end result is not a book which points a finger toward one root cause, but an unbiased assessment of complicated events and histories leading up to the war in the pacific.