Scream of Eagles: The Creation of Top Gun and the U.S. Air Victory in Vietnam [Hardcover]

Robert K. Wilcox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1990

The first true-life account of the creation of the Top Gun school during the Vietnam War era.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wilcox's gripping narrative describes how a handful of Navy fighter pilots established a special school called Top Gun at the Miramar Air Station in California in 1968 and virtually revolutionized air combat training. Top Gun doctrine was fully validated when Randy Cunningham and his radar interceptor officer, William Driscoll, became the first American aces of the Vietnam war. By the time of the U.S. pullout in 1973, Top Gun's kill ratio was 12 to 1, compared with the Air Force's "dismal" 2 to 1. Wilcox ( The Shroud ) contends that Top Gun training forged the only clear-cut victory America won during the 1965-1973 war. The book features breathtaking accounts of aerial duels--Wilcox is very good at describing the three-dimensional world of dogfighting. His account of the school's ad hoc origins and the effort to develop ways of meeting the MiG challenge in Vietnam is equally exciting. Screaming Eagles ranks with the best of the books about air combat. Photos. Military Book Club dual main selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The F-4 Navy Fighter Weapons School (nicknamed "Top Gun") was founded in March 1969 to train Phantom jet pilots to better fight Soviet-supplied MiG-17s in Vietnam. While no book can match the electrifying big-screen flight sequences of Top Gun the movie, this account capably describes the creation of the school at Miramar Air Station, California, and the combat tactics taught there. It shows soldiers undergoing dangerous training for a deadly game, with a pilot a month killed, often in a ball of fire. Much of the narrative depicts gripping combat action over the skies of Vietnam, where pilots seeking to push to "the edge of the envelope" were frustrated by rules of engagement. Recommended.
- Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc; First Edition edition (September 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047152641X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471526414
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #857,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert K. Wilcox is the award-winning, bestselling non-fiction and novel writer of such works as Scream of Eagles, Wings of Fury and Target:Patton: The plot to assassinate Gen. George S. Patton. His latest book is The Truth About the Shroud of Turin. In addition to his writing for film and television, he has reported for The New York Times and written for numerous national and international publications including the Miami Herald's Tropic magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and National Geographic. He started his career as a reporter and editor for the Miami News. During the Vietnam War he was an Air Force Information Officer. He lives in Los Angeles. His website is www.robertkwilcox.com .

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent narrative history for the non-aviator history buff, April 23, 2006

By 

Joseph C. Thomas "book bandito" (Suffolk, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scream of Eagles: The Dramatic Account of the U.S. Navy's Top Gun Fighter Pilots and How They Took Back the Skies Over Vietnam (Mass Market Paperback)

Really a fun book - it is aimed at the general reader and is thus not academically oriented, but its factual information does have academic value. I read the original edition about 7 or 8 years ago, but just recently reread much of it for some research on the F-4 Phantom II. Low on technical data, instead the author gives the history of the human interactions that spawned the Top Gun Fighter Weapons School (which they made a really bad Tom Cruise movie about, but with F-14s). Much of it is told by the Navy officers who were there, and Wilcox brings it all together to explain what was wrong with the Naval air war in Vietnam and how the Navy fixed it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is gaining popularity on the Internet, May 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Scream of Eagles: The Dramatic Account of the U.S. Navy's Top Gun Fighter Pilots (How They Took the Skies Back Over VietNam) (Paperback)

This book is becoming a buzzword in flight simulator forums around the Internet. Anyone who's 'flown' a flight simultor on their home computers should read this book. It'll really change the way you view PC 'flying'. I also recommend Wilcox's other book, "Wings of Fury", which is a collection of tales from Navy and Air Force pilots from Viet Nam to Tripoli to Desert Storm. "Scream of Eagles" is a must-read for aviation enthusiasts and Viet Nam historians, and a very good read for everyone else.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Better Than Wings of Fury!, July 18, 1998

By 

Xerox 44 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scream of Eagles: The Creation of Top Gun and the U.S. Air Victory in Vietnam (Hardcover)

When I finished reading Robert Wilcox' Wings of Fury, I was impressed. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to read his earlier work Scream of Eagles (The Creation of TopGun).

Sincerely this is even better than Wings of Fury. There are plenty of first person accounts (sea stories) of TopGun's genesis and dogfights against the VPAF. The USN was less than enthusiastic about funding and equipping this new school in 1969. When you read about this and put yourself back in time, it's amazing that TopGun ever got started. But that's just part of the story...

The F-8 Crusader's days were numbered as the F-4 Phantom was replacing the 'sader in the Fleet. The men that developed TopGun knew that BVR missile shots were not the answer. Pilots needed to know how to dogfight and get the maximum performance out of their airplane and work as a team (both as a section of fighters and as a Pilot/RIO team). TopGun provided the cadre to teach fleet Phantom crews to build this teamwork.

If y! ou're a fan of the F-4 Phantom, read this book. If you're a fighter aviation history buff, read this book. After you read this, go read Marshall Michel's CLASHES:Air Combat Over North Vietnam 1965-1972. You'll be shaking your head, wondering if the USN and USAF were fighting the same war. Makes you kinda wonder why the USAF scaled back its Agressor squadrons in recent years.