Customer Reviews

Thunderbolt! The P-47 (Military History (Ibooks))

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Bob Johnson describes more than the P-47, he describes the men who flew them and the things they did to get into battle. Johnson, a top scoring ace, in the league with Dick Bong and Eddie Rickenbacher failed the gunnery test at the end of fighter school with a score of 4.7 percent but was sent to battle with his unit. In his first battle he pulled off, thinking his plane had a problem because he had never fired all six of the guns on the plane at one time. He tells of how men died when the P-47 went into compressibility dives, a condition unknown before and how they met the ME-109 and FW-190 fighters, head to head and won. He tells how he came to love the fighter that could bring him back, with hundreds of bullet holes and some cannon shells imbedded in the seat armor, certain death for the pilot in most planes. But not in the heavy P-47.

Thunderbolt! is ace pilot Major Robert S. Johnson's own account of his days with the celebrated 56th Fighter Group over Europe during World War Two. Johnson's very personable narrative takes the reader from his boyhood days in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his fascination with aviation first developed, through flying lessons, his enlistment and training with the air force, and his many missions over Germany behind the stick of a P-47 Thunderbolt.

The cockpit of the large, sturdy and power Republic P-47 is the setting for a large portion of the book. Missions flown over Germany against the deadly Luftwaffe pilots and their superb planes are covered in the first person in gripping fashion. Though his recollection of events after ten years cannot be completely accurate, the author nonetheless describes tense battles in remarkable detail, down to the combat technique of each adversary. Besides his own experiences, the author also relates hair raising stories of colleagues who ditched at sea, bailed out over enemy territory, suffered catastrophic equipment failures or were in fact killed.

Though military pilots are often categorized as arrogant and self-centred (necessary traits as the split-second demands of aerial combat require the pilot to be unhindered by self-doubt), Johnson's storytelling is uniquely free of pretense and self-adulation. In fact, using his easy and informal writing style, Johnson has included his misfortunes and blunders for the reader's amusement. It should be said however, that Johnson's descriptions of battle are a little too fond, and he sounds entertained by killing. A disappointment is that Johnson does not tell curious readers what personal qualities, habits, or techniques he thinks caused his spectacular twenty-eight vietories with zero planes lost. The book also lacks the technical content which a nostalgic reader would enjoy.

Thunderbolt! is an enjoyable autobiography of an otherwise ordinary boy who, despite failures, went on to become a very gifted pilot. Perhaps Johnson's story says what kinds of fellows a large number of Air Force youths were, and so gives a more personal description of the military pilot to supplement one's historical knowledge.

The other reviews of this book are valid ratings. Johnson tells a good story, in the go-get-em boys! style of the 50s, when this was first written.

The reason I am posting this review is to let other potential buyers know that this "ibook" is published entirely WITHOUT any maps or photographs. How a company manages to publish a military biography without these is unbelievable.

For that reason, I cannot recommend buying this edition, and am giving it 1 star; the story is a four, however. The text of this book has been published many times under other titles. Hopefully, one of them has the pictures that I remember from first reading this in the late 50s and those are what I would urge the reader to consider.

MAJOR JOHNSON'S PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPERIENCES IN TRAINING AND COMBAT OVER THE ETO IS A MUST FOR ALL MILITARY AVIATION ENTHUSIASTS. HE PULLS NO PUNCHES IN DESCRIBING HIS OWN AND OTHER'S MISTAKES AS THE 56th FIGHTER GROUP,HIS UNIT, ORGANIZES IN THE STATES AND PREPARES FOR COMBAT. ALTHOUGH HE IS OBVIOUSLY A MODEST MAN, BOB JOHNSON PROVIDES GREAT INSIGHT INTO HIS OWN CHARACTER,THROUGH WHAT HE SAYS AND DOESN'T SAY, ABOUT HIS SUPERIORS AND FELLOW PILOTS.WRITTEN BY AN ACE AND A # 1 FELLOW, BUY THIS BOOK ALONE TO EXPERIENCE THE LIFE OF A WW2 FIGHTER PIOLT.

As a kid, in an era when I was already dog-earing my copy of Ray Wagner's "American Combat Planes" and other titles indispensable to a young aviation history enthusiast, I read this book in a borrowed paperback. I recently discovered the Kindle edition as an accident and decided to relive this slice of my early education.

Briefly as to the Kindle-ization of the original: This version is a fairly good transcription, with only a few of the typos, mainly hyphenation issues, that seem to be part of the genre. They won't be in your way. The text is quite clean overall.

Now as to the book itself: I notice things now that I didn't see thirty-five years ago. This is clearly a book from a far more innocent time, laced with comic-book prose, a straightforward and automatic patriotism, lots of exclamation points, and a chirpy let's-go-get-em enthusiasm for tearing into huge formations of enemy fighters piloted by confident veterans. A mission missed by dint of a mechanical problem brings not secret relief but great disappointment, as if Johnson were the school's star quarterback hoping to shine on homecoming night; and friends who go down in action elicit a gosh-darn-it curse and a gritted-teeth resolution to get the better of Jerry next time. Martin Caidin, the hired-gun wordsmith, was a competent author of many books; I have to think he was transcribing Johnson's notes and perhaps verbal stories as faithfully as he could. It really was a more innocent time, after all.

But Johnson really flew the missions, he really did bring back a Thunderbolt absolutely shot to hell, his bloody face swollen by spraying hydraulic fluid, and he really did go right back in to become an ace five times over and beyond -- and all this in an early period of the war, when the USAAF wasn't necessarily winning. Johnson was one of the pioneers of the 8th Air Force fighter presence in England, when the Thunderbolt was untried, numbers were pathetically small, and tactics were trial-and-error; in fact the entire Air Force was green, overconfident, and vulnerable -- and losses were high. His book may read like Captain America, but his physical courage, moral dedication, and sustained combat record are facts. He puts us in mind of another of Martin Caidin's "customers," the Japanese ace Saburo Sakai: In both cases, the written story may or may not be freighted with purple prose and artistic license, but we are certainly reading history, not fiction.

What's more, between the exclamation points, the man and the story ring true. Some reviewers may be put off by Johnson's game-day enthusiasm for deadly combat, but there is surely no such thing as a successful fighter pilot who isn't stupendously aggressive, hyper-confident, and activated by a superhuman competitive instinct. If anything, Johnson comes across as a modest and humble example of the breed, giving every possible credit to his leaders, his teammates, and, frankly, to God. As to technical details, his descriptions of the Thunderbolt's strengths and weaknesses, of how to survive and win against enemy airplanes having wholly different characteristics, are entirely sensible and plausible, not gratuitous. There is more than enough detail to assure the enthusiast that these were real combats, flown this way. If the reader is not a student of military aviation, the story is still worthwhile; but if he is, it is still better.