Customer Reviews

The USAAF Airman: Service & Survival 1941-45

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Martin J. Brayley provides a visually stimulating work on the personal experiences in book "The USAAF Airman: Service & Survival 1941-1945". The book covers such diverse topics as recruiting, training, and the personal equipment that Airmen used in combat.

The book's first focus area is on the experiences of the Airman from recruiting, through training, and finally into combat operations. I was surprised at reading background information on the atmosphere and physiology. However, this information was fundamental to understanding the design and development of many of the personal equipment items featured later in the book. This section is written to give you an understanding of the basics without getting too much into the details.

Brayley expertly uses personal recollections of Airmen to enhance many of the topics in the book. He recounts the experiences of T/Sgt John Carson bailing out of his stricken aircraft. "Sounds of bullets or flak whistling by convinced me I was being shot as, so I spilled the chute to become a tougher target... I had no serious wounds, just some surface wounds and splinters from the door... I also spotted two infantry men with rifles approaching. Capture was imminent... The German soldiers arrived immediately and demanded that I get to my feet. After taking the time to stay on bended knee and thank God for being spared, I stood up and entered captivity."

The second focus area is a near-encyclopedic reference on personal equipment. These chapters are very thorough. Several times I found myself skimming through evolutions of equipment design, such as the section on 10 different versions of the airman's survival vest. The photos and illustrations do any outstanding job on their own, telling the tale of equipment design evolution. These sections contain great reference material, but they could be a bit too much detail for the casual reader.

Overall, Brayley's book is a `shack'- it hits a bulls-eye with well-researched and concise topics, each supported with numerous photographs. Many of the photographs are previously unpublished, including such rarities as the B-18 and A-28. This book adds highlights the personal experiences to complement a WWII aviation library with books on the strategy and tactics of the USAAF. The photos alone are worth the value of this book.