Customer Reviews

When the Airlines Went to War

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For those not familiar with the support given to the war effort by the US domestic airlines (and Pan Am), this book provides a general introduction to the topic. It's written in an anecdotal manner that deals primarily with the role of the airlines in the Air Transport Command. The majority of the information pertains to American,Continental,Delta,Eastern, Northeast,Northwest,Western,United and Pan Am with less coverage to the smaller regional airlines. The book would have been more valuable as a historical work had the topics been covered in a more systematic manner; a section on the ATC; the modification centers and either specific incidents, i.e. the April 1943 mass flight of C-46s from Miami to Karachi, India or the Top Brass squadron based at Bolling Field, Washington that ferried VIPs around the world. Footnotes or documentation would have been helpful to direct readers to more indepth articles or sources of Mr. Serling's information. I would have liked for information on the author's reference to the B-17 photo-recon flight over Japan in advance of the Doolittle raid (p.148) All-in-all a good, general book, but there was not enough solid information to classify this book as a 'must' for one's reference shelf. (Comments from Kensington, Mr. Serling or other readers are welcome.)