Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting and tragic, this is a timeless tale of courage., August 29, 1999
By A Customer
Since military history is only a passing interest of mine, I will not pretend to be the best-qualified reviewer to read this fine book. However, as a work of nonfiction about humans placed in a hopeless situation, and how they respond to it, "Lady's Men" tells a great story that is as inspirational as it is eternal and poignant. Although author Mario Martinez obviously takes a few literary liberties with the artistic license of creating imaginary dialogue between the principal characters, he has just as clearly done his homework on this case, and his intimate account of the doomed airmen is both compelling and plausible. Martinez does a particularly good job of placing the disappearance and rediscovery of the ill-fated B-24 and her crew into an historical context. He also captures what must have surely been a growing sense of despair and determination among the men who struggled so hard to survive even as they gradually realized the futility of their predicament. It remains an amazing tribute to the endurance of the young men who flew into oblivion on one April night in 1943 that most of them walked 78 miles across the open desert over a period of several days, and one of them (Staff Sgt. Guy E Shelley, Jr.) trekked as far as 115.5 miles from the bail-out point, on nothing more than five or six canteen capfuls of water and almost no food. Well-illustrated and skillfully told with diary excerpts from the plane's copilot and flight engineer, "Lady's Men" gets off to a slow start, but gives the reader a vivid picture of what happened on this mysterious and sad mission. Amid the background of World War II and all of its carnage, this small tale of ordinary men doing extraordinary things stands out as lesson in the importance of each individual life, and the dignity that can be found even in one's dying breath. If "Lady's Men" has a fault, it is in the writer's approach to using some of the archival information as the raw material for a movie screenplay. No doubt, the heroic saga of the Lady Be Good and those who served aboard her would make an excellent movie, but no cinematic embellishment was needed to maintain this reader's interest in the subject. Also, it would have been nice if "Lady's Men" had included more of the news coverage which accompanied the initial location of the lost aircraft, and of the investigation to learn what became of her crew. These minor complaints aside, "Lady's Men" is still a very meaningful and worthwhile addition to anyone's reading list. This is one of those rare books that will give you a renewed perspective on your own problems and the relativity of pain.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, if you discount the speculative narrative, August 12, 1999
By A Customer
This book appears well-researched but didn't come across as particularly authoritative. I appreciate that there must be some speculation about the events that occurred, but the author turned to fantasy when he speculated about the thoughts of the crew on their trek, trying to expand on cryptic diary entries. Such an approach significantly devalued later statements by the author about the condition of artifacts. All in all, the book was a little unsatisfying.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very detailed and interesting account of the doomed crew of Lady Be Good, September 6, 2005
This book does a good job of explaining what may of happened to the crew of the Lady Be Good. Of course no one knows for sure what exactly they were thinking or why they did what they did, this book attempts to explain this. It still left me with a lot of unanswered questions, like why they did not try and find the plane after they realized they were in the desert, supposedly it had plenty of survival gear that would of sustained them for sometime, also it had a radio, weather balloon, flares etc etc. I think I would of made finding the B24 my first priority. It is suggested that they probably thought they were closer to the shore than they really were, still after the first day without any sign of help and the increasing lack of water they should of made an attempt to find the B24. Canteens with water were found inside the wreckage even after 20 years of sitting in the dry desert. I also wish the Author would of gone into more detail on that 20mm projectile found inside one of the engines?? Still a great book .
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