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Pacific Air: How Fearless Flyboys, Peerless Aircraft, and Fast Flattops Conquered the Skies in the War with Japan by [Sears, David]

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David Sears

Pacific Air: How Fearless Flyboys, Peerless Aircraft, and Fast Flattops Conquered the Skies in the War with Japan Kindle Edition

by David Sears (Author)

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In a grand sweeping narrative, Pacific Air tells the inspiring story of how, despite initial disastrous defeats, a generation of young naval aviators challenged and ultimately vanquished a superior Japanese air force and fleet in the Pacific. The instruments of the United States aviators' triumphs were the elegantly designed F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, as well as the lethal TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. With superbly trained U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators at their controls, these planes became the most successful aerial weapons in naval history.

A majestic portrait of a proud era from dual perspectives--the inventive minds of young aeronautical engineers and the deadly artistry of even younger combat pilots--Pacific Air brings this important yet underappreciated chapter of World War II vividly to life.

Length: 410 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled

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Product details

File Size: 6362 KB
Print Length: 410 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Press (May 31, 2011)
Publication Date: May 31, 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B004THDT4Y
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray:

Not Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,216,087 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1266 in Military Naval History
- #4884 in Naval Military History
- #1372 in Military Aviation History (Kindle Store)

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A Forest Fan

Not a quick read

September 13, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A few chapters into Pacific Air, I realized this was not going to be a quick read. If you planned to read this on a flight somewhere, this is not that sort of World War II history book. From the old school of historical research, Sears has meticulously sifted through first-hand accounts and official histories to make this book. We've got insights from American Command, pilot and sailor memoirs, as well as a few rare Japanese first-hand accounts like Saburo Sakai's (Japan's greatest WWII ace fighter pilot).

First-hand memoirs of the Pacific Theater have their place, but there is something majestic about a proper "bird's eye" view history like this. The Pacific is a vast location, and anyone attempting to wage war over it could not possibly keep track of everything that would be happening. It was pure chaos, where battle plans were dashed on a daily basis from both sides. The task of the warriors in the Pacific War was to control the chaos, and make order out of the various engagements where combatants would blindly grope towards each other with submarines, carriers, and patrol planes. David Sears' task was to sort through the chaff and relate the efforts of these warriors into a seamless narrative. It sure wasn't an orderly story for those involved!

Sears has succeeded in crafting order from chaos, and it is in that view that this book makes for page-turning reading. Not a quick read for the casual wargamer out there. Prepare to sweat this one out along with the combatants. War is hell where everything goes wrong, see it all happen again with this excellent theater-wide study.

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Julio1fer

Grumman fighters and WW2 from Pacific carriers

November 21, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

An entertaining story of naval aviation in the Pacific in WW2. Follows the development of Grumman, and also shows Japanese ace Saburo Sakai and a set of U.S. ace pilots as the war evolves from Pearl Harbor to the end.

Look at the end of the book first - there you have all the acronyms used, and there are a lot of them (did you know the difference between a TBS and TBM?). Many good personal accounts and detail, it makes you feel inside the carriers and planes. Best of all is the Grumman story: this is an important book for fans of the F4F and Hellcat (a lot less attention is given to the torpedo and dive bombers of other manufacturers).

To be critical: maybe this book was written for fighter pilots, but I found it a bit too technical, as if the reader should know quite a lot about aviation and dogfighting. I still do not know what a "high side deflection shot" is supposed to be. The story of dogfights gets a bit repetitive - those fighter pilots always shoot at the wing root of Japanese planes.

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William R. Forstchen

Fascinating for both pilots and those with a general interest in WWII aviation

November 1, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I own and fly a WWII "warbird," (a small one actually, an L3 recon bird) so all things WWII aviation fascinate me. As an historian and author I wrestled a bit with giving this work four stars or five, based upon the valid points that there were some factual errors and perhaps at times an over reliance on secondary sources, but five stars won out. The battle descriptions, there are numerous works for that, but what I really appreciated was the time the author spent with how Grumman Aviation got its start, what went into research and design pre war, and what were the logistics and effort that took a military aircraft from "we need this now!" to actual end of the assembly line production and into the hands of young pilots going to war. To many works focus on the shock of battle itself, works that explain the efforts of the "man behind the man behind the gun," deserve more study and this book delivers it using an interesting personal story style of writing, rather than just dry facts.

It was intriguing to learn how Grumman, when it turned over "Avenger" manufacturing to General Motors, delivered a dozen such aircraft to a pre-war rival, put together with sheet metal screws so the team at GM could easily disassemble the entire aircraft, study it in detail, and thus more swiftly retool their assembly line and continue mass production without let up. When you contrast that type of cooperation with the "feudalistic" rivalries and "secrets" within the Nazi system of industry it reinforces just how incredibly united we were during that war to see the task through to victory and a "thank God," that in spite of Speer's efforts to create a unified cooperative manufacturing system for Hitler, it was too little too late.

I was familiar with the famed "Thatch Weave" maneuver of Wildcat pilots as a counter response to the far more maneuverable Zeroes (if you try that maneuver while flying, definitely make sure your partner in the other plane knows exactly what they are doing!), but assumed it was something he had just "thought up," under the stress of combat in early 1942, and did not know the real story that it was a problem that Thatch was working on even before the war, sitting at the dining room table with match sticks or wooden blocks, pondering the reports about a mysterious new fighter plane the Japanese had in China that was out performing anything that dared to venture up to face them and how to turn the tables on the soon to be legendary Zero. Stories like that are intriguing and this book is replete with accounts that will resonant with both pilots and those who are interested in the aviation history of that time. So with that in mind I rate this one a five star and can forgive the errors that I noticed and a few other critics point out. Having been burned a few times myself with believing an account later proven wrong, or mixing a number up is darn embarrassing when the critics grab hold so I do understand how such things happen and it did not detract from enjoying this book and learning from it. (Now if only I had the horsepower to try the Hellcat maneuver of a vertical climb out until the guy pursuing me stalls!)

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NWreturn

From the book cover being unworn to the book looking like it had never been opened

November 19, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I haven't finished yet, but I have no hesitation in rating it now. I've become a real fan of David Sears since reading his "Such Men As These" about Naval Aviation in Korea. His research is meticulous and his writing is entertaining. This book is the same!

I also have to compliment the physical shape of this as a used book. It was rated as being in "excellent" shape and I have to say that is an understatement. The book for all practical purposed was new. From the book cover being unworn to the book looking like it had never been opened!

5 star		59%
4 star		14%
3 star		9%
2 star		7%
1 star		11%

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