FIGHTING AIRMEN

by Curt Anders ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 20, 1966

Infantryman Anders researches the lives of the seven most influential strategists of U.S. military airpower. As in his Fighting Generals, the tone is academic tubthumpery, with passing stabs at characterization and elegy. Anders is (or was) an instructor at West Point and his writing has the lift and sparkle of old cannons and overcast granite. His subjects here are Billy Mitchell, Eddie Rickenbacker, Hap Arnold, Chennault, Doolittle, George C. Kenney and Curtis LeMay. The span is from Billy Mitchell's brash, original definitions of fighting airpower during WWI to LeMay's final, fantastic expression of it in the present Strategic Air Command's complexity and discipline. Highlights include Mitchell's test sinking of a battleship to demonstrate airpower at sea; Rickenbacker's dogfights and 21 days on a life raft; Chennault's Flying Tigers in China and Burma; Doolittle's first bombing raid over Tokyo; LeMay's Berlin Airlift. Much of the material is about fighting red tape, paperwork, benighted superiors and Congressmen. Anders suggests that much of this material will soon be lost in history. Some of it there really is no need to remember.

Pub Date: May 20, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION