RESCUE!

by Elliott Arnold ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 1956

Novelist and biographer, Arnold adds another story to his list, this time one of a branch of the United States Air Force, the Air Rescue Service and the efficient system developed by the pilots and doctors of the helicopter brigade. Arnold is full of praise for the men and their deeds and the material is conveyed in appropriately dramatized anecdotes. Through Melvin Ayau, one of the first Hawaiians to become an Air Force officer, part of the history of the Air Rescue Service is traced, for Ayau, with the instinct to save stronger than the instinct to destroy, switched, to helicopters in 1945. Not all of the annals are of the war time. Two rescue missions in Panama, for example, helped a native pilot and a native tuna fisherman, one gravely injured and the other gravely ill and both presumably too far away from proper medical care-until the doctor-helicopter team found solutions to the problems. But the excitement of the stories (which cover global operations from Alaska to Arabia) is conveyed largely through a hopped-up narrative reminiscent of scoop journalese, blind to the possibility that the U. S. and in particular its Air Rescue Service could make mistakes too. A calmer book would have been more convincing.

Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1956

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Duell, Sloan & Pearce

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1956

Categories: NONFICTION