GREATEST FIGHTER MISSIONS

by Edward Sims ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The Pacific airwar is the background for these stories of 11 Navy and Marine aces who survived the fight---and who made 235 kills of Japanese aircraft in doing it. Author of the well-remembered American Aces, Sims skillfully tells the story of those 11 men in a book which is graced by a foreword by Admiral Arleigh Burke. The heroes are well known, at least to aviation and military fans. Dick Bong, Joe Foss, David McCampbell and the rest have been written about many times since 1945. Rarely however has the specific history of their flying, and the brutal, machine-gun rattling atmosphere in which they flew, been so well recreated for us. Here are the deadly zeroes over Midway and Guadalcanal, the old P-40's, then the P-51s and Corsairs soaring up to meet them. Here is Rabaul, Leyte Gulf, the carrier war, the dogfights over dreamy Pacific Isles. Here too are fierce mass engagements like the ""Turkey Shoot"" of 1944 in which 346 Japanese planes were downed in one day! The roar of the engines, the spat of gun fire, the fatal plumes of smoke and oil are with us once again in a first rate history and recreated terror of those fearful days over the Pacific. Should appeal to a wide audience.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962

Categories: NONFICTION