TWYLA WARBIRD
by T.W. Bellen
In this historical novel, an orphaned American woman is given the rarest opportunity—to become a combat pilot during World War II.
Twyla Campbell grows up in Boonville, California, the daughter of a fighter pilot who saw action in World War I. Her childhood is a happy one filled with love, but all that is shattered when she loses her entire family in a plane accident and is suddenly an orphan. Now, her life becomes a grim one filled with toil and sexual abuse under the tyrannical custodianship of Castor and Edna Gultch, relatives who take her in. Twyla is saved from that hell by Llewellyn “Lew” Haliday, a local boy, and his best friend, Wiley Felton, who kills Castor. Twyla marries Lew in 1941, and he teaches her how to fly, a skill that quickly becomes a passion. Lew is stationed as a pilot in Honolulu, and while there with him, Twyla is inadvertently drawn into a fight with the Japanese bombers attacking Pearl Harbor—Lew will later brag that she was the first pilot to confront the enemy in World War II. At the time, she is flying with Butch McCuskey, who strongly responds to her bravery: “We’re in it now. Leave it to a dame to go flyin’ on this day! Grabbin’ the wheel! Trying to kill us! Four hundred hours in a puddle jumper is not combat flying! No idea what yer doing! Thank yer lucky stars I’m a fighter hero! You owe your ass to me, little missy!” Later, Twyla will join the Women’s Air Force Service, a program that used female pilots for noncombat missions such as ferrying supplies. Twyla seems destined for combat, though—she is shot down, captured by the Germans, and rescued by Russian soldiers. Then she is afforded an extraordinary opportunity—to fly, and even see combat, for the Red Army.
Very little has been written about the female pilots who flew during the war, a story as fascinating as it is unfortunately neglected. Bellen provides a captivating portrayal of the risks these women took and the sacrifices they made, a service not always duly recognized. In addition, the depiction of the aerial combat is electrifying—the author draws these scenes with cinematic vivacity. But the plot as a whole is a slow amble—many readers will wish the nearly 400-page book had been cut to half its length. Bellen weighs down the story with too many digressions and detours, and the result is a messy pastiche of subplots. Moreover, the author aims too laboriously for the poetically profound, and that strain expresses itself in overwrought writing and unabashed sentimentality: “What is the point of flying and death? Why must the two collaborate? Flying is a poem of personal, physical exaltation. Not a means to end one’s life. It is a celebration. That is all.” Unfortunately, this emotional unwieldiness pervades much of the novel.An exciting but uneven war tale about a heroic female pilot.