"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Flyboys (Was: Flyboys?)
From: "Dudley Henriques"
Date: 12/18/03 6:26 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"Cub Driver" wrote in message
.. .

I took the liberty of moving the thread

As I get deeper into Flyboys, my irritation increases. Bradley
regularly refers to the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber as a
Billy. "Flyboy" as a word for pilot or air crew is bad enough, but
Billy! Where did he pick that up?

I'm also despairing that his 10-to-12 page histories are continuing.
I'm about halfway through the book and we still haven't come back to
Chichi Jima. He's trying to cover the entire 19th-20th century misteps
of Japan *and* the United States in this fairly slender volume, and he
just doesn't know what he's talking about half the time. It all
depends on which source volume he picked up (take a look at his
citations: there'll be one book cited, then ibid, ibid, ibid).

He doesn't know the difference between casualties and deaths. Airplane
engines stall in mid-air. And of course there's the famous jet fuel on
carrier decks.

But what really set me off was his account of the Doolittle raid,
which ends with the statement: "The U.S. and Japan were even" -- they
mounted a sneak attack on us; we mounted a sneak attack on them.
Bradley is able to overlook the rather important difference that in
April 1942 Japan and the United States were at war!

I took the liberty of moving the thread

Thank you!!!!!!

I don't think I've ever heard anyone else refer to the 25 as a "Billy",
and
I've been in and around warbirds all my life. I could be wrong, but that
one
just might be a bridge too far!! :-)
He does scatter back and forth way too much without proper segway. I got
a
bit lost through all his complicated "weaving".
I think he could have learned a lot from studying Harold Robbins, who,
although a fiction writer, was a master at presenting background through
brilliant segway.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt



Since this book is about old man Bush. I can't imagine that he allowed it
to be
published wihtout going over every detail. What does that tell us?

Not exactly sure what it would say in this instance, but it usually involves
a writer who has approached the subject with an agenda, Could be a soft or
hard agenda...who knows really. But what often happens results in a
"collaboration" of all the interested people with their "agendas" of course
being their first priority. Bush no doubt was tied into the History Channel
and visa versa. Bradley fitted right in with all this. He accompanied both
the History channel and the ex-president back to the island for the TV
"agenda". Next comes the book which I'm sure was reviewed as you have noted.
All in all, at best, it's questionable as pure objectively researched
history. Just too many "agendas" going on here at one time :-))
The real rub in all this is that Bradley could have written a better book
and didn't. The story was there all right, the characters were interesting
and the environment was ripe for something to be done with it. It could have
been a good read if he had only done it more professionally.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt