Roar of the Tiger by James H. Howard
Howard became a Naval Aviator in the second half of the 1930s, but in the summer of 1941 he left the Navy to join the American Volunteer Group in China. Leaving the Flying Tigers before they were reconstituted as the U.S Army Air Forces China Air Task Force, the author soon chose the Army over the Navy and went to Europe with the first P-51 fighter group to reach England. On one mission, Howard found himself alone against at least thirty enemy fighters who were attempting to attack a formation of B-17 bombers, earning him the appellation of "One Man Air Force".
This is a very good memoir of a fighter pilot.
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Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad by David Zucchino
The original plan for capturing Baghdad was to lay siege to the city with armored units while infantry from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions conducted raids into the city. A few officers in the Third Infantry Division had a different idea, which they tested on April 5, 2003 by a Thunder Run of tanks and armored personnel carriers up Highway 8, through the city, and out to the airport. The second Thunder Run would be different when, on April 7, the armored thrust went into Baghdad to stay, capturing the government district, including two of Sadam's palaces and his parade grounds. As it happened, the heaviest action on April 7 occurred on Highway 8 as Special Republican Guard, Fedayeen, militia, and foreign mercenaries attacked the forces holding three major interchanges to keep the road open for supply convoys. The major counterattack on the forces in the city came on August 8. The fall of Baghdad would be portrayed as a cakewalk, but those who fought in the city knew better.
Excellent.
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The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 by John B. Lundstrom
Lundstrom's book The First Team covered naval air combat, with a primary focus on fighters, during the first six months of the Pacific War. Following the Battle of Midway, U.S. Navy fighter squadrons had to regroup and prepared for the first American offensive of the war. Fighting Five, Six and Seventy-One supported the amphibious assault on Guadalcanal, opening a new phase of fighter combat. For the next three and a half months, Navy and Marine fighters would duel Japanese land based air power based at Rabaul. Twice during those months, the American and Japanese carriers would face off in battle, and five U.S. Navy flattops would be sunk or damaged during the campaign. Due to the damage inflicted by the Japanese, Navy squadrons would be based ashore at Guadalcanal's Henderson Field, principally VF-5, who contribution to victory was decisive. Going ashore with Fighting Five allows for a recounting of the fighter combat involving Marine pilots. Two more fighter squadrons deserve mention, VF-72, which went south with carrier USS Hornet after two sister carriers were damaged, and VF-10, the first of the replacement fighter squadrons, which went south on the repaired USS Enterprise.
A secondary focus of this volume is the land and carrier based groups of the Japanese Navy which faced off with the Navy and Marine fighter combat team. Before Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal, the Japanese Naval Air Force was an elite force, but it would never recover from the losses inflicted by those battles.
Excellent.
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The General vs the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by H. W. Brands
An unexpected war in Korea led to a showdown between an unpopular president and a popular general, a pivotal moment in the history of post-World War II America, yet one now largely forgotten, just like the war that spawned it. As recounted by Brands, the episode is riveting. The war would damage the reputations of both men, yet as the conflict faded from memory, they would recover; the general would be remembered largely for his success in an earlier war while the president's plain speaking would appeal to Americans as their country experienced the disillusionment of Vietnam and Watergate. Brands takes us to the White House, the chambers of Congress, Wake Island and Tokyo as well as to the battlefields of Korea, providing a study of leadership and civil-military relations.
Fantastic.