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spark166's review against another edition
5.0
i actually cannot write a review for this because i’m still crying all i know is once you get to “hello, this is warren” you will be on the exact same boat. war truly is the tragedy of what might have been
dave_loves_books's review against another edition
4.0
I seldom.. if ever read a book a second time. I figure there are enough books out there that I want to read, and I just don't have the time. I may make an exception for this one.
groenveld's review against another edition
dark
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
Great read, wild context I didn’t know about.
novacain60's review against another edition
5.0
Between this book and Dan Carlin’s Supernova in the East six-part podcast, I feel I’ve finally been educated somewhat on the pacific war. I, probably like most people nowadays, didn’t know a whole lot about it. The killing and dying in the pacific was was particularly stunning. The sheer amount of mass killings that took place and the atrocities committed are hard to comprehend.
This book proves once again to me that people are just people, and that we all do what we’re taught to do. We hate, kill, rape, abuse, and commit horrible acts based on our cultural norms at the time.
Flyboys will likely make you very uncomfortable but James Bradley does a good job of dropping in perspective-correcting quotes from people that lived through it. For instance, the fact that the reaction of horror and shock to the dropping of the atom bomb is directly proportional to one’s ignorance of the pacific war. Or that modern day folks have more of a smoldering hatred toward the Japanese for WWII than the actual veterans that fought there.
I really enjoyed it and I’d recommend this book to anyone with even a small interest in the pacific war.
This book proves once again to me that people are just people, and that we all do what we’re taught to do. We hate, kill, rape, abuse, and commit horrible acts based on our cultural norms at the time.
Flyboys will likely make you very uncomfortable but James Bradley does a good job of dropping in perspective-correcting quotes from people that lived through it. For instance, the fact that the reaction of horror and shock to the dropping of the atom bomb is directly proportional to one’s ignorance of the pacific war. Or that modern day folks have more of a smoldering hatred toward the Japanese for WWII than the actual veterans that fought there.
I really enjoyed it and I’d recommend this book to anyone with even a small interest in the pacific war.
jorreads's review against another edition
5.0
Really informative and, at many moments, horrifying. Author did a great job at trying to stay neutral to the situations and looking through both parties’ eyes.
freckledbologna's review against another edition
5.0
Read this book my freshman year of high school. I couldn't help but be enthralled in the narrative and stories. Didn't hold back on the horror stories of war.
intermittent_farting's review against another edition
4.0
I feel this book is mis-marketed. While it does tell the story of the American pilots gruesomely executed on Chichi Jima, that is a small part of the book. The meat of the story is aerial warfare in the Pacific coupled with the absolute atrocity that was the Pacific theatre in WWII. If you're not comfortable knowing truly horrific things, don't read this. I appreciate the author being objective, because the ugly truth is that the U.S. was on par with Japan and Germany as far as slaughtering civilians. The story also begins well before the war, in the Imperial Age where again, America was as heartless to its territorial conquests as any other conquering nation. One lovely example is the U.S. conquest of the Phillipines. If you Google that and can't take it, don't read this book.
I'm glad this info is out there and it was informative. Maybe if more people knew the reality of war, they may be more apt to avoid them in the future.
I'm glad this info is out there and it was informative. Maybe if more people knew the reality of war, they may be more apt to avoid them in the future.
jamesmck486's review against another edition
3.0
This is a hard book to review for me, since I did enjoy reading it, and tore through it quite quickly. But the pros and cons for the book sit on the opposite end of the spectrum for me.
First, I appreciate the author's prose (never bogs down), and his ability to gain interviews with so many different individuals involved with the story he is researching. By far, these primary sources are the highlight of this work, and the evenhandedness in how Bradley deals with how war, and the dehumanization it brings to those who fight, affects everyone it touches. This and Bradley's discovery and creation of the narrative of Chichi jima and the individuals lost there stand out as Bradley's greatest triumphs.
On the flip side, it strikes me, as an layman with some prior knowledge of Japan and the Pacific War, they he took a similar tact with this work as with his later book, The Imperial Cruise. He has a central story (chichi jima) which he then pads with what feels like a super condensed history of both Japan and the war in just a couple hundred pages. I can see how he specifically picked some of the more horrific accounts perpetrated by both Japanese and Americans, to bolster Bradley's apparent view that war's effects of degradation and horror affect all sides without regard. But Bradley's attempts to create an overarching narrative result in some sloppy conclusions, and more to my chagrin, an abundance of hyperbole. So much was the "greatest ever", "first in history", that I found it hard to trust these statements after I knew some of them to be false, or readily arguable. His parroting of secondary sources for his history of Japan did bring in some good, but I found it overall to be fast and loose. The best portions of the book dealt with chichi jima, and the actual research Bradley did, with people who were there to witness the events, and historical documentation. The summarizing of other historian's works and Bradley's conclusions leave some to be desired (a notion that I also see again in The Imperial Cruise).
In the end, a pleasurable read, bringing more enlightenment than frustration than most. It just reminds me to be on my toes, once again, and to read critically.
First, I appreciate the author's prose (never bogs down), and his ability to gain interviews with so many different individuals involved with the story he is researching. By far, these primary sources are the highlight of this work, and the evenhandedness in how Bradley deals with how war, and the dehumanization it brings to those who fight, affects everyone it touches. This and Bradley's discovery and creation of the narrative of Chichi jima and the individuals lost there stand out as Bradley's greatest triumphs.
On the flip side, it strikes me, as an layman with some prior knowledge of Japan and the Pacific War, they he took a similar tact with this work as with his later book, The Imperial Cruise. He has a central story (chichi jima) which he then pads with what feels like a super condensed history of both Japan and the war in just a couple hundred pages. I can see how he specifically picked some of the more horrific accounts perpetrated by both Japanese and Americans, to bolster Bradley's apparent view that war's effects of degradation and horror affect all sides without regard. But Bradley's attempts to create an overarching narrative result in some sloppy conclusions, and more to my chagrin, an abundance of hyperbole. So much was the "greatest ever", "first in history", that I found it hard to trust these statements after I knew some of them to be false, or readily arguable. His parroting of secondary sources for his history of Japan did bring in some good, but I found it overall to be fast and loose. The best portions of the book dealt with chichi jima, and the actual research Bradley did, with people who were there to witness the events, and historical documentation. The summarizing of other historian's works and Bradley's conclusions leave some to be desired (a notion that I also see again in The Imperial Cruise).
In the end, a pleasurable read, bringing more enlightenment than frustration than most. It just reminds me to be on my toes, once again, and to read critically.
googie_1957's review against another edition
5.0
learned things about the war in the pacific that I never learned in school. listened to this on cd in the car and there were many times I had to turn it off and just drive.