You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
37 reviews for:
The Wild Blue: 741 Squadron — On a Wing and a Prayer over Occupied Europe
Stephen E. Ambrose
3.74 AVERAGE
37 reviews for:
The Wild Blue: 741 Squadron — On a Wing and a Prayer over Occupied Europe
Stephen E. Ambrose
3.74 AVERAGE
informative
Wow! An Ambrose book NOT connected to Band of Brothers. This is about the Army Air Force in Italy. Yes the 8th does get the publicity (Memphis Belle etc.) BTW the RAF gets a very small mention indeed. Not bad. Anyone out there think three stars is cruel?
Loved it. Ambrose doesn't pore over combat the way some historians of WWII do, he would rather talk about the people. Little details are more interesting to him than the bigger picture. A charming book.
I had to quit on disc 3 of 8. I just wasn't interested in the story; it wasn't moving very fast at all. I was expecting to hear more about combat life, but on disc 3, the pilots were still in flight school.
fast-paced
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Ambrose had a wonderful ability to take what would seem like an almost-unmanageably large chunk of history and distill it into a tiny sliver that clarified the history and made the events more personal and vivid. That talent shines through in this book. A lesser writer would have tried to write about the entire B-24 flying experience, and you might have gotten at least a taste of what it was like. But by funneling the experience into a single crew, Ambrose is able to zoom in on the experience and make it less daunting and impersonal than it might have been had someone else attempted the history.
Ambrose chose to focus on George McGovern, a 1972 presidential candidate, and his flight crew. You learn how McGovern became the pilot of the Dakota Queen, and you learn of the respect he garnered from his crew. In a highly readable way, you’ll learn about each function of the members of the crew and the training each one experienced to do that job. This book also explores the horrors of things like bombing accidents. McGovern recalled to the author decades later a situation in which he inadvertently bombed a farmhouse at noon. Having grown up on a farm, McGovern could only imagine that the noon meal was one in which the family would participate in full if possible. They would have thought themselves to be relatively safe in a quiet rural place. The accident and the knowledge that the bomb likely killed the entire family horrified him.
While the book is sympathetic to McGovern, it is not a biography. It is, as it claims to be, an account of the B-24 flight crews and how they qualified for their jobs.
Ambrose chose to focus on George McGovern, a 1972 presidential candidate, and his flight crew. You learn how McGovern became the pilot of the Dakota Queen, and you learn of the respect he garnered from his crew. In a highly readable way, you’ll learn about each function of the members of the crew and the training each one experienced to do that job. This book also explores the horrors of things like bombing accidents. McGovern recalled to the author decades later a situation in which he inadvertently bombed a farmhouse at noon. Having grown up on a farm, McGovern could only imagine that the noon meal was one in which the family would participate in full if possible. They would have thought themselves to be relatively safe in a quiet rural place. The accident and the knowledge that the bomb likely killed the entire family horrified him.
While the book is sympathetic to McGovern, it is not a biography. It is, as it claims to be, an account of the B-24 flight crews and how they qualified for their jobs.
[author: Stephen E. Ambrose] is kind of the Ken Burns of WWII history--he is a popular historian with a dash of the sentimentalist, and an occasionally tedious excessive reverence for the men (mostly men, that is) who are his subjects. All of his characters run together, the texture of his interviewees reduced to a sort of Norman Rockwell, Greatest Generation mush. That being said, these men were heroes, they are fascinating because of their transcendence of their prewar lives into warriors capable of acts of extreme bravery, of endurance of hardship that I personally cannot imagine. If we have to suffer Ambrose's hagiographical tendencies in order to get at something of the marvel of these citizen soldiers' self-creation and sacrifice, it is worthwhile.
Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s Over Germany (a bit of a misnomer, as most of the missions detailed in the book are over Italy, Austria, and Czechoslovakia) is not as good as [book: Band of Brothers]. It is a view into the slice of war that were the pilots of the B-24 Liberators. It covers their backgrounds, training, and the missions they flew. It doesn't shy away from the dark moral terrain faced by men who drop tons of bombs into highly populated cities, only hitting their industrial targets about half the time at points. The book's central figure is 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, who piloted a Liberator in Italy in 1944 and 1945. McGovern comes across as an exemplar of the men who made up the flight crews of the Army Air Force in these years. Not a godlike air-ace or daredevil, just a brave man doing something that he believed in.
Wild Blue is a perfectly good, readable history of this aspect of WWII. The research is thorough, and Ambrose seems especially talented at prying absolute anecdotal gems from his subjects. However, as I mentioned above, all of the characters bleed together into some vague History Channel composite. I'd like to read an account of this war that didn't seem to have the Glen Miller orchestra playing in the background the whole time. Our perspective of this was is made up of a such a web of cliche and nostalgia (did every unit, group, sqaud or whatever have a "Tex" and a "Brooklyn?") that it is becoming increasingly difficult to comb through the tangle of resolute nobility and tousle-headed Italian scamps to arrive at an understanding of the human cost of this conflict and what it accomplished. Ambrose's agenda is to never let us forget the sacrifices and victories of these warriors, and that is a noble aim. I just don't think that it is the whole picture.
Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s Over Germany (a bit of a misnomer, as most of the missions detailed in the book are over Italy, Austria, and Czechoslovakia) is not as good as [book: Band of Brothers]. It is a view into the slice of war that were the pilots of the B-24 Liberators. It covers their backgrounds, training, and the missions they flew. It doesn't shy away from the dark moral terrain faced by men who drop tons of bombs into highly populated cities, only hitting their industrial targets about half the time at points. The book's central figure is 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, who piloted a Liberator in Italy in 1944 and 1945. McGovern comes across as an exemplar of the men who made up the flight crews of the Army Air Force in these years. Not a godlike air-ace or daredevil, just a brave man doing something that he believed in.
Wild Blue is a perfectly good, readable history of this aspect of WWII. The research is thorough, and Ambrose seems especially talented at prying absolute anecdotal gems from his subjects. However, as I mentioned above, all of the characters bleed together into some vague History Channel composite. I'd like to read an account of this war that didn't seem to have the Glen Miller orchestra playing in the background the whole time. Our perspective of this was is made up of a such a web of cliche and nostalgia (did every unit, group, sqaud or whatever have a "Tex" and a "Brooklyn?") that it is becoming increasingly difficult to comb through the tangle of resolute nobility and tousle-headed Italian scamps to arrive at an understanding of the human cost of this conflict and what it accomplished. Ambrose's agenda is to never let us forget the sacrifices and victories of these warriors, and that is a noble aim. I just don't think that it is the whole picture.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Ambrose's attempt at an AAF "band of brothers" falls a little short. I liked the story and obviously no one tells a human interest piece about WWII Like Stephen Ambrose, but I just couldn't connect with the flyboys like I could in some of his other similar novels.
His prose was great, as was the background information and historical context he effortlessly weaved into the story. The story and story of the 15th Air Force just kind of left me wanting for something a little deeper. If anything, this book was a stepping stone and makes me want to read more, so for that, I'm thankful.
His prose was great, as was the background information and historical context he effortlessly weaved into the story. The story and story of the 15th Air Force just kind of left me wanting for something a little deeper. If anything, this book was a stepping stone and makes me want to read more, so for that, I'm thankful.