Take a photo of a barcode or cover
ncrabb 's review for:
The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany
by Stephen E. Ambrose
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.