Rating: 
Summary: A Story About America's Cruelty
Review: A book ostensibly about the capture and beheading of American pilots by the Japanese on Chichi Jima in WWII. This is the island whose guns shot down President Bush's Avenger -- he narrowly avoided capture when a submarine picked him up just offshore, otherwise there would be another beheading in James Bradley's book.
I said 'ostensibly' up there 'cause the book isn't really about those airmen so much as it's about how inhumane we Americans are as a race. Oh, Bradley allowed as how the Japanese on Chichi JIma not only beheaded four or five airmen (mostly navy) and served up their livers as hors d'oeuvres -- chunks of American thighs and buttocks became the main course at the officers' mess on these occasions. One of those Japanese officers told Bradley how he raped a Chinese woman, then cut her up to feed his starving troops in China (talk about exemplary leadership!). But Bradley spends fully two-thirds of his book describing how cruel we Americans were -- how Doolittle's raiders bombed a hospital in Yokahama (of course he got that from Japanese sources 50 years later), and how American pilots shot Japanese pilots descending in their parachutes... He brings up our inhumane bombing of Berlin and Dresden, harkens back to our inhuman cruelty to the Phillipinos when we were expanding our empire in that part of the world. Then, of course, we fire bombed those poor Japanese people in their paper houses, not to mention two atomic bombs, ad infinitum... Bradley is very sympathetic to those poor Japanese who beheaded and ate our airmen -- they were just obeying orders lest they themselves be executed. Somehow I had a hard time equating bombing and combat deaths, even cruelty in the heat of combat, with the cold murder and cannabalism that transpired on Chichi Jima (and God knows how many other places). True, the old Japanese veterans he interviewed (one of whom is a nice old Rotarian) said sometimes they had to kill each other in order to have enough food to survive... Hell, that sounds fair...
Anyhow, I don't recommend this apology for the unspeakable crimes committed against our guys...
James Bradley's military savvy, by the way, comes from having a father who was one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima... Some of his attempts at military terminology are downright embarrassing, but that's a misdemeanor compared to his felonies... bb
Rating: 
Summary: Great book - sad story
Review: This was a sad story - but a story the needed to be told. It really made me understand the War in the Pacific a lot better - despite the fact that I've been studying World War II for the past 25 years.
Rating: 
Summary: A Story that Should be Told---but it is soiled
Review: During my 18th & 19th years I was what Bradley called, a "Flyboy". I read and enjoyed Flags of Our Fathers, as well as Flyboys which I just finished. But I must tell you I am surprised and shocked about how----and mystified by why---- he made such an effort to equate American military actions toward Japan with the brutal treatment, including enslavement,by the Japanese of Allied POWs. In my case, the war was ended----and the killing stopped----just as I was finishing Bombardier School and slated to go to the Pacific in the nose of a B-25. Except for the B-29 battering of Japan by Gen LeMay and the dropping of the A-Bomb----both of which he seems to suggest to be at least quasi-atrocities----I , along with many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of other teenaged Americans would have become candidates for the same fate as the eight he wrote about. Mr Bradley is obviously a brilliant man and a gifted writer. Hence ----whether he will admit it or not----- he is surely aware of the absurdity of these comparisons. I have searched my mind for a wholesome reason for his actions and I am truly sad to have to say that the only reason that makes any sense (but dubious morality) is that he is pandering to the Japanese market in order to sell books. In doing so he insults the memory of every American who sacrificed so much---many with their very lives----in World War II to preserve his right to do so.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthy addition
Review: Before I really get started, I have to ask a question. When you only watch 20 minutes of a 2 hour movie or only read 3 chapters in a 400 page book, should you be writing a "review" of that book or movie? I don't think so. If you plan to write a review of a book (which by definition would include everything from the front cover to the back cover) please read the entire book. Otherwise, your opinion and review should be automatically excluded. Read the whole book and then write your review.
On to the book itself...
I read Flags of Our Fathers and found it to be one of the most incredible books that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. So, naturally, when I saw that James Bradley was writing another book on WWII, I was excited.
My excitement was well-founded.
Flyboys is a fantastic book and is a worthy sophomore effort for Bradley. I, unlike a number of other reviewers, find his writing style to be very comfortable and easy to read. He manages to include a plethora of factual information and statistics in a well crafted and emotionally charged narrative. My only minor complaint is that the book spends quite a bit of time explaining the overall morality of war and does not focus on the Flyboys themselves as much as I would have liked. I must remember though that much of the information about the Flyboys themselves was attained from second hand sources which makes detailed writing quite difficult.
My most glowing bit of praise would have to be the fact that Mr. Bradley manages to paint so vivid a picture of these young men that I found myself nearly crying while reading their story. Keep in mind that this is about men that died nearly 60 years ago. That is powerful storytelling...
Flyboys is a wonderful story and a worthy addition to my home collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Title is A Bit Mis-leading
Review: This is not a feel good book. But then again what book on war is a feel good book. This is a book about war, plain and simple and the brutalites on a grand scale (the fire bombing of Japan) and on a small scale (renagade Japanese officers engaged in crimes unspeakable), sprinkle in a bit of World History, lives of avaitors and you have The Flyboys. I leave the historical references to more educated reviewers than myself. Do not read this book after you ate, it is quite distrubing. The book is more brutal than the cover would indicate. I have given it three stars, but have not recommended it to any friends. I did recommend Flags of Our Fathers.
Rating:
Summary: A balanced view of the horrors of war
Review: This book is an objective view of the horrors of the war in the South Pacific. While many of the intellectual elite condemn President Truman's decison to use the atomic bomb to end the war, this book tells of the fanatical Japanese and why the war needed to be ended in the air and not on the ground. The statistic that more died on one of the evening napalm raids than through the use of the A bomb may take some by surprise. The cruelty of the Japanese military does not as the picture of the Aussie POW being beheaded is a part of the history of WWII. My dad was in the South Pacific and was gearing up to go in the invasion of Japan. Now I know what those months must have been like and why he loved the Air Force. This book examines the morality of war in a balanced way, pointing out the initial American condemnation of the bombing of civilians and the reversal of that ethic when it became apparent that the only way to end the war ws to bomb the Japanese home islands. A must reading for any serious student of WWII. As good as Flag of Our Fathers, which is saying something.
Rating:
Summary: Taking Credit Where None Is Due
Review: I have viewed all the previous posted reviews of this book, and what I find surprising (and a little disturbing) is that no one has taken Mr. Bradley and his publisher to task for an untruth trumpeted both on the dustjacket and in Mr. Bradley's introductory text (also see the blurb above). There it is asserted that the events on Chichi Jima were a closely guarded government secret until the intrepid Mr. Bradley uncovered them. This is not just a distortion, it is a flat-out falsehood. For example, Bradley's own bibliography cites Robert Sherrod's history of Marine Corps aviation during World War II. Sherrod's book - published 45 years ago - features several pages on the appalling events on Chichi Jima, including footnotes indicating exactly where the information came from (in particular, the war crimes trial transcripts). As an archivist who works with World War II era military records every day, and a published scholar, I find the mendacious assertion that the book uncovered previously "hidden" material to be a breach of faith with the public it supposed to inform. Bradley may have done more work on the topic than those who came before him (and here he deserves credit), but he certainly did not dig up any "secrets." For shame.
Rating:
Summary: First-person interviews enhance WWII history
Review: Mr. Bradley has written an excellent history of the Aviation war against Japan in WWII. His interviews with Japanese soldiers and American aviators enlighten us about their experiences during combat. Mr. Bradley presents a picture of the culture of Japan that was an important part of the reasons for Japan's involvement in the war. William Manchester wrote in "Goodby Darkness" about the savagery of the battles between Japan's imperial Marines and the American Marines on the occupied islands. After reading "Flyboys", I have a much better understanding of why this happened.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting read...
Review: This is a wonderful book when it is telling the stories of the American airmen who were shot down over the island of Chichi Jima during World War II. All of these flyers who were captured were later executed and tortured by the Japanese Army, and many of the remains were subject to cannibalism by Japanese soldiers. Unfortunately, the author is not content to simply recount the stories of Japanese barbarism. Instead, he believes it is necessary to morally equate the atomic and fire bombing campaigns against the Japanese with the individual treatment that they meted out to anyone with whom they came in contact. This bit of political correctness is ridiculous, as it serves absolutely no point in a story about American flyers. Regardless, the book is an enjoyable and informative read, and is recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Job Flawed
Review: FLYBOYS is an excellent retelling of one of the more tragic episodes of the Pacific War: The capture, and eventual execution of eight Naval aviators sent to destroy a communications installation on the island of Chichi Jima. James Bradley does an admirable job of memorializing the lives of these eight youngsters gone to war. His summation of Japanese history from the time of Perry until 1941 is enlightening. His central thesis of wartime Japanese behavior as an institutionalized perversion of the Bushido Code is also meaningful and well thought-out. FLYBOYS fails where it tries to preach moral equivalency. Bradley takes an almost pornographic delight in recounting episodes of rapine and pillage on the part of the Japanese (in China) and the Americans (on the frontier and in the Philippines). While there is no question that the American frontiersman brutalized the Native American population, and that horrific excesses occurred during the Huk Insurrection (as they do in any war), these brutalities arose not so much from a policy of state as from no policy at all. The habit and custom of collecting Indian scalps in the 19th century may be hideous in retrospect, but it is a far cry from a Japanese armed forces standard policy of eating prisoners of war in the 20th (other rations might or might not have been available to the Japanese troops). Likewise, Bradley's criticism of the firebombing of Japan as excessively destructive seems well-placed until the reader remembers the extraordinary tenacity of the average Japanese soldier when faced with an enemy. Although Bradley wants to put the word "fanatic" in quotes, it does not really belong there. An army whose officers and rank-and-file routinely brutalized conscripts and viciously executed (and ate) POWs is by definition an army of fanatics. A nation which could give rise to such an army is a nation of fanatics. Such a nation should be broken (and was). There is no requirement (as Bradley would have it) to take the Japanese nation out for an ice cream by way of recompense. What was, was. FLYBOYS recounts a terrible episode in the annals of war, and does so intelligently. I will agree that the U.S. doesn't deserve an ice cream either. The author's attempts to excuse or downplay the actions of the wartime Japanese by pointing up American actions of a stripe a half-century and more earlier only weakens his presentation of the tragedies of the first truly modern war.
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