Rating: 
Summary: Strays way off course
Review: I am very offended in the tone that book takes in regard to comparing Japan's Chinese campaign with our final offensives in Germany and Japan. With all of the well written reviews I do not have much to add except to say that Japan was dead in the water and would have fought to the last man, woman and child. I also think that the nuclear bombs definately did create a new level of war and by doing so expedited the surrender. I am tired of people trying to apologize for America, the fact remains if they did not engage us then they would not have faced our wrath. The Chinese on the other hand recieved the barbaric wrath of Japan without so much as provoking them. I suppose we are supposed to draw a parallel in our manifest destiny or turn of the century Phillipine campaigns that were both in a very different era. By taking away all of Japans budget to make war America gave them a head start on creating a modern economy unparalleled in the world.This book gets three stars for having some nice solid sections when it stays on task and does not get to preachy. If it wasn't for that I would have flunked it. The author has talent though and the read is pretty good being that is so severly flawed.
Rating:
Summary: Not sure what to make of this book
Review: First off, I find it surprising that this story was not told sooner, as it involved a future U.S. president (I suppose much of the information was not available until recently). I give Bradley credit for telling the story of the airmen who gave their lives in service to our country, but I'm not sure what to make of Bradley's commentary on U.S. policy before and during World War II. It's true that atrocities happen in war, and the actions of our military should not be whitewashed. It seems wrong to me, however, to try to draw moral equivalency between the aggressors, and those who fight that aggression at great cost to themselves so that others may enjoy freedom. I also reject Bradley's suggestions that all atrocities committed by the Japanese were a direct result of earlier U.S. actions, however wrong those actions may have been (Bradley's description of the Japanese corruption of the Samauri code seems to contradict his own assertions regarding this point). I rate "Flyboys" 3 stars for telling a story that should have been told earlier, but I have reservations about the revisionist history in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of history, but not much on Chichi Jima
Review: After reading the book, I have to agree with the review listed by Publishers Weekly. I thought the book was about the battle of Chichi Jima based on the perspective of the nine flyboys (including George Bush). However, the battle isn't actually covered till about halfway through the book. The author begins with a history lesson of pre-war Japan and has a look at when Admiral Perry first landed in Japan. My first thoughts were "...why the history lesson?" Then, we are treated to perspectives of Billy Mitchell and his pre-war court martial. It was only later I realized that the author was setting the stage for the battle of Chichi Jima. In that case, after reflection, Bradley's pre-history lesson made sense.
The book is supposed to tell the story of the flyers and the horrors they endured when captured. Bradley is excellent in telling us the horrors that transpired. And, he weaves the ordeals that the families went through back home in wondering what happened to their sons.
I enjoyed the book but I found myself asking several times why was the history lesson of Japan included; why have the war crimes trials been included? All in all, I enjoyed the book and others here have certainly captured some of the flaws with Bradley's story. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book albeit with some warning that the book is not really about the Chichi Jima battle itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Understanding the Pacific Front
Review: War only produces casualties. Flyboys: A True Story of Courage is one of many examples that has further opened the doors to understanding what occurred during the Pacific War of World War II. The basic premise of the book is the story about nine US pilots that led a mission to combat the Japanese military, but met their terrible demise when they became POWs on the island of Chichi Jima. Their story bears similarities to something out of a Sci-Fi novel -- Jules Verne or H.G. Welles, but their story was real and horrendous. It is a chilling story that begins with the these pilots' story before the war, and ends with the aftermath of the war.
Bradley revisits this part of history in order to address the Pacific aspect of WWII, and to present the voices of the guilty and the victims that came from both the US as well as the Japanese side that previously had not been disclosed to the public. The most controversial part of the book was the detailed and vivid descriptions of the pilots' executions by the Japanese soldiers. This was the most powerful part of the book that will make you wonder, was this the reason why the war had to end immediately with the atomic bomb? Bradley suggests that the uncalculated acts by the Japanese military and the enormous US casualties far more exceeded the European front, and General Curtis LeMay was "itching" to deter the war as soon as possible. Bradley states, " ...Curtis did not think a moral boundary was crossed. Later he wondered if people thought it "much more wicked to kill people with a nuclear bomb, than to kill by busting their heads with a rocks. I suppose they believe also that a machine gun is a hundred times wickeder than a bow and arrow" (297).
There is a lot of historical references that Bradely makes in order to relate them back to the incident on Chichi Jima. He goes all the way back to Matthew Perry's Expedition on Chichi Jimi in 1853, and proceeds to other related incidences that have occurred between the US and the Japanese. The drawback of the book was this ineffective approach of trying to draw them all together to present a concise narrative. It may have been helpful if he added a little anthropological evidence on why the Japanese soldiers had a "warrior-like" quality that was somewhat beastly. The last remaining chapters attempts to close this chapter in history, but also suggests that there are more stories that still need to be told.
Flyboys is not only for military history buffs, but anyone who's interested in wanting to understand what WWII was about in the Pacific. It will definitely open your eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Context, not Moral Equivalency
Review: In this informative and well-written book, author James Bradley discusses the hidden history of nine American naval aviators shot down over the Pacific during World War II. Eight of these men were captured, tortured and executed in so morbid a fashion that the government felt it best not to inform their families of the specific nature of their demise. The ninth aviator, Lieutenant J.G. George H. W. Bush was fortuitously rescued and eventually became the forty-first President of the United States. From an historical and a stylistic point of view, this book definitely has its flaws, but it is excellent in spite of them.
Bradley sets the gruesome fate of the eight captured flyboys in the broader historical context of imperial expansion in the Pacific. For more than a century the United States waged wars of extermination within North American and then in the Philippines in order to expand and secure its empire. The Japanese understood this and believed it was perfectly acceptable to do the same thing both in China and the South Pacific. Bradley does not discuss this aspect of American history in order to condemn the United States and to excuse Japan. He does so in order to help explain Japanese attitudes during World War II--attitudes that he by no means agrees with.
Bradley also provides wonderful background on other important topics such as Japan's rapid modernization and the attitudes that accompanied it, the development of aerial and carrier based warfare, the daily life of the average Japanese soldier, and the full spectrum of strategic bombing. It is this last topic that is probably Bradley's most powerful contribution. To the objection of many reviewers, Bradley pulls no punches when discussing the nature of America's strategic bombing policies in Germany and especially in Japan. In addition to destroying military and industrial targets, the goal was to incinerate as many Japanese civilians as possible. In case you doubt it, just read the words of Air Force general Curtis Le May, President Franklin Roosevelt, and several pilots.
Yet this policy was not simply one of murder. American military planners had justifiably come to conclude that unless they murdered civilians en-masse through indiscriminate incendiary bombing, Japan would continue to fight on for years at the cost of considerable American and Japanese civilian lives. I don't like or agree with this policy but at least I understand that there was more to it than wanton killing.
The most powerful aspect of Flyboys is the human side of warfare that Bradley provides. Bradley does an excellent job of showing what kind of people the nine flyboys were, what it was like to be a Japanese soldier executing a Chinese civilian or American pilot, what it felt like to drop incendiary bombs on Japanese civilians, and what it was like to be the victim of American napalm. Readers may find themselves hating the Japanese at one point in the book for torturing and murdering civilians and POWs and then hating the Americans in another for deliberately baking, boiling, and burning all manner of Japanese civilians to death (General Curtis Le May's words, not mine.) They also may be surprised to find themselves sympathizing with Japanese soldiers who did not wish to perform executions and American pilots who found themselves deeply conflicted over bombing civilians. The point is that Bradley strips away many of the cliches of warfare and shows us how complex it actually is when you introduce the human dimension. For me, this departure from the usual self-congratulating accounts of American history in World War II actually made me appreciate America more.
I usually don't like history books that assume a jocular tone as this one does, but somehow it didn't bother me with Flyboys. I learned a lot from this book and I enjoyed reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: apologist
Review: this book was just an apologist for the cruelty the japanese inflicted on their enemies. the author dishonored these men for the book hints that they deserved what they got. the japanese were only imulating and modeling themselves after the united states. i kept reading this book to understand what happened to these men only to get a skewed history lesson on how horrible the united states was in establishing itself as a world power. i hated this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good core story, but falls far short
Review: Two words sum up James Bradley's Flyboys: muddled mess. The root of Bradley's book, the capture and horrific deaths of American pilots on Chichi Jima is absolutely compelling, and the author does his best to unearth information to shed light on this almost forgotten event. Most significantly, Bradley manages to find Japanese witnesses the supplement sketchy written documentation.
Flyboys' ultimate demise is the authors attempt to tackle the issue of moral equivalency between Japanese atrocities in World War Two and American atrocities against Native Americans in the 19th century. As most historians know, unless you have a very specific argument you are trying to support, this topic is a quagmire. Bradley does not have that defined argument and, as a result, the book becomes bogged down trying to evaluate moral equivalency. When the author must bring up the history of the Indian Wars in a book that is supposed to discuss the Second World War, that is a clear indication the author does not have a very good command of the subject matter.
I commend Bradley for trying to be fair, but he just does not do a very good job of presenting the story. Flyboys spends at least 60% of the book addressing the issue of moral equivalency, and the remaining 40% discussing the core story. Many people will undoubtedly be angered when Bradley calls the four presidents on Mount Rushmore `white supremacists', and when he completely rips Theodore Roosevelt.
However, Bradley softpedals Japan's actions from the 1850s to the end of World War Two. He argues that Japan was a peace-loving, almost pacifistic nation before the United States forcibly pushed the country on the path of imperialism. He says the `Spirit Warriors' misappropriated Bushido and turned it into a vehicle for aggression, dehumanization, rape, and murder. This then uses this issue to excuse the actions of many average Japanese soldiers who committed atrocities. Bradley claims that most soldiers were essentially conditioned to follow the Spirit Warriors, not being able to differentiate right from wrong. He later contradicts himself when he tells of sympathetic Japansese on Chichi Jima who apparently did recognize what was happing was just wrong. Daniel Goldhagen claimed in his book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, that many non-Nazi Germans were perfectly aware of the Holocaust and voluntarily went along with it. Bradley makes no attempt to examine if this possibility occurred in Japan in his book.
As World War Two slips farther into history, one has to wonder if public perceptions of Japan's (and Germany's) actions will continue to change until it is finally believed that it was the Allies who were the bad guys.
Rating: 
Summary: A stunning tale of barbarism, courage and loyalty
Review: In a followup to Flags of our Fathers, James Bradley describes his detective work in determining what, exactly, happened to nine airmen shot down over the island of Chichi Jima during World War II. One was easy: the pilot was George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States. Starting with recently declassified military trials records of Japanese officers on Chichi Jima, his discoveries are both tragic and inspiring. In fact, these true stories of brutality, courage and honor are sometimes almost beyond belief.
Rather than paint a single "snapshot" of the air war over the island near the end of World War II, Bradley looks at the big picture. His history lesson is concise, yet insightful. The brutal treatment of native Americans and Mexicans during early American expansionism... Commodore Perry's warships and the opening of international relations with Japan... the Russo-Japanese war that set the stage for World War II... the corruption of the Samurai ideal and the outrageous Japanese atrocities in China... all are covered in wide-ranging and learned prose.
Other reviewers have complained about overly harsh treatment of US involvement with native Americans, Commodore Perry's mission, and other alleged "political" agendas. Speaking as an avowed conservative, I found nothing obvious that skewed history either way. War is a brutal business and early Americans were frequently at war. We cannot pretend otherwise.
The book is crammed full of interesting, historic details: American arms accounted for only a third of Japanese troop fatalities during World War II - lack of Japanese supply planning and poor strategy account for the remainder. The religious zeal with which Japanese soldiers were inculcated with the "no surrender" philosophy resulted in a brutish and barbaric form of war, "At Kwajalein, the Japanse garrison lost 4,938, with only 79 taken prisoner, a fatality rate of 98.4 percent."
The result was a perceived need on the part of American military planners to devastate the Japanese homeland, knowing that surrender was untenable for the population. A War Department report concluded that, "defeating Japan would cost... five to ten million deaths and the United States between 1.7 and 4 million casualties, including 400,000 to 600,000 fatalities." To put this in perspective, D-Day required 175,000 invading troops. 7,000,000 American troops were in the Pacific by 1945 preparing for Operation Olympic, the first phase of invasion. Put in these terms, the fire-bombings and atomic attacks seem almost humane in that the corrupt Japanse military leaders were forced to succumb before millions of more lives were snuffed out.
This is a stunning book that paints a picture of almost unbelievable courage, honor and loyalty. Five stars, without question.
Rating:
Summary: Bradley--a 5-Star General of HIstory
Review: Clearly, from the many negative reviews posted below, this is not a book for those wanting to remain immersed in the self-congratulatory victory parade of WWII--and there are enough books on that score that to fill entire libraries. I have read many, many of them, having grown up in a military family, nursed on the timeless glory WWII from infancy.
This is the first WWII book I've read in many years, and I will rate it far above almost every other in the genre. Because rather than following along where armies of previous authors have tread, Mr. Bradley has exemplified the subtitle--"A True Tale of Courage"--by recounting the unexpurgated truth about the Pacific war, truths, evidently, that many WWII cheerleaders are too timorous to hear, preferring the cocoon of simplified black-and-white propaganda and jingoism.
In no sense does Bradley spare the brutal Tojo regime--in fact, the 100 years of prehistory leading to Peal Harbor forms the single most enlightening account I've ever read on the subject--and I have read a lot. That Japan took the lessons of western imperialism in the Far East, and ratcheted it up by several orders of magnitude (just as they copied and improved on all our industrial products) is undeniable. American atrocities in the Phillipines--which ALL armies of conquest commit, bar none--is disgraceful, but it is part of the historical record, recounted far beyond this book or the selected references Bradley cites. Over 100 years later, we should have the courage to face this. The criticism from the willing amnesiacs below--how dare he rain on the victory parade!--is most likely expressed in the same breath as "How can some Germans and Japanese today still deny the guilt of what their ancestors did in the '40s?" Look in the mirror.
To call these unexpurgated accounts of American history "PC" is idiotic. One asks "Whose side is Bradley on?" Bradley is on the side of TRUTH and CIVILIZATION, for which no nation or race holds a monopoly. There has been far too much glorification of war in these books, and too little of the bloody, dehumanizing horror that all war stoops to, and that all front-line vets know only too well. That said, there is still plenty here for WWII buffs to get their spinetingling fixes--the account of Doolittle's raid is one of the most inspiring and moving I've ever read.
The book is history in its fullest sense--from the most intimate details of the flyboys' lives before they enlisted, to the broader context of the conflict they were caught up in. It contributes a new understanding to the war--something the best historians, rather than mere chroniclers, should aspire to. Among those understandings--that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, ghastly and terroristic as they were (terrorism: killing civilians to promote politico-military goals), may have saved lives in the final analysis. I have always been conflicted about the horrible bombing of Japanese cities--not a few of our generals at the time thought Hiroshima and Nagasaki unnecessary. But Bradley leaves no doubt about the incredible callousness of the Japanese militarists, willing to sacrifice thousands of their soldiers in ill-planned campaigns. Nevertheless, rather than feeling pride about the destruction of so many innocent Japanese civilians in the fire bombing, I think we should feel some remorse, even if it was "necessary" in the brutal calculus of the time, and return to our pre-war position against the bombing of civilian populations. Otherwise, out of misplaced pride, we sanction this as a precedent for future wars.
One thing I hope this book cures--the disease that infected the Pacific war and made it so brutal--that "they" are devils, and the corollary, that "we" are angels who never have, never could, and never will do wrong. It is the same blinding disease infecting this nation now, as we tolerate and approve pre-emptive invasion, torture, incarceration without trial or defense, violations of the Geneva convention, and rampant militarism as the solution to all our problems. Look in the mirror--it happened "over there," and it can happen anywhere, including the "land of the angels" if we don't acknowledge that we are only human, and all of us have sinned, as the Lord we profess to worship knows only too well.
Rating:
Summary: Whose Side is Bradley On?
Review: The author spent so much time talking about the Japanese and their accomplishments and exploits, you begin to wonder which side of the ocean he was writing from. If not for having included former President Bush as one of the pilots involved in this conflict, I feel doubtful this book would have the popularity it gained. Other than dropping the name of a president, it was a routine history lesson and quotes from veteran pilots who participated in this conflict. I found it very disturbing, passing over several pages at a time, considering some of his subject matter. Surely, he could find better topics to write about, than devoting an entire chapter on how some of the Japanese officers enjoyed having the American pilots executed, then having their livers cut out and specially cooked for them. And the intimate deatils he goes into, describing the methods of torture our pilots were subjected to by these sick Asian officers. For family members who lost loved ones in this area of the Pacific I am sure they were appalled to know the possibilities of their loved ones death. No doubt I'll skip this writers future books. I'll take Stephen Ambrose in a heartbeat.
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