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Flyboys: A True Story of Courage

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage

List Price: $31.98
Your Price: $21.11
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: stunning
Review: I have read alot of books about WW2 in the Pacific and the American involvement. This book without a doubt is the best written ever. Like the Pacific Ocean being a broad expansive theatre of war so is the book in its approach and narration. Anyone wanting to know how brutal this conflict was, read this book. Anyone wanting to know how brave the fliers were read this book. A must read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A riveting account of part of WWII in the Pacific
Review: I appreciated the historical background that Bradley included. My mother and her family were living on Oahu when Pearl Harbor was attacked (my grandfather saw the planes fly overhead with the "rising sun" on them that fateful Sunday morning) and my father fought as a gunner's mate in the Navy (his ship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in the South China Sea--luckily, he survived), so I grew up learning more about the Pacific War more than any other part of American history. But I never really knew much about Admiral Perry's visit to Japan until I read this book.

Rather than feel defensive about America's past injustices towards people of color, I believe it is important to learn from our mistakes or we'll no doubt repeat them in another war or conflict. While I support my government, I was always taught never to completely trust it--with good reason. Those Americans who get angry with their fellow countrymen/women who question their government are a danger to our country's survival as a free nation. A true patriot is well-informed, looks at all the facts, and is not afraid to face the truth.

The historical background Bradley provided went a long way towards explaining the Japananese's belief system and attitudes towards the allied forces. And while that was helpful, it didn't change my feelings of horror and grief at reading what the Japanese did to the airmen they captured at Chichi Jima. I'd known about a lot of the atrocities that the Japananese committed during the war--medical experiments similar to what the Nazis performed, the brutality towards POW's, and their inhuman butchering of the Chinese--but I'd no idea they'd gone so far in their treatment of the captured airmen's dead bodies. Also, until this book, no one ever questioned why Hirohito was not tried for any war crimes. My mother thought the sun rose and set on General MacArthur's shoulders--until the battle at Midway, people on the Hawaiian islands were very nervous. How could he let Hirohito off the hook?

This story needed to be told and Bradley has told it very well. Everyone needs to read this book.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Both the Japanese and Americans were evil during WWII.
Review: I expected this to be a great book with all the hype surrounding this story. I am also very fond of George H. W. Bush, since I voted for him twice. This book I was not fond of. Why? Because it equalizes the Americans and Japanese during World War II. Forget about the Japanese conduct in China or the way they treated captured POWs and enemy aliens and then you have the moral equivalent of the Americans. This along with many other crimes against humanity are shunted aside.
Jim, The Germans, Japanese, and Italians were the first to target civilians in the 1930s and 1940s. The Italians did it in Ethiopia, the Nazis did it to Poland, England, and Holland. The Japanese did it in China and elsewhere. They legitimized civilians as targets in war. It must have been a surprise when they received the same medicine back again. Sympathy I feel for those families who lost loved ones. They should focus their anger at the leaders who brought them into the conflict.
Bradley is quite correct in saying the Americans of the early 20th century were racists. But his description of our conduct in the Philippines is very slanted. In Benovolent Assimilation, Miller shows the complex relationship between the islands and the American troops who occupied it. Bradley slants it all in the most negative light. The insurrection in the Philippines killed thousands of American soldiers, and the correct number of natives is hard to determine. Bradley justs slants the most negative numbers onto his work. For those readers who want a more balanced account, read Miller's book. It will differ from what Bradley says.
I guess I am upset because Bradley is equating American action in WWII as equal to the Japanese. There may have been individual actions of killing Japanese prisoners of war, but what the Japanese did was monsterous. Their leaders paid for it at the end of the war. If one had to be captured by the Americans, British, or Japanese, what would be the preference. Only those wanting a death wish would pick the Japanese. I prefer not to starve, be worked to death (River Kwai), beheaded, and/or eaten.
There was a great story in this book. It was clouded by Bradley's moralizing about the evilness of the Americans. He should have focused more attention on the story of the captured flyboys.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good read but heavy on the "PC"
Review: The author has tells a story that has needed telling for 50 years; the gruesome and barbaric treatment of American POWs at the hands of the Japanese Army, upto and including butchering them alive and eating them. I'll never be able to eat Sukiaki again. This sterling work is flawed only because of Bradly's heavy handed attempt to provide some sort of politically correct contex for the enemy's behavior.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: great story lost in a sea of political correctness
Review: I haven't read FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, but judging from its success and warm reception, I thought I'd give Bradley's latest a try. I was thoroughly disappointed.

The first part of the book--something like one-third of it--is devoted to the background of World War II in the Pacific. In a lesson in multicultural political correctness and moral equivalance and relativism, Bradley retells the story of American "Manifest Destiny" and virtually absolves the Japanese of blame for their war of aggression, attributing their actions to decades of American racism, even going so far as to suggest that the Japanese used American injustices (and there were, indeed and unfortunately, more than a few) to justify their own gross atrocities.

Mount Rushmore, he writes, "memorializ[es] the chief ethnic cleansers of the West" (that is, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt) and "honor[s] white supremacy." Never mind that, following the Revolution, George Washington wrote about the Indian population, "The Country is large enough to contain us all." Ignoring the fact that torture was a two-way street in the conflict, Bradley condemns U.S. involvement in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War by equating it to the wars of Tojo and Hitler.

By the time he got to the meat of the story--why I picked up the book in the first place, since I was interested not in the background to the war but in this particular episode of bravery, heroism, and atrocity--I was all tapped out. It's a good story, and Bradley does it some justice. But in denigrating the cause and nation these men served, the story is diminished. By a long shot, the U.S. isn't beyond criticism, but whatever happened to giving a straightforward narrative of events, unencumbered by the baggage of political correctness?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You MUST read this book!
Review: A masterpice. The depth of Catch 22 in a real life scenario, capturing the essence of lost millions, and starring a former president of the US.

This book haunts, shocks, stuns, educates. It is relentless, merciless, and compassionate. If you thought you knew American military history and foreign policy, be prepared for a shock.

If you thought you knew the Pacific war, you don't know it all until you've read this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Accurate Presentation of History
Review: Covers the downed airmen at the island of Chichi Jima as well as the history of the island as it pertains to Japan and America. What I especially liked were the historical facts that were presented; it was nice to see the truth identified and clearly stated. No matter how painful the truth is (and it always is painful), it is laid out for all to see in this book. No political agenda here, the world (including America) should heed the message.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another great one from Bradley
Review: I loved Fly Boys. I found it educational and entertaining. Another tribute to America's greatest generation from Bradley.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: flyboys
Review: James Brady has done it again. This is one of the best books I have ever read. Keeping my attention was no problem. Brady, gave me a real history lesson and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Thank you!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fly by
Review: Time that is. It flies by when reading this book. I can't imagine anyone giving a better perspective on the history of the Japanese empire as it relates to China, Mongolia and WW II and how they all come together. Chichi Jima will forever be an island in my mind not just the Pacific. From Admiral Perry to the flyers trapped on this visible piece of hell, the history of how one small place could have such big meaning is fascintating.
If you liked Flags of Our Fathers, you'll love Flyboys.


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