Thach Weave: The Life of Jimmie Thach

Rating:
Summary: Surviving in Inferior Aircraft
Review: At the beginning of World War II, the allies were in very poor condition to face the Germans or Japanese. Due to years of neglect, the American fighting forces, generally speaking, had vastly inferior equipment, and in many cases even worse tactics.

Against the Japanese Zero fighter, the Americans fielded the vastly inferior Grumman F4F Wildcat. The Wildcat suffered in three vital areas to the Zero: climb, maneuverability and speed. The Wildcat did have advantages in firepower, due to the excellent .50 caliber Brownings, and in overall toughness. Jimmy Thach was able to come up with a flying mode to take advantage of those points in favor of the Wildcat while minimizing its disadvantages. This was called the Thach Weave after the inventor and the way he conceives of having two planes each fly a serpentine path that brought the planes together facing each other at frequent intervals. Thus any Japanese pilot falling in behind one of the planes would soon be facing the nose, and the machine guns of his partner. This enabled the American pilots to survive in the years it took to get more capable aircraft into service. The Thach Weave continues today, with todays far more capable aircraft but with the same basic principles and the same name.

Mr. Thach survived the war and went on to ever higher positions within the Navy. This book uses just about half of its 338 pages on The World War II era, and the rest on his work at improving the Navy's aircraft afterward.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: To start with I will admit that I am only half way through this book but wanted to rate what I have read so far and I can say that what I have read is very interesting. For those who are interested in Naval history and its heroes in particular will enjoy this book. Its nice to be able to learn more about Jimmie Thach because there aren't may books on the guy and he has a fascinating life that needs to be told. I would also highly recommend Steve Ewing's book on Butch O'Hare titled "Fateful Rendezvous". I do know that I will soon be ordering the third book in this trilogy on the Reaper leader Jimmie Flatley.