Rating: 
Summary: A worth while book in the end
Review: I bought this book before reading the reviews in Amazon. It's a good thing because other wise I probably wouldn't have bought it, because I don't believe a lot of the current revisionist, relativist history.
At first I disliked the book because it tries to bend over backwards to prove the moral equivalence of the United States and Japanese. How dare we moralize about
Japanese taking over China, South East Asia and Indonesia, says the author, when America indulged in "ethnic cleansing" against American Indians and Mexicans in the 1800's. So what if Japanese soldiers practiced bayonet training on live Chinese civilians and raped Chinese women as a prelude to murdering them, a group of settlers did the similar things to some Indians one time. The Americans killed a lot of Filipinos in 1899 and Jimmy Doolittle's pilots dropped bombs on children in a school yard. Why should the Japanese withdraw from China, when the United States, according to the author had "Whites Only" signs and black bodies swinging from lynching trees visible for any visitor to see.
If the author wanted to bring in some more irrelevant facts why didn't he mention how the Indians practiced "ethnic cleansing " on each other or how the Filipinos massacred the resident Chinese at one time . So, the Americans were unjust to the Indians and Mexicans. How about telling the way the Mexicans persecuted their indigenous Indian population and still do today. Why wasn't it brought out that Jimmy Doolittle's raiders were instructed not to bomb the Emperor's palace and in fact flew right by it without firing a shot?
Others have criticized the author's penchant for identifying people by their first names and for inventing names such as Flyboys or Sprit Warriors, but I soon got used to this and it is not a serious flaw.
About half way through the book the story begins to gel and the author gets down to the real purpose of the book, which is to tell the story of the unfortunate fate of several flyers, who fell into Japanese hands and to put their fate into perspective as it related to the conduct of the war especially the air war against Japan. I thought this was well done and made the book well worth reading. I was pleasantly surprised, given the tenor of the book in the early chapters, that the United States was not demonizes for the use of the atomic bomb, and given the attitude of the Japanese and American government and Japanese plans for suicidal last stand, that it was almost inevitable. After reading the book I wanted to know more about this terrible war that we had to fight.
The first part of the book gets two stars and the last half four stars, for an average of three.
Rating: 
Summary: Some eye-opening historical references didn't hurt
Review: When I first started this book, I thought "Where is the story indicated by the title?" The first 70 or so pages takes the reader well back in time, but as I got through that I saw how it set the stage. It opened my eyes as to how the Japanese, by the time of WWII, had obtained their mind sets regarding the outside world and on themselves as citizens of Japan. If you have ever asked yourself why were the Japanese so fanatical and ruthless, it answers the question in spades. The author I'm sure riles some feathers when he delves into some of our own (US's)dirty laundry. With a grain of salt or two, it fits in with where he takes the reader showing very vividly the horror of all out war, no matter what the time frame or side chosen. I agree with some of the other reviews about the various use of "names" for certain historical figures, but I would be nit-picking to say that took away from the story being told. I found the book interesting, a quick read and that I came away with a greater knowlege and respect for the magnitude of the Pacific theater of the war and for those involved in it. Anyone who enjoys true WWII stories should find this a book well worth reading. I have not read his first book, Flags Of Our Fathers, but plan to having read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended (with a few quibbles)
Review: Many reviewers say that this book compares very poorly with Bradley's earlier book. Maybe it's because I have not read Flags of Our Fathers, but I thoroughly enjoyed Flyboys. Unlike some reviewers, I found the background information on Commodore Perry, Billy Mitchell, and Japanese tradition extremely informative and valuable. Given the fact that there just isn't all that much information about what happened to the captured airmen, if Bradley had not provided this context, there probably wouldn't have been enough material there for a book. As it is, some reviewers complain about his wallowing in the atrocities committed against the Americans. Bradley is on solid ground in pointing out that both sides committed barbaric acts against civilians, and that different standards were applied to the Japanese. Curtis Lemay himself admitted that had we lost he would have been tried as a war criminal. Speaking of which, I completely agree with the many reviewers who complained about Bradley's calling Curtis Lemay "Curtis" and Roosevelt "the Dutchman". I found it bizarre and inconsistent. He refers to General MacArthur by his last name. Why was LeMay singled out? Unprofessional and distracting. Despite these flaws, I think the book is well worth reading. It put a human face on a small part of WW2, and again reinforces (lest we forget) what those young guys went through, and also what their loved ones endured. It is a very quick read, and I think that is always a good indicator of a well written book. I look forward to Flags of Our Fathers.
Rating:
Summary: Has its faults, but important nevertheless...
Review: I read about 20 of the earlier reviews of "Flyboys" as I struggled through the book this past week. Some of the negative comments are deserved, such as referring to the late Gen. Curtis LeMay as "Curtis" in half or more of the references to him. This is bizarre and distracting. Whether a result of careless editing or author-torial stubborness, it does not work. Also, I agree that the term "Flyboys" as a collective description of pilots, gunners and radiomen is over-used. I also agree that the book perhaps tries to cover too much history and abandons its cover story for too many pages at a time. Some condensing and reorganization would have enhanced its power. That said, many of the other negative comments seem to be unfair. Yes, Mr. Bradley dwells on America's mistreatment of Indians and Filipinos at length, including prisoners of war. Yes, he gives disgusting details of how our napalm drops on Japanese cities destroyed civilians indiscriminately. But he is not making up those facts. And to emphasize how easily combat and its stresses can make soldiers willing to do horrible deeds is not exactly the same thing as excusing the acts. I have read my share of WW II books, as I near 60 years of age, and "Flyboys" is the first one which sensibly explains how the Japanese fighter rationalized not only his willingness to die in already-lost battles, but his contempt for those from other cultures who chose to be prisoners of war instead. To explain the Japanese viewpoint, again, is not to excuse the acts. Nor is it unpatriotic."Flyboys" describes disgusting acts of brutality and cannibalism, and is ultimately a very sad tale. It is not a work that should be tackled by readers who are emotionally fragile. As most people reading this review will already know, Mr. Bradley's dad was one of the Iwo Jima flag-raisers, wounded physically by Japanese soldiers in that fight, and wounded in some ways psychologically by the whole of his wartime service. The fact that his son went off to study in Japan, and developed much respect for the residents there, must have been painful and puzzling for the father. But I don't think any intelligent reader of Bradley's earlier book, "Flags of Our Fathers" or of "Flyboys" can question the younger Bradley's respect for our troops or our country. One of our strengths as a representative democracy is that we can love our nation for having humane ideals even if we are imperfect in living up to them every minute. And we can learn from injustices committed in our names by our government or military agents, and change our ways. I stuck with "Flyboys" right to the end, flaws and all, and I'm glad I did. It gets more powerful as it goes on, and it does finish the story of the eight Chichi Jima American POW's as much as it could be completed, so long after their 1945 deaths. We live in a time when we may be facing 30 years or more of sporadic war with terrorists and the countries which fund and hide them. To read a book which makes war and its (initially) unintended horrors seem like a step to be accepted only with the greatest caution is not a bad thing right now. While Mr. Bradley is not the smoothest historian/writer on the block, he shows promise. In some ways this book is better than "Flags of Our Fathers" despite its problems of style, language and organization. For sure, it is more important than the previous book, because the Iwo Jima battle story had already been well-covered in earlier works. Former President George Bush came close to being a prisoner on Chichi Jima, and plays a small part in this book. If he cooperated, and if he thinks Jim Bradley has done a service to the country with his research into the horrors of war in the Pacific from both sides, I won't argue with him. He was there, I was not. I'm glad I read "Flyboys" but unlike "Flags of Our Fathers" which I've read three times since it was first published, I won't be reading it twice. Its medicine is too strong for a second dose.
Rating:
Summary: The Sophmore Jinx
Review: I won't write a long essay like a lot of the previous reviewers....suffice it to say I really enjoyed Flags of our Fathers (I would have rated that a 5 out of 5) and was looking forward to another wonderful book when I opened Flyboys. Very disappointing.... Both sides were guilty of some pretty horrible atrocities during this war - however, I got tired of the repetition of hearing the same stories in graphic detail over and over and over again.
Rating: 
Summary: Is the author an apologist?
Review: The author is the son of a flag-raiser on Iwo Jima who returns to the scene of his medic father's enshrinement in photographic immortality to seek "the truth".
What he discovers is that the Japanese were cannibals, eating the livers and other bodily parts of their captured POWs. However, he is able to forgive this as a part of the "fog of war", citing the U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities as equally barbaric. The author even makes friends with an Imperial Japanese Army veteran who beheaded a downed American flyer. This fellow, a Mr. Watanabe, was an American citizen (!) who returned to Japan just prior to the outbreak of the war and served as an interpreter and signal corps member of the IJA.
The author's (and Watanabe's) big break comes when former President G.W. Bush, peripherally featured in the book, learns of the author's effort
to discover the fate of the lost flyers and decides to visit him on Chichi Jima to see if he can put his own ghosts to rest finally (Mr. Bush it seems still suffers 'survivor's guilt' about his narrow escape off Chichi after his Avenger was shot down).
Anyway, the President meets Watanabe near the spot where the latter was standing when he watched Mr. Bush crash and then get rescued by a U.S. submarine standing by for just such a mission. Watanabe tells the President that the Japanese soldier standing next to him at that moment had commented that the "Americans must care a great deal about their pilots to use a submarine to rescue them". Darn right!
Mr. Bush may of course forgive his former enemies, but it would seem foolish for anyone to forget the lesson: The Japanese sowed the whirlwind; we were not responsible for the harvest they reaped.
Rating:
Summary: Fair and balanced...
Review: It's odd to see all these reviewers who think that Bradley is biased against the US. He simply tries to put it all in context and give a broad view (too broad maybe, for the story being told). I guess for these folks it is only 'fair and balanced' if they hear it on that paragon of objectivity, Fox News. How strange to see this as anti-American or pro Japanese. It's a great read.
Rating:
Summary: A great story horribly told
Review: Let me start off by saying, that I chose to give this book 2-stars strictly because I was unable and unwilling to finish it. If it had continued on the track it was on at page 100, it was deserving of one star or possibly even less. Flyboys is proof that a good author can make a story great, but a bad author can ruin a story. The latter is the case in Flyboys. To the naked eye, based on the cover and hype, Flyboys is the story of American flyers and their capture over the Pacific island of Chichi Jima. However, the first 100 pages of this book spends precious little time discussing the flyers. In fact, by page 100, all you know is the names and hometowns of a few flyers. Instead the author chooses to discuss irrelavent historical events in Japanese history and events not directly related to the Flyboys in American history. He gives the appearance, at least in my opinion, that he was unable to write an entire book about the Flyboys and needed to throw in "filler" at the beginning in order to complete the book. Along with the irrelavent historical events at the beginning of the book, the author spends several pages lecturing the reader on the atrocities of the American military and government including the horrible atrocities committed against Native Americans in the United States. Lord knows I am ashamed of some of the events in US history, as I'm sure many of you are. However, there is a place in our history books, or in books unrelated to the Flyboys for discussion of such atrocities. In conclusion, I would like to state how dissapointed I am with this book(in case it wasn't already made clear). I'm fascinated with WWII events and the myriad of emotions each side suffers throughout the war. The story of the Flyboys certainly falls in this category, as it shows another side of war, where heroes are in fact enemies to others and aren't always treated as kindly as we believe they should be. As hard as I pushed, I could not convince myself that it was important to finish this book and learn the story of the Flyboys. To be blunt, this is probably one of the 10 most poorly written books I have ever read and that's saying alot when considering the myriad of books I have read in my short life. If WWII history and truths is something you are seeking, it's a good idea to look elsewhere and unfortunately leave the story of the Flyboys untold.
Rating: 
Summary: Wrong Book.
Review: I really wanted to like this book. If you read the cover, it's about a riveting tale of missing WWII aviators and the shroud of secrecy that surround their disappearance and subsequent execution. Sounds intriguing right? Well, it did to me. There is one problem; this is NOT what this book is about. The title of the book should be "Why Japan hates the United States" or "Why Japan Started the Rape of Nanking and why it is the fault of the U.S.". I'm not kidding. This book has little to do with the story it claims to portray. The author starts with what looks like a well-rooted historical background to the story - and does a pretty good job. Except he doesn't stop. What starts as a historical background quickly turns into a ranting manifesto. You can feel the tone of the book go from a carefully worded, creditable historical account, to a free-for-all stream of consciences. In the first two-hundred (yes 200) pages, there are only vague references to the 'flyboys' that this story is supposed to be all about. This book is well written, but seriously mis-titled. If it was called "The Lasting Effects of Western Imperialism". I would give it four starts. But it's not that book.
Rating:
Summary: Hypocrits
Review: This is just another book that americans like to brag about how their "brave" grandfathers were treated poorly by japanese soilders in WW2. Get over it, people. If it wasn't for the jewish men's atom bomb, i'm sure americans lost the war in south pacific, just like they did in vietnam. Btw, What about the Americans dropping two A-bombs and nearly wiped out innocent population in japan? What about all the american G.I's and civilian crimes against native folks in Japan, Korea and south east asian countries that never get reported in major american media? How come there isn't a single book about ugly americans living in oversea?
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