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Rating: 
Summary: Brave pilots fighting at terrible odds.
Review: For those that study the early months of America's entry into WWII, the disaster at Clark field resonates like Pearl Harbor. The story of the fighter pilots based in the Philippines is one of bravery and honor, but against a relentless enemy, their doom was sealed.Bartsch has written an excellent history covering the not so popular topics of disaster and defeat. However, it is the individual human story that shines through the flames and smoke that choked America in the early days of 1942.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor research
Review: I was very distressed at the implications and conclusions drawn at many places in this book. Parts of the book are directly contradicted by accounts of participants such as Allison Ind or by Walter D. Edmonds, who conducted interviews thirty years closer to the event. Unfortunately at certain points, Bartsch denigrates or ignores important sources of information and the reader is unable to tell that he has done this. I am concerned that students and the public are reading this book and accepting it as absolute truth.
Rating:
Summary: Poor research
Review: This book is one you will not want to put down. The situation faced by the pursuit pilots, their equipment, and ground crews points out dramatically how the U.S. was unprepared for WWII. Incredible reported incidences of P-40 pilots bailing out of their aircraft prior to combat so they would not have to go against the Zero and training tables for the pilots so they could eat horded food to have enough energy to fly are included. This book describes in detail the everyday occurrence of heroism in the worst of circumstances. Many of the descriptions come from interviewing people who were there. While digesting these amazing stories, you are constantly aware that, for most of the participants, the best they can hope for is surviving the rest of the war in a Japanese prison camp. The contrast between the situation in the Phillipines and P-40 tactics in China are analyzed at the end. I am reading this book again and including the footnotes at the back in the next reading. Steven Spielberg, this is your next movie!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This book really touched me and it answered a lot of question running in my mind ever since I was a small boy. The booked mesmerized me so much that I picked up an old P-40B model in my model stacks and started making a replica of Joe Moore's No. 41 P-40B, then later named "P-40 Something". It is my mission to revisit the airfields at Clark, Iba, the Bataan fields, Lahug, and the rest. When I was reading this work of art by Bartsch, I can feel as if I was there to witness it on hand because of my familiarity with the places mentioned. Mr. Bartsch, if you happen to read this review, I would appreciate if you can get in touch with me in my e-mail. I would like to congratulate you (eventhough through an electronic handshake via e-mail) for making the world aware that there were a bunch of heroes fighting and doing their darn best with only little of what they had for my country during the early days of the war.
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