Rating: 
Summary: Ambrose has done it again
Review: Stephen Ambrose has shown a real talent for capturing the essence of a conflict through the actions of individuals. He shows this nicely in The Wild Blue. He chronicles bomber pilot George McGovern and crew not because they are the best or the bravest or because their missions were the most glamorous. Rather, he chose them because what they went through typified what thousands of others went through. Ambrose follows McGovern and his crewmates from their hometowns to training to Europe to the final mission.
Rating: 
Summary: Wunnerful wunnerful wunnerful
Review: Ambrose has done it again, bringing us along on the harrowing flights made by the now-aging heroes of all time. The fighting Allies who took it to the Axis bullies and showed the people of Europe who is Boss. My only criticism is that Mr. Ambrose didn't tell more stories about turning homes of the enemy into toothpicks.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed....
Review: Rather than what we expected, this book was too much about George McGovern and not as well written as Mr. Ambrose's previous efforts.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bit Off Target
Review: Knowing of Mr. Ambrose's reputation as an historian of the European ground war, I grabbed a copy of The Wild Blue off a display case with great anticipation. I'm sorry to report some disappointment. We get names and home towns of the B-24 crew members entering training, and we leapfrog around the country from base to base as training progresses. Mr. Ambrose says we graduated 300,000 gunners during the war, but we don't fire one gun during the training sequences, we don't jam all those throttles forward with a rookie B-24 pilot, we don't drop exhausted into a bunk at night after a day with maps and gauges and guns and cold and instructors and drill and sore muscles. We hop from Base A to B to C to Europe. We also come into the war rather late. We enter the war mid to late 1944, after long range fighter escorts have arrived, procedures established, German fighter strength sapped, and the tide turned. This doesn't diminish the accomplishments of those described in the book. Hard fighting and cruel losses remained to be endured, and it probably represents the majority of airmen who entered service after Pearl Harbor. Selecting the unsung Liberator and the 15th Air Force is rather nice. But know, also, that the war experiences of George McGovern are the narrative's central focus, although his career is worthy of the role. After a superficial summary of the air war up to this point, the new crews begin to arrive in the war zone. Until now (more than half way through the book), The Wild Blue is a two-star effort. But the story gets better when the action starts. Now we endure flak and cloud and close formations and live the events from several angles. There is even mention of the one topic air warfare narratives always avoid, the long hours of boredom between missions when weather grounds the aircraft for days at a time. However, the pace is overly fast and its not all there. But McGovern's last mission ends like a classic: a flack battered, war-weary Liberator on final approach, with no brakes or flaps, hydraulic fluid spewing in the wind, one engine smoking and feathered, a wounded crewman aboard, and a one-time do or die landing attempt that starts too high and too fast. The editors of this book know well a lesson any high school sophomore realizes, that if you make the print big and space the lines far apart, you can make it longer. Check out Gerald Astor's The Mighty Eighth for great oral aviation history or Brian O'Neill's Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer for a crew memoir. And next time, Mr. Ambrose, please get it right.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed history
Review: The Wild Blue is an exciting book covering an important aspect of the American air war. It is not, however, good history. Stephen Ambrose has focused on the personal wartime experienced of Lt. George McGovern a B-24 bomber pilot destined to become a U.S Senator and presidential candidate. In substance this is McGovern's personal memoir as transcribed by historian Ambrose. And, as with most memoirs, it lacks objectivity and accuracy. McGovern's description of the AAF flight training program- as with several other veterans interviewed- is simply not accurate. (This veteran entered the AAF progam the same month and place as McGovern though we never met). More significant, however,McGovern described to Ambrose an implausible tale about inadvertantly bombing an Austrian farmhouse, an event that troubled him for years. As he tells it, he "saw" the bomb hit the farmhouse from the cockpit of the B-24, a feat that- as one one ex-pilot put it- would have required him to fly inverted. This is not to suggest that WW II veterans lie, but simply to point out that the details of a half-century past can dim and, for some, what never was can become reality. Read and appreciate these true heroes of the air war but also apply a bit of skepticism.
Rating: 
Summary: My reasons for being a bit dissapointed
Review: I abandoned ship after 76 pages, the first 76 pages I read were all about dozens of crew members lives before they joined.
I wanted to read the story,... the meat,.. this was just fat,.. fill,.. All this served no purpose to me. I could have skipped the first 76 pages no problem.I will not remember all these individual mini bio's, dozens of
small stories
.
But,
I went back and traded the book for the "Band of Brothers"
which so far seems lots better
Rating:
Summary: Glad that Ambrose's Back at it!!
Review: Before reading this book I enjoyed Stephen Ambrose's personal style of writing and presenting history. A few years I was saddened when he said that he "wasn't going to study war no more" after the conclusion of Citizen Soldiers (I think he even gave away his entire military library to a University!). His return to presenting the exploits of the people that won our freedom in World War Two is appreciated. I find his books - collections of personal stories - to be much more real and less sterile than traditional history books. If you enjoy Ambrose's style from his other great books you won't be disappointed. The heroism and dedication of my grand father's generation shine's through.
Rating:
Summary: looks like a cut & paste job to me!
Review: I checked in here to see what others were saying about this book, which I bought the other day and am now reading. From all that I have heard of Ambrose (from my wife among others) he is supposed to be a splendid writer-historian in the mold of David McCullough. I am dismayed by what I have read so far. Ambrose clearly knows nothing about flying, and hard as it is to believe (for a man who's made his reputation with WWII books) he doesn't seem to know very much about the military either. There are spelling mistakes (he writes "peal" when he means "peel"). Some sentences are incomprehensible even after a second and third reading. He writes about living in barracks and living in tents as if they were the same thing. He says a guy learned to fly and soloed on an AT-10, which is an advanced, twin-engined transition trainer for pilots learning how to fly bombers. And so it goes! I keep hoping I will soon be caught up in a great war adventure, but so far I am reminded more of Martin Caidin Inc than David McCullough. If I change my mind, I'll report back and add some stars.
Rating:
Summary: Wild Blue,McGovern
Review: Very good account of the exploits and hardships of the 15th airforce in italy. It roams from the training of the pilots of the time to a biographical narrative of George McGovern. I voted for him and highly respected his WW II action. However, this book covers a bit too much of him, and could have stayed a bit more focused on the 15th airforce. I've read most of Ambrose's war material, and this book has similar appeal. But, it is no Band of Brothers nor D-Day. The part of the Tuskegee Airmen was toching but short lived. And it came "out of the blue".
Nevertheless, I'd reccommend it for all since, the 15th was rocked with thousands killed, wounded, and MIA. "It's still the same old story
The8th gets all the glory" could have been the Ambrose's main theme if he'd stayed with it.
Rating:
Summary: interesting but not scholarly assessment of the air war
Review: Dr. Ambrose's latest work is somewhat mistitled in that it, for the most part, focuses on the exploits of one B-24 crew, George McGovern's. Previous reviews have been, I feel, rather harsh for the book is readable and gives some fine insights. I suggest the book be read in conjunction with 2 excellent assessments of the air war: Michael Sherry's THE RISE OF AMERICAN AIRPOWER (cited in Ambrose's book) and a most recent addition, Robin Neillands's THE BOMBER WAR. Both of these volumes discuss, in a most scholarly fashion, the nature, strategy and even morality of the USAAF and RAF air war against Nazi Germany. When analyzed with THE WILD BLUE, these books present the reader with an overview of the air war that not only is enlightening in military terms but humanizes the war so as to make a lasting impression.
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