Rating: 
Summary: The Wild Blue REVUE
Review: I was very disappointed.
The book seemed to be a series of anecdotes not nicely linked, and the reading of it was choppy.
It also repeated a story, about the braking parachutes, like it hadn't been told before. It seemed like a bad continuity error.
I think the book was strung together quickly to take advantage of Stephen Ambrose's reputation. He is a much better writer than this book indicates.
I learned very little from reading this book, and had heard many of the little "stories" and jokes before, e.g., the B-24 that lowered its landing gear and then shot down the German planes escorting it to a landing field.
Very disappointing overall!
Rating: 
Summary: Ambrose Hits the Patriotism Target Again
Review: Stephen Ambrose, who has written many books about the war, has now covered the B-25 Liberator in _The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany_. Like some of his previous books, it is filled with wonder that regular American boys were able to get the job done: "From whence came such men?" This book (like Ambrose's _Citizen Soldiers_) answers the question, but doesn't diminish our sense of wonder. It is not really a history of the plane. Ambrose concentrates on one squadron flying out of Italy, and even more particularly on the plane of one pilot, George McGovern. There were those who loathed McGovern's anti-Vietnam War stance when he ran against Nixon in 1972. Some rabid right-wingers even circulated stories of his Army cowardice. Nothing could be further from the truth; McGovern was as tough as the plane he piloted."The B-24 was built like a 1930s Mack Truck," writes Ambrose. Over eighteen thousand of the planes were made, more than any other airplane ever built. It was designed simply to carry lots of heavy bombs a long distance and fast, and so it did, but there was little it offered in the way of subtlety or comfort to the crew. There was no power steering; the pilot came back from flying maybe ten hours with exhausted arms and legs from muscling the plane to behave. The seats were cramped and unpadded. There was no pressurization, so above 10,000 feet, the nine men in the crew had to wear oxygen masks. There was no heat, despite temperatures of 50 below zero at higher altitudes, and if the bomb bay doors were open, the wind cut throughout the plane. The crew had to plug their suits into electrical outlets for heating. Oxygen masks often froze to faces. There were urinals in the form of fore and aft relief tubes, but heavy layers of clothes made these hard to use without leakage, and the tubes often froze. Ambrose spends a third of the book detailing the training of the pilots and their crews to fly these primitive, effective machines, and then takes them to Europe. The crews were to fly thirty-five missions before being cycled back to the States. The odds were not good; the Fifteenth Air Force had 5,000 bombers and the Germans shot down almost half of them. The anecdotes he tells are vivid and exciting. Astonishingly, McGovern was twenty-two years old at the time, and some of his crew were teenagers. This is just the sort of tale Ambrose serves up well, that of hero worship for ordinary guys showing extraordinary heroism in an unambiguously patriotic effort against evil. When he writes, "Along with all the peoples of the Allied nations, they saved Western civilization," there is admiration, but no hyperbole. As the crews that fought the war are now leaving us, Ambrose has performed superb service in helping us acknowledge once again what we owe them. The B-24s have already left us. Of all the thousands manufactured, almost all were scrapped within a year after the war. Three are in museums, and one is still flying.
Rating: 
Summary: Ambrose, Inc. Strikes (OUT?) Again
Review: It is obvious that the business model for Ambrose,Inc. has reached a mature phase. This book would appear to be written by his researchers, with the blanks and style filled in by one of the Ambroses'(Father or Son?) There is very little detail, other than generalities,about training, promotions and and command structure of these units. No mention of the great aerial battles of the on-board gunners fighting off swarms of German fighters.There is minor discussion about the plight of thousands of Airman captured and held as POW's. Only several sentences covering the hundreds of crewman interned in Switzerland and Sweden for the duration and how so many ended up in those circumstances. Technical details such as modifications to B-24's as the war progressed are limited. Issues such as what was accomplished or not accomplished by the idea of "Strategic Bombing" are brushed over. The impact on all of these aircraft resources being tied up in an attempt by high level strategists to prove, whatever the cost, that the Air Forces could win the war alone. No analysis or discussion on the hypocritical stance of the senior generals efforts to push this concept in anticipation of the nature and impact on after the war budget considerations. Even after producing such a wonderful book as "D Day" there is no reference given to the failure of aerial bombing to reduce the defenses of the Atlantic Wall and its impact on the Allied Ground forces and the high casualty rate of the same in the invasion. This,despite large claims by the senior generals prior to the invasion, that where never fulfilled.
Ambrose could have used his lofty perch and current popularity to accomplish so much more. I guess success has breed a nonchalant attitude towards a detailed analysis and a fair report on all aspects of the Air battle over Europe that consumed so many lives and in which so many where missing and never to return.
Rating: 
Summary: The Wild Blue Yonder, Yonder, Yonder, Yonder, Yonder
Review: I am a big Ambrose fan, but this one isn't up to the level of his other WWII books. The problem is that the air war was simply not as fluid--as variable--a dimension as was the ground war. For example, enemy flak has little variability: it is a black puff and those puffs are either thin or concentrated, hit or miss. Enemy fighters approach from predictable clock positions, and they either score hits, miss, and/or are hit themselves. As horrible as the WWII aerial arena was, it was a relatively redundant phenomenon compared to the great variability experienced by the ground pounders. The redundancy in this book makes for a fairly weak read. I stress that my comments are literary in nature; it is not my intent to detract from the extraordinary service to freedom rendered by the USAAF (my Dad was in B-17s).
Rating:
Summary: a customer relations flop
Review: No, I haven't read this book, and here's why. Recently we received notice that Dr Ambrose would be in town to lecture about his book, and of course it's always good news to hear an author discuss his book and respond to questions. Upon reading the fine print, I found you had to buy his book (he would not sign it) before you could attend the lecture. By the way, audio books did not count. This is a kind of crass commercialism that I've always associated with politicians or basketball stars who are there to pad their wallets. That may be fine for those types of people, but I think we deserve better in the world of books and learning. Mr Ambrose has done very well for himself, thank you, and I think he should treat readers better. I would not buy his book on principle unless it is very, very, very good. Sorry, Mr Ambrose.
Rating:
Summary: Much to be desired...
Review: Considering that this is an Ambrose work, I was a little disappointed. It is a very short and quick read compared to some of his other works, and there's just not a lot to it. There are some good stories and a basic overview of the strategic bombing in Europe but I was hoping for more. It left much desired. Will suffice as a first look into the World War II bombing, but not any sort of reference work.
Rating:
Summary: Quick Read, Honest Perspective, McGovern Eye Opener
Review: I took The Wild Blue along on a recent trip -- and enjoyed it. It's quick reading -- primarily because of it being small snippets of stories strung together. Nothing very profound, lots of interesting little tales. It was quite interesting to learn more about George McGovern. The book is principally a chronicle of his involvement as a B-24 trainee and combat pilot. As Ambrose says at the beginning, I was completely unaware of McGovern being a pilot during the war from his presidential campaign in 1972! Scott Loftesness
Rating:
Summary: Heroes in the sky
Review: Stephen Ambrose is one of my favorite writers of history, and my definite favorite when it comes to World War II. In addition, I have a personal interest in this book, because my father-in-law was a navigator on a B-24, and was stationed in Cerignola at the same time as George McGovern and his crew. I asked my father-in-law if he knew McGovern, but he said that he didn't, even though they (sort of) shared a nickname: McGovern's was "Mac", and my father-in-law's was "Lucky Mack", since his last name was Makowski, and he always was able to bring his plane home safely. Like the other men who fought in that most terrible of wars, including my own father, he doesn't talk much about it, but he is intensely proud of his contribution to the war effort. After reading this book, and the description of the B-24 itself, I have a much more heightened sense of pride at what he, and those many others, were able to do. This is another book by Ambrose about the contributions of the "little men", the fighters in the lower officer ranks and the enlisted men, not the bigwigs and the headquarters types. These folks were the ones who took the awful risks, and whose courage and will to win ended the fascist tyrannies. We have much to thank them for, and these books go a long way to address that thanks. I'm happy these boks are coming out now, when we are losing these heroes at a fast rate. They are in their late 70s and older now, and there will come a day when they all will be gone. Thank them now for what they did for all of us, for a world in which we, and our children, are free of the long shadow of dictatorship and horror. Mere words are sometimes inadequate, but Ambrose finds them, and puts them between pages for all of us. Read the book, and admire, as I did, the courage of these boys (for boys they were) who made us all a better future.
Rating:
Summary: Stick With The Ground Pounders
Review: Considering how much I liked the works of Mr. Ambrose which dealt with the U.S. Army, I was greatly disappointed in this thin, disjointed journey into the realm of strategic bombing. The appalling accident rate during training is glossed over as only due to the rush to get crews into combat, rather than incompetence among members of the training establishment and problems with the aircraft. The fatal flaws designed and built in to the B-24 are not really examined much at all. A lot of people made a lot of money supplying this deeply deficient aircraft to the military and a lot of young boys died in them because of those deficiencies. The British Lancaster is the gold standard for WW2 bombers and the B-24 fares badly when compared to it. The B-17, despite it's small bomb load, was a much better aircraft than the B-24 and much more likely to get it's crew to target and home again safely.
But, the one thing that really irritates me about this book is when Ambrose speaks of British night bombing of German cities as 'terror bombing' and then goes on to say, "Neither (Hap) Arnold nor any other high-ranking member of the AAF was willing to adopt such a policy. They continued to insist on precision, ie, daylight, bombing." Perhaps it was some other AAF that burned Japanese cities to the ground by means of night firebomb attacks and then dispatched the only 2 remaining Japanese cities with Atomic bombs, the ultimate terror weapon. It was Curtis LeMay, transferred from the 8th Air Force in Europe, who masterminded the destruction of Japanese cities by the 20th Air Force. The American boys who flew B-29's against Japan didn't seem to have the moral problems about bombing civilians which McGovern and crew had. It's curious that with current resurgence of interest in WW2 and the resulting flood of books on the subject, that there is so little written about the activities of the men of the 20th Air Force. I hope someone will record their stories before they all pass on.
Anyone interested in the bombing of Germany will do much better to read, "The Fall of Fortresses" by Elmer Bendiner. This is still the best thing I've ever read about what it was like to be in a bomber over Germany. Also very good is, "The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission" by Martin Middlebrook, which is highly critical of the bizarre way in which targets were selected by the AAF and which thoroughly explores the flawed beliefs of the men who sent so many young flyers to their deaths. Anyone interested in the British side of the story, their training methods and aircraft, should read, "A Thousand Shall Fall" by Murray Peden, which follows a Canadian bomber pilot through training and then into the sky over Germany. Again many young men were sent to their deaths because of the flawed beliefs of the men at the top, and their fanatical belief in the omnipotence of the bomber. The infantryman just shakes his head and digs his foxhole a little deeper.
Rating:
Summary: A Lost Opportunity
Review: Ambrose's story is supposedly that of the B-24 pilots of WWII. Instead he follows a few of the crews, focusing in particular on George McGovern's - yes, he of 1972 presidential aspirations - experiences as a pilot. Much is lost by his interest in such a small segment of these fliers; by the time the story starts there was essentially no German fighter opposition to America's daylight raids. Though intense flak caused many losses, the book makes Germany seem like a sitting duck, a dead thing, wallowing without response under the constant bombing.
Much could have been gained. What a wonderful and fascinating juxtaposition: McGovern, the liberal anti-war candidate yet an acclaimed WWII hero. One who admits to causing at least some amount of collateral damage. I had hoped to read of McGovern's transformation, of what he took away from his war. Ambrose squanders this opportunity, instead writing a blatant paean to American military supremacy. It's easy to say that the story of McGovern's later politics isn't central to the B-24s. But by picking such an interesting and controversial character how could anyone ignore these more fascinating issues? Had another figure been chosen the book would still have bombed, killed by Ambrose's lazy writing and uninteresting style. "Wild Blue" has the feel of a rushed weekend project.
I'm sorry I spent the money on this turkey.
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