Name: Flyboys
ISBN: 0316159433

Bradley, James

a true story of courage

Flyboys

Jeni Enjaian

A review from my old blog...

When I started reading this book I thought that the Flyboys Bradley referred to were the Flyboys of WWI... like the movie. No, the Flyboys Bradley describes in this book are those of WWII.

Bradley begins the book with a brief overview of the history of the relationship between Japan and the United States. I treated the book with skepticism at the beginning wondering when Bradley would get around to talking about the Flyboys. I understood the background Bradley explained in his first book, Flags of Our Fathers. After all, he was talking about his father, along with several other men of course. The background Bradley gives his readers in this book while connected to the main story did seem somewhat extraneous though.

As I progressed through the book I became amazed with how objectively Bradley dealt with the facts of the war. He described the worst and the best of the Americans as well as the best and the worst of the Japanese. it's hard to hold sympathy with either side when both treat the others as if they weren't even human.

I am not an active anti-war campaigner but after reading about the atrocities of war committed by both sides I can easily see how a person can become such. So many people perished because of the egos and foolishness of a men.

I could hardly put the book down when it ended. Bradley spent many pages talking about the horrible deaths suffered by many of the Flyboys held as POWs by the Japanese after the fall of Iwo Jima. One compassionate Japanese officer when he learned that this Flyboy, Warren Earl, under his care had been ordered to be executed in such a brutal inhumane way, protected him as much as he could up until the moment of his death. Bradley alluded to something that this officer planned to do to remember this Flyboys memory but Bradley did not say then what it would be. Instead Bradley kept this precious bit of information until the very last sentences.

Bradley called this officer, Iwatake, first in his search for the Chichi Jima Flyboys. These are the words that Bradley heard. "Hello, this is Warren."

Gabriella Lanouette

Michael Cowell

James Bradley

Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. Flyboys, a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor, tells the story of those men. Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. One of those nine was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine. The others were captured by Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jima and held prisoner. Then they disappeared. When the war was over, the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. The records of a top-secret military tribunal were sealed, the lives of the eight Flyboys were erased, and the parents, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts they left behind were left to wonder. Flyboys reveals for the first time ever the extraordinary story of those men. Bradley's quest for the truth took him from dusty attics in American small towns, to untapped government archives containing classified documents, to the heart of Japan, and finally to Chichi Jima itself. What he discovered was a mystery that dated back far before World War II-back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's first confrontation with the western world. Bradley brings into vivid focus these brave young men who went to war for their country, and through their lives he also tells the larger story of two nations in a hellish war. With no easy moralizing, Bradley presents history in all its savage complexity, including the Japanese warrior mentality that fostered inhuman brutality and the U.S. military strategy that justified attacks on millions of civilians. And, after almost sixty years of mystery, Bradley finally reveals the fate of the eight American Flyboys, all of whom would ultimately face a moment and a decision that few of us can even imagine. Flyboys is a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor. It is about how we die, and how we live-including the tale of the Flyboy who escaped capture, a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush who would one day become president of the United States. A masterpiece of historical narrative, Flyboys will change forever our understanding of the Pacific war and the very things we fight for.

Flyboys a true story of courage

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