Warbird Information Exchange

I enjoy good wartime pilot narratives, like The Big Show or Thud Ridge. I'm missing the days when Bantam was churning them out in pocketbook format. Read any gems that may have slipped under my radar?

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What is red, furry and on your six?

In paperback, FIRST LIGHT by Geoffery Wellum, and GOING SOLO by Roal? Dahl. Both easy to read non technical and of war in a Spit and Hurri by a pilot who was not a big hero type, who saw it more as an average person with fears and doubts as well as pride.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Are there any oompa loompas in Dahl's book?

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What is red, furry and on your six?

I second 'First Light' excellent book.... of course if you want to read about modern war/fighter you should check out my book 'Pale Moon Rising' it's on Amazon... www.scottperdue.com shameless plug

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Scott 'Gunny' Perdue
www.scottperdue.com

I would suggest "An Ace Of The Eighth" by Norman "Bud" Fortier. Excellent account of the life of a WW2 Fighter pilot.
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

My favorite of that era was probably "Sea Flight" by Hugh Popham. He was a Sea Hurricane pilot with no kills, hardly ever fired a shot. So the book is about what rank-and-file airman life was really like, not some ace's endless "I shot this guy down, then I shot that guy down" which I find gets old fast. He was a good writer too.

August

I've just re-read "War in a Stringbag" by Commander Charles Lamb and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The US edition seems to be called "To War in a Stringbag" for some reason...

Loads here and a few glowing reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/War-Stringbag-Cha ... 0553136542

+1

I'm currently rereading "Bury Us Upside Down- The Misty Piots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail" by Rick Newman and Don Sheppard

Pretty interesting non-fiction of the history of the F-100 pilots at Phu Cat airbase, who flew top secret missions against the Ho Chi Minh Trail at low level, and often high cost... Never knew it before, but Dick Rutan was one of them! Really in depth look at an otherwise overlooked aspect of the air war in Viet Nam.

Also, Bob Hoover's "Forever Flying" is high on my reading list. I pick it up, I can't put it down.

"Ace of the Eighth" as mentioned above, also very good.

I have so many books, I never know which to read- and I can read as many as 2 a week!

Robbie

I just finished a great book from Batam House dated 1962, written by James Dugan and Carroll Stewart called "Ploesti". Excellent book, it has a lot of in the cockpit narrative and was one of the best books I have read on Tidal Wave & HalPro.

Herkeng

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“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.” - P.J. O’Rourke

Concur completely...an absolute classic.

I probably read that book 10 times cover-to-cover when I was a kid. It certainly redefined what true heroism was for me (at an impressionable age).

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Lions Rampant by Douglas McRoberts about 602Sqn and Hell on Earth by Mel Rolfe are two of my favorites. Wild Blue by Steven Ambrose is another good one. The Wellum and Dahl ones are also excellent.

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If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

Nanette by Edwards Park is a good story if you can find it.
Norm

I enjoyed "Angles of Attack: An A-6 Intruder Pilot's War" by Peter Hunt. Good telling of carrier life while flying with VA-145 off the USS Ranger in Desert Storm.

I just read Bedford Boys - an excellent read.