Devotion

August 3, 2015
Journalist Makos follows 2012’s A Higher Call with another true story of heroic actions by wartime pilots, told in a flamboyant and slightly overwrought style. This time the conflict is the Korean War and Makos’s tale centers on the first African-American U.S. Navy carrier pilot, Jesse Brown, who died in action even though fellow pilot Tom Hudner, an upper-class son of a New England grocery store magnate, led selfless actions to try to save his life. “There has been no finer act of unselfish heroism in military history,” Hudner’s commanding officer later said of his courageous attempt to save Brown. The story is told mainly through the voices of the men who took part in the action; Makos and his staff conducted many interviews to use as sources. The overabundant use of reconstructed dialogue—some of which barely rings true—gives the book the feel of an adventure novel. The entire package seems to be an attempt to tell a screenplay-ready, Greatest Generation tale similar to Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken. Makos tells a good story, but it’s not at Hillenbrand’s level. Agent: David Vigliano, AGI-Vigliano Literary.

July 1, 2015
The story of a mission over North Korea in 1950 when, in an almost suicidally brave gesture, a Navy pilot tried to pull his friend from burning wreckage. Given the subjects-pilots Tom Hudner, white, and Jesse Brown, black-many authors would be tempted to write an inspiring story of racial tolerance, the brotherhood of warriors, and patriotic sacrifice. Journalist Makos (co-author: A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II, 2012) yields to that temptation, resulting in worshipful biographies of two men who overcame adversity to achieve their dreams as Navy pilots, bonded despite vastly different backgrounds, and risked their lives for freedom. The book, writes the author, is "an inspirational story of an unlikely friendship. It's the tale of a white pilot from the country clubs of New England and a black pilot from a southern sharecropper's shack forming a deep friendship in an era of racial hatred." Brown died in his plane, and the author's interviews with those who knew him turn up only good things. He endured humiliating racial persecution but excelled at school, worked his way through college, enlisted in the Navy, and became the first black carrier pilot. Raised in a prosperous Massachusetts family, Hudner had an easier time achieving his dream, but Makos' portrait of him is equally admiring. Their final flight took place to support Marines trapped around the frozen Chosin Reservoir, and Makos detours regularly for shorter biographies of several who fought and suffered on the ground. For more than half the book, the author describes peacetime service of a naval band of brothers: training, camaraderie, horseplay, etc. There follows the stories of two months of ground-attack missions culminating in the action that won Hudner the Medal of Honor. An account of a genuinely inspiring deed written as a breathless docudrama.

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June 15, 2015

Tom Hudner was an F4U Corsair pilot during the Korean War who risked his life in an attempt to save another. Jesse Brown was the Navy's first African American pilot. While undoubtedly the book's main subjects, Hudner and Brown are representative of several pilots who served in that war, many of whom are mentioned in the text. Makos's (A Higher Call) novelistic latest is about more than Brown's legacy and Hudner's actions. The author discusses pilot training and preparation for the war, as well as personal aspects of pilots' lives. Included are tales of marines who served on the ground in Korea, and who therefore benefited from the actions of close-support fighters such as Corsairs and Skyraiders. Makos provides a visualization of combat both in the air and on the ground, tapping into the psyches of marines and pilots engaged in battle. VERDICT Based on interviews with many of the volume's characters in addition to official documents and reports, this account should appeal to general readers interested in the Korean War, military history, and the transcendence of race issues in the 1950s.--Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven

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