Race of Aces

October 15, 2019
The air war in the Pacific takes a competitive turn in this overstuffed tale. It was a stroke of genius on the part of George Kenney, a general in the U.S. Army Air Forces, when, in the early days of World War II, he orchestrated a visit from Eddie Rickenbacker, the great ace from the previous global conflict, and set up a contest that would award the first pilot to match Rickenbacker's kill count of 26 enemy planes with a bottle of bourbon. The pilots under Kenney's command, as Bruning (Indestructible: One Man's Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII, 2016) writes in an overlong but generally satisfying account, immediately got to work, hopping from island to island under intense enemy fire for the next three years, taking tremendous losses. At the same time, Kenney saw put into service the faster, more maneuverable Lockheed P-38 Lightning combat plane. A raid on a Japanese airfield in the Aleutians proved the worth of the P-38 combined with the earlier P-39 Airacobra fighter and B-24 bomber. In time, several pilots, including Richard Bong and Gerald Johnson, had kill counts in the two dozen range, and the race was really on. This led some to take major risks, as when a pilot named Tom Lynch violated the rule "never to make a second strafing run over the same target" and was blown out of the sky over New Guinea. A surprising moment comes near the end of the war, and the narrative, when Charles Lindbergh travels to the theater and flies with the aces even though, as a civilian, he risks being summarily executed if captured. The war had become so savage that neither side was offering any quarter, but Lindbergh "had little interest in Japanese atrocities" but instead "heaped scorn and moral outrage on his fellow Americans." A sad coda comes when two aces who survived the war died soon after in aviation accidents. Combat aviation buffs will enjoy Bruning's explorations of a little-known history.

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November 11, 2019
Military historian Bruning (Indestructible) delivers a wide-angled view of the careers of America’s top WWII fighter pilots in this encyclopedic work. Stemming from Gen. George Kenney’s challenge to his Fifth Air Force fliers to break WWI ace Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker’s record of 26 kills, the race to become “America’s ace of aces” included, among others, Lt. Col. Gerald Johnson, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross; Col. Neel Kearby, the first fighter pilot to win the Medal of Honor; and Maj. Richard Bong, who eventually claimed the title by downing 40 Japanese aircraft. Bruning recounts the drama from the front lines as well as the home front, noting that America’s top fighter pilots were major celebrities of their day; newspapers printed box scores keeping track of their tallies. Their families, however, paid a steep price—of the five fliers profiled, only one lived past 1945. General readers may find Bruning’s descriptions of dogfights too repetitive, and the minutia of wartime record keeping threatens to bury the action under facts and figures. Military aviation buffs, however, will relish the level of detail. Agent: Jim Hornfischer, Hornfischer Literary Management.

Starred review from January 1, 2020

Covering the rise of the Fifth Army Air Force, from low morale and unserviceable planes in New Guinea to the invasion of the Philippines and beyond, the race to become the greatest flying ace since World War I shows how every day, small-town Americans were molded into some of the greatest leaders and fighter pilots of the war. With deft, grit, and no shying away from the horrifying realities of war, Bruning (Indestructible) brings these heroes back to life, defining the struggles of morality, mortality, and glory that suffused their careers. On par with James Bradley's Flyboys, and rich with historical information, Race of Aces reads like a novel and features interactions with figures such as Eddie Rickenbacker and Charles Lindbergh. Bruning's suspenseful storytelling utilizes personal interviews with U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) veterans, oral histories, archives, military history agencies, and letters/diaries written by the aces themselves to flesh out life in the Southwest Pacific and the fever pitch to both survive in theatre and become the best of the best. VERDICT Eloquent and finely researched, this book will appeal to amateur historians or anyone interested in the USAAF and World War II maneuvers in the South Pacific.--Elan Marae Birkeland, Okinawa, Japan

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