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Summary
"While the jet-jockey competitiveness, the undercurrent of fear, the victories and foul-ups of jet sweeps have been described many times, few such chronicles have done it so grippingly and with such a ring of accuracy. Mr. Grant explores the emotions felt not only by the men in battle but by the wives and others left behind, and the questions the war raised in their minds. To put in larger context the war's impact on individual participants, the author periodically reviews the high-level struggles over how to fight the air war.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
As a Time correspondent, Grant (Survivors frequently visited the fighter pilots who flew missions over North Vietnam from the carrier Oriskany, and interviewed many of them anew after the war. The material he collected, combined with diligent research and considerable journalistic talent, comprises a first-class account of an important aspect of the war that has not received major attention. The pilots are portrayed in a dimensional way rarely found in war literature, and Grant conveys vividly what it was like to live through intense anti-aircraft fire, dogfights with MIGs, downing and rescue (as well as downing and capture) and psychic burnout. This is more than an air-combat book, however: the author follows the course of disagreements between the high command and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara over the usefulness of the air war, the reaction of the pilots to charges of bombing civilian areas, the struggle of a pilot's widow to confirm that he has been killed and then to reconcile herself to his death. First serial to Vietnam Veterans of America; Military Book Club dual main selection. (October 27) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A first-rate, readable history of the air war over North Vietnam. Grant puts living flesh on historical bones through exceptionally candid interviews with the pilots who flew through heavy antiaircraft fire--and their terrible, sometimes debilitating fear. Covered are three subjects: the air war as a political tool, seen through the debates among high officials in Washington; the nuts and bolts of mounting intense air strikes, seen through the difficulties of operating the carrier Oriskany; finally, the fliers' accounts of their personal lives and their fears of capture or death. As a correspondent in Vietnam, Grant visited the Oriskany several times and gained the confidence of the pilots. In his research, he traced many of them to civilian retirement, and used his wartime notes to refresh their dimming memories of specific incidents and gained from them new perspectives on the meaning of those incidents. The detailed descriptions of the unbelievable physical force and the danger of aircraft and pilot launching from a carrier are finely wrought, some of the best such depictions to be found anywhere. Grant's evocation of the terrors involved in trying to land on the heaving deck of a carrier at night is gripping. The interviews are poignant as the pilots describe their family problems, their sexual exploits while on leave, their desperate drinking bouts, their relationships with each other, Navy politics and the technicalities of how they carried out their missions. The book includes some surprising statistics on the skill of the enemy pilots, who shot down an unexpected number of US planes. There are affecting reports, too, on what it meant to be a prisoner in Hanoi. History as it should be: well-rounded, human, understandable, exciting and moving. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
An experienced journalist has produced a book that should rank high in both naval aviation and Vietnam War collections. It is a portrait of navy fighter squadron 162, which flew off the carrier Oriskany from 1966 through 1972, its men, and the dangers they faced from enemy action, strategic misdirection, and simple human weakness. The portraits of those pilots who didn't fit into the hard-fighting, hard-drinking macho mold are particularly memorable, as is the balanced discussion of the actual total of civilian casualties caused by U.S. bombing in North Vietnam. With the current interest in naval aviation running high (e.g., the success of the film Top Gun), this timely book should find readers in most collections. To be indexed. RG. 959.704'3 Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975
Library Journal Review
In this sympathetic and penetrating history the pilots of a fighter squadron aboard the U.S.S. Oriskany battle the internal politics of their unit, their own doubts about the Vietnam War, and fears for their safety, while acting like fighter jocks, all bravado and hard living. Laced through this diverse, personality-filled work are the words of wives and many of the pilots themselves and the author's telling assessment of the bombing policy, which was tentative and ineffective despite the courage and skill of the men who carried it out. The action begins in July 1966 and ends as a final run is cancelled due to bad weather in 1972. This is a valuable examination of the Navy's bombing of the North, with less emphasis on hardware than a pilot might wish, but biting and insightful. A gem. Mel D. Lane, Sacramento, Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.