Flyboys by James Bradley

Fly­boys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley is a non-fiction book about pilots in World War II. Mr. Bradley wrote sev­eral World War II books, the most famous is Flags of Our Fathers.

Fly­boys is an inter­est­ing book about a group of young men who had no idea what they were get­ting them­selves into. They were brave men who watched their friends die and still flew day in and day out.

I espe­cially liked the begin­ning of the book where Mr. Bradley talks about the his­tory of Japan, explain­ing how it came to invade other coun­tries and their feu­dal­is­tic cul­ture. The lat­ter came into impor­tance in the Japan­ese Army which made it impos­si­ble for sol­diers to refuse even the most inhu­mane orders.

Mr. Bradley chose a strange way to tell this story. The author jumps around a lot between his­tory, per­sonal sto­ries and time­lines and it’s dif­fi­cult, at some points, to keep track or coherence.

While there are some other issues with this book, it is a solid trib­ute to the brave Fly­boys in WWII. I would love to read his full inter­view with George H. W. Bush, who came across as gen­uine, tal­ented and modest.

Article first published as  Book Review: Flyboys by James Bradley