Flyboys
James Bradley

review by: Mike Spinney
Date: 9/15/03

Bradley’s back with another tale of WWII Pacific Theater Operations courage.

This time, the setting is Chichi Jima, near forgotten island stronghold and site of a Japanese communications relay station, and the target of intense bombing by American “flyboys.” Hence the title of his new book, Flyboys, due for release this month by Little, Brown and Company.

When I learned of Flyboys, I was eager to get my hands on the book. Bradley’s Flags of Our Fathers affected me powerfully, and I hoped for more of the same first-hand recounting of bravery in defense of freedom.

Flyboys is billed as the true story of what happened to nine U.S. aviators shot down during raids on Chichi Jima, eight of whom were brutally slain by their captors for gruesome reason. The ninth, a young Navy pilot survived to become president.

Flyboys, in spite of its ambitious purpose, fails to live up to its billing as a follow-on to its predecessor. Whereas Flags of Our Fathers benefits from numerous and detailed firsthand accounts of the bloody battle that raged for the capture of Iwo Jima, Flyboys relies on recently declassified transcripts and second- and third-hand accounts of what the slain aviators endured.

The book also loses focus from the outset when Bradley attempts to offer what seems an apologist’s explanation for Japanese brutality during World War II. The reader must first abide a history lesson that reaches back to Commodore Perry’s famous diplomatic voyage to Japan in the 19th Century before the aviators’ stories are told. Even then, the subjects fail to achieve the same level of realness, even when described as heroes under harrowing circumstances.

Keeping its shortcomings in mind, when the last page is turned, Flyboys is a worthwhile read. There are incomprehensible nuggets that should serve to remind us all that war is, indeed, hell and that nothing is truly beyond mankind’s cruel capacity. In this way, Bradley vividly illustrates that unspeakable malice lurks in the darkest recesses of the deluded mind. In the context of our current foreign expeditions, this is a lesson that must not be forgotten.