Glen Edwards: The Diary of a Bomber Pilot

(Daniel Ford)

"Ford ... is blessed with a splendid writing style and understands the modern Air Force. Reading his book is a real treat."

Glen Edwards: The Diary of a Bomber Pilot

The book is a hardcover, published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 1998 and containing 195 pages plus 12 pages of photographs, with notes,glossary, and an index. The story is mostly told in Glen Edwards's own words, taken from the diary he kept from the first day as an aviation cadet to the day before he died in the fiery crash of the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing bomber. The co-author introduces Edwards, bridges the gaps in the diary, and explains the virtues and the drawbacks of the planes Edwards is flying, whether as a bomber pilot in the North Africa desert or as an Air Force test pilot at Wright Field and Muroc--now known as Edwards Air Force Base.

• "Ford, an Army veteran, has a long, impressive record as a novelist and editor. He is blessed with a splendid writing style and understands the modern Air Force. Reading his book is a real treat." -- Military Review, Nov-Dec 1999

• "A fascinating tale and a tribute to an unassuming man who simply loved to fly." -- Air&Space/Smithsonian, June 1999 (Click here for the review in full)

• "The author did an excellent job.... For those who are looking for information on YB-49/B-35 the answers may be found in this book." -- American Aviation Historical Society Newsletter, 4th Quarter 1999

• "Highly recommended" -- Today's Librarian, February 1999

• "A most interesting personal account of a great American who survived the war, but died as a test pilot." -- Weekend, January 14-17, 1999

• "The fascinating diary of the WWII bomber and postwar test pilot.... Edwards's own words are skillfully interwoven with Ford's, offering a richly detailed account of postwar aviation--and the infant years of the military-industrial complex." -- Kirkus Reviews, Oct. 1, 1998

The author

As a novelist, Dan Ford is best known for Incident at Muc Wa and the acclaimed Vietnam film Go Tell the Spartans that was based on it. This and two other novels were published by Doubleday & Co. and are still in print. As a military historian, Ford won the 1992 Award of Excellence from the Aviation-Space Writers Association for Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group, published by Smithsonian Institution Press--and soon to be issued in a revised and updated edition from HarperCollins. "War history as it should be written!" exclaimed the reviewer for the Naval aviation journal The Hook.