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Military + aviation book reviews

Some of these book reviews first appeared in Air & Space / Smithsonian magazine, the Wall Street Journal, or another publication. Others were written for this website, and a few are just my rough notes. Each book is for sale somewhere (please let me know if that's not the case) and each review is linked to the book at Amazon.com or elsewhere. -- Dan Ford

Flying Tigers
Japan at War, 1931-1945
The Allies fight back, 1941-1945
The war in Europe, 1939-1945
World War One
Vietnam
Taildraggers
The war on terror
Other good stuff

Flying Tigers

• Tex Hill: Flying Tiger (Tex Hill & Reagan Schaupp)
• AVG Colours & Markings (Terrill Clements)
• Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the AVG (Daniel Ford)
• Remains (a novel of the Flying Tigers) (Daniel Ford)
• Tale of a Tiger (R.T. Smith)
• A Pictorial History of the Flying Tigers (Larry Pistole)
• P-40 Warhawk Aces of the CBI (Carl Molesworth)
• The Lady and the Tigers (Greenlaw & Ford)
• China Pilot: Flying For Chennault in the Cold War (Felix Smith)
• Destiny: A Flying Tiger's Rendezvous With Fate (Erik Shilling)
• Last Hope: The Blood Chit Story (R.E. Baldwin & Thomas McGarry)
• New: P-40 Warhawk vs. Ki-43 Oscar (Carl Molesworth)

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Japan at war, 1931-1945

• Crysthanthemum and Sword: Japanese Culture (Ruth Benedict)
• Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (Herbert Bix)
• The Yamato Dynasty: The Secret History (Sterling Seagrave)
• The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust (Iris Chang)
• Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing (Fei Fei Li et al)
• Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939 (Alvin Coox)
• Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, Technology (Evans & Peattie)
• Sunburst: Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power (Mark Peattie)
• JAAF Fighter Units & Their Aces (Izawa, Hata, Shores)
• Japanese Army Air Force Aces 1937-45 (Henry Sakaida)
• The Rising Sun in the Pacific (Samuel Eliot Morison)
• The Pacific War, 1931-1945: A Critical Perspective on Japan's Role in World War II (Saburo Ienaga)
• Imperial Screen: Film Culture in the 15 Years War (Peter High)
• Kempeitai: Japan's Military Police (Ramond Lamont-Brown)
• Prisoners of the Japanese (Gavan Daws)
• Death on the Hellships: Prisoners at Sea (Gregory Michno)
• Sex slaves for the Emperor: Japan's "Comfort Women"
• Samurai! (Saburo Sakai et al)
• Downfall: End of the Japanese Empire (Richard Frank)
• Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods (Axell & Kaze)
• Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, Nationalisms (Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney)
• Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII (John Dower)

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The Allies fight back, 1941-1945

• Buffaloes Over Singapore (Brian Cull et al)
• Defeat Into Victory (Field Marshal Sir William Slim)
• The Bravest Man: U.S. Submariners in the Pacific War
• Black Sheep One: Gregory "Pappy" Boyington (Bruce Gamble)
• Magnificent Fight: The Battle for Wake Island (Robert Cressman)
• Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal (Max Brand)
• The Black Sheep: VMF 214 in World War II (Bruce Gamble)
• Building the B-29 (Jacob Vander Meulen)
• Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers over Japan (Kenneth Werrell)
• Breaking the Emperor's Codes (Michael Smith)
• Flyboys: a flawed account of an atrocity
• Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Richard Frank)
• Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy (Kai Bird et al)

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The war in Europe, 1939-1945

• Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West (Frieser)
• Forgotten Air Force: French Air Doctrine 1930s (Caine)
• Reach for the Sky: The Story of Douglas Bader, Legless Ace of the Battle of Britain (Brickhill)
• Bomber Pilot: A Memoir of World War II (Ardery)
• Lentolaivue 24 (Stenman & Keskinen)
• Luftwaffe War Diaries: German Air Force in WWII (Bekker)
• The Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality (Overy)
• The Day We Bombed Switzerland (Granholm)
• The Wild Blue (Ambrose)
• Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing (Biddle)

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World War One

• Winged Victory (Victor Yeates)
• Horses Don't Fly (Frederick Libby)
• Falcons of France (Charles Nordhoff & James Hall)

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Vietnam

• The Father of All Things (Bissell)
• Bury Us Upside Down (Newman & Shepperd)
• No Man's Land (Huong)
• "Unquiet Americans (Nam-a-Rama and Fatal Crossroads)
• Stolen Valor (Burkett & Whitley)
• They Marched into Sunlight (Maraniss)
• Green Berets in the Vanguard, 1953-1963 (Chalmers Archer)
• Only War We've Got: Early Days in South Vietnam (Ford)
• Incident at Muc Wa (Ford)
• War Story (Jim Morris)
• The Village (Bing West)
• When Thunder Rolled: F-105 Pilot over North Vietnam (Rasimus)

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Taildraggers

• Flight of Passage: A Memoir (Rinker Buck)
• Janey: A Little Plane in a Big War (Alfred Schultz)
• Low and Slow: a Liaison Pilot in World War II (Don Moore)
• The Compleat Taildragger Pilot (Harvey Plourde)
• Guide to Bush Flying (F. E. Potts)

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The war on terror

• Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (Robert Kaplan)
• The Iraq War and Dark Victory (John Keegan, Jeffrey Record)
• The March Up: 1st Marine Division to Baghdad (West & Smith)
• El Dorado Canyon: Reagan's War on Qaddagi (Joseph Stanik)
• The New Face of War (Bruce Berkowitz)
• Terrorism, Afghanistan, & America's New Way of War (Friedman)

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Other good stuff

• Twilight Warriors: Covert Air Operations Against the USSR (Curtis Peebles)
• Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun (Bob Ward)
• American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe's Secrets (Wolfgang Samuels)
• Howard Hughes, Aviator (George Marrett)
• The Warthog and the CAS Debate (Campbell)
• "Perils of Captivity" (The Last Escape, They Can't Take That Away From Me, & Shot from the Sky)
• Adak: The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586 (Andrew Jampoler)
• North Star Over My Shoulder: A Flying Life (Bob Buck)
• A Century of Triumph: The History of Aviation (Christopher Chant)
• Guts & Glory: American Military Image in Film (Lawrence Suid)
• Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Air Power (Dik Daso)
• American & British Aircraft Carrier Development, 1919-1941 (Thomas Hone et al)
• America's Pursuit of Precision Bombing (McFarland)
• Warbirds: An Illustrated Guide to U.S. Military Aircraft, 1915-2000 (John C. Fredriksen)
• The Horten Brothers and Their All-Wing Aircraft (David Myhra)
• Horten Ho-229 Retrospective & Technical History (David Myhra)
• America's Hundred Thousand: The US Production Fighter Aircraft of World War II (Francis Dean)
• Dark Sky, Black Sea: Aircraft Carrier Night and All-Weather Operations (Charles Brown)
• Aces High: A Tribute to the Most Notable Fighter Pilots of British & Commonwealth Forces in WWII (Shores et al)
• Glen Edwards: The Diary of a Bomber Pilot (Daniel Ford)
• Rounding the Horn (Dallas Murphy)
• Young Men and Fire (Norman Maclean)

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Good stuff to own: Sam Lyons aviation prints | Warbird's Bookshelf
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