Being there . . . . for the beginning of one of the most complex wars in not only Americanhistory but world history as well – – the Pacific War. Hideki Tojo (1885 – 1948), Minister of War,then dictator of Japan, and his entire military establishment, referred to it as the Great EastAsia War. Whatever it was called, it commingled vast land and naval campaigns. More Japaneseand Allied warships were sunk than in all other 20 th -century naval wars combined. The PacificWar was so immense that laterally it sprawled from Java in the Netherlands East Indies to thecoast of Santa Barbara, California, where a Japanese submarine surfaced to blast several oil rigsadjacent Highway 1, and, much later, high-flying Tokyo-based arson bomb-carrying balloonswere launched to set Oregon-Washington forests ablaze. Vertically, it reached from theAleutians to the usual dense fogged-in San Francisco, and, out in the central Pacific, to Fiji andNew Caledonia.Then, hop into a B-17 ball turret and fly along-side Staff Sergeant Charles M. Eyer for 59combat missions all over western Europe (of course, you would be informed that if you and theother USAF crewmen survived 10 missions, it would be a miracle). Hard to imagine, thefollowing two McFarland Publishing Company’s recently published World War II book wouldn’tbe most welcomed Christmas books for the knowledgeable buff’s growing WWII library shelf.TOO EARLY TO PURCHASE TWO McFARLAND & COMPANY WW II TITLES AS CHRISTMAS GIFTS?NOT THIS YEAR, WITH THE UNUSUAL HIGH SELECTIONS OF BRILLTANT TITLES FROM OTHERAMERICAN AND BRITISH PUBLISHERS, i.e., CASEMATE, PEN & SWORD, SCHIFFER, OSPREY, ANDNAVAL INSTITUTE, THEIR BEST PROMISED BOOKS TO ARRIVE BEFORE DECEMBER 1. SIMPLYREPRIORITYIZE YOUR BUDGET, GENEROUS GIFT-GIVER!Reviewed and highly recommended by Don DeNevi“THE EARLY AIR WAR IN THE PACIFIC – – Ten Months That Changed the Course of World War II”,by Ralph F. Wetterhahn. McFarland & Company, Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina: 2020,recently reprinted, 311 pages, 5 7/8” x 9 7/8”, illustrated with maps, $39.95. Visit,www.mcfarlandpub.com; or, email: customerser@mcfarlandpub.com.“B – 17 GUNNER – – Charles M. Eyer, Survivor of 59 Combat Missions and a Year in NaziCaptivity”, by Craig A. Kleinsmith. McFarland & Company, Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina:2020, recently reprinted, 219 pages, 5 ¾” x 9 ¾”, few illustrations with maps, $29.95. Visit,www.mcfarlandpub.com; or, email: customer@mcfarlandpub.com.“THE EARLY AIR WAR IN THE PACIFIC” presents us with a fresh analysis of aerial combatduring the early stages of World War II. Author Ralph F. Wetterhahn, a former USAF and USNfighter pilot who served three tours during the Vietnam War, traveled the world as an “aviationarchaeologist” seeking Second World War survivors and their, and anyone else’s, lost or shotdown aircraft. A well known writer for “Air & Space/Smithsonian”, his excellent narrative skill isapparent as he describes two of his most successful search discoveries, (1) the location of anAmerican pilot missing in the Philippines since 1942; and, (2) clearing up controversial accounts
by famed Japanese A-6M “Zero” ace Saburo Sakai and U.S. Navy pilot James “Pug” Southerland,
participants in an epic air battle over Guadalcanal where each wounded the other but survived.In short, this is one of the most captivating stories from that almost four-year war.“B- 17 GUNNER” details Staff Sergeant Charles Eyer’s service as a B-17 ball turret gunnerover Europe based upon a secret journal he kept as a prisoner of war. Eyer tells how he escapedfrom a burning B-17 deep inside Germany, was captured, then witnessed the horrors ofconfinement in a NAZI prisoner of war camp, only to wind up a survivor after an 80-day forcedmarch during the brutal winter of 1944-45. Enjoyable reading because of his open defiance of
his captors. In short, Charlie Eyer was a true American hero who refused to give in and quit.
