Flyboys: A True Story of American Courage

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Flyboys: A True Story of American Courage

by James Bradley

4.05 · rating details · 2,981 ratings · 434 reviews

FLYBOYS is the true story of young American airmen who were shot down over Chichi Jima. Eight of these young men were captured by Japanese troops and taken prisoner. Another was rescued by an American submarine and went on to become president. The reality of what happened to the eight prisoners has remained a secret for almost 60 years. After the war, the American and Japa...more

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Published November 24th 2009 by Hachette Audio (first published 2003)

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Jun 17, 2008

Luke rated it

· review of another edition

This book was a gift from my brother and I read it while laid up in bed with an injury.

First let me get my one minor complaint out of the way, as the book truly was exceptional. The author, James Bradley, could have spun a more cohesive storyline, but instead he prefered to jump somewhat willy-nilly between the past and present, and the here and there. I recall telling someone that I was reading this book when I was about halfway through it, and I was also going to tell them what it...moreThis book was a gift from my brother and I read it while laid up in bed with an injury.

First let me get my one minor complaint out of the way, as the book truly was exceptional. The author, James Bradley, could have spun a more cohesive storyline, but instead he prefered to jump somewhat willy-nilly between the past and present, and the here and there. I recall telling someone that I was reading this book when I was about halfway through it, and I was also going to tell them what it was about, but I stopped myself short because I wasn't quite sure yet. What was the story? He starts off with ancient history and moves from this and that and although we know generally that we are supposed to come to the fate of some American airmen, their stories are actually just one more piece in a jumbled collection of smaller stories.

However, this is a minor complaint indeed because each of these individual stories in the jumbled collection is so intriguing and spell-binding that the book is nearly impossible to put down. Indeed, the accounts of the individual "Flyboys" themselves paled somewhat in comparison to all the "sturm und drang" surrounding them.

Of particular interest was the history of Japanese-American political contact from Commodore Perry's visit in the 18th century to the start of the second World War. I never found this history taught to me as a child and it went a long way towards making Pearl Harbor a somewhat explicable occurance. As a child one gets the impression Japan just up and decided to bomb us one day for the fun of it, or rather, due to their evil-ness. But aside from the morality of the attack, I was fascinated with its genesis.

Speaking of morality, Mr. Bradley goes to great lengths to detail in equal portions the atrocities committed by both the Japanese and the Americans. His not-so-subtle point seems, at times, to be that we are both the same in war. However in balance he still leans a bit towards a typically American view of things. For example, while he relates equally the bad, from reading the book one might get the impression that Americans were the only ones with derring-do or uncommon bravery. Part of this can be excused since that is pretty much the topic of his book, and undoubtedly also because Japanese stories are much more difficult to come by.

It is always interesting to me in all the war books I have read how hubris, inflexibility, and rigid adherence to tradition have such an impact on outcomes. The Americans and Japanese both suffered from these limiting tendencies, only the Japanese had the worst case of it. So many thousands and millions of coincidences and interacting situations contribute to the final result of any war, but I would be tempted to say the three things listed above have a major if not primary influence in the end. Japan was a small, island nation that could never have matched the US in productive capacity; nevertheless it is quite possible with certain successes they could have sued or negotiated for a quite favorable position in the end. Size or productive capacity is not everything, but in addition to their intrinsic constraints they added managerial blunder after blunder - a losing combination if ever there was one. (less)

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Oct 28, 2008

Joseph rated it

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Recommended to Joseph by: My dad

This book literally changed my view of the world. I was amazed, shocked, disgusted, astounded and inspired. This is one of those books that gives you a different perspective on history than the one you receive in school and it turned my perception of the world on its head (in a good way.)
If you've never wondered how horrific tragedies are perpetrated on mankind, you are like probably 95% of the rest of the civilized world, and you should probably read this book. This is a bit of histo...more

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Oct 05, 2009

Matt rated it

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I don't give out 5 stars too often, and this one should get a six. The stories in this book had to be told, and they had to be told in a particular way. Bradley does a masterful job in relating the horrific details of what happened to 8 U.S. pilots on a speck of earth called Chichi Jima. The fact that this island is not a WWII household place name such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, or Dunkirk is by design: the tale was kept secret by the U.S. military. However, I'm surprised Bradley never reveal...moreI don't give out 5 stars too often, and this one should get a six. The stories in this book had to be told, and they had to be told in a particular way. Bradley does a masterful job in relating the horrific details of what happened to 8 U.S. pilots on a speck of earth called Chichi Jima. The fact that this island is not a WWII household place name such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, or Dunkirk is by design: the tale was kept secret by the U.S. military. However, I'm surprised Bradley never revealed the best part: Chichi Jima means "tits island" (owing to its two prominent mountains)!

These stories, and the greater context in which they played out, will stay with me for a long, long time. I couldn't stop reading despite the rapid descent into unthinkable atrocities committed by nations and individuals on each other. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. I'll spare those details here. What is important is that Bradley is using primary sources. He interviews the individuals who witnessed, or even committed, the crimes related. This book is not propaganda based on 5th hand accounts of war crimes. These things happened and cannot be denied. I always try not to stand in judgment of things I did not witness especially when it's over 6 decades removed from the events. But that is a challenge with this one.

To be honest, when my dad first recommended this book to me and I read the covers, I thought great, more overly patriotic "America: World Police" as in what South Park creators poke fun at ("America, F- yeah! Gonna save the motherf-n' world yeah!"). On the contrary, Bradley gives insightful context and pulls no punches in his depiction of both the Japanese and Americans. He doesn't gloss over the strafing of schools and hospitals by U.S. pilots or the nightmarish details of firebombings of major cities (Bradley points out the British and American strongly condemned the Germans and Japanese for bombing city centers as uncivilized barbarism, then proceeded to do the same on a much larger scale and with complete air superiority under the euphemistic term "strategic bombing"). I'm still extremely disturbed and angered at my own ignorance of the American war on Filipinos from 1898-1902 which killed an estimated 250,000 civilians. To illustrate, one U.S. general ordered, "Kill everyone over ten years of age" as a policy for clearing villages in the Philippines. Throughout history when the West (U.S., Britain, France, etc.) wanted something (oil, sugar, labor, farm lands) they took it regardless of its lands being inhabited or if the "barbarous" locals had the audacity to rebel or reject the colonists' god (e.g. American Indians, Chinese, basically the entire African continent). Japan being a latecomer, felt they were only doing what others have done to build empire and why should the West complain? Their mistake was in being non-white.

This book has really left me torn. I had always been aware of the Japanese atrocities: Bataan death march, Rape of Nanking, horrendous death camps. But reading the first hand accounts was still shocking. I've always felt balanced. I have Japanese and haole ancestry. One great-uncle died for the U.S. while serving in his segregated unit, the AJA 100th Infantry Battalion. My other great-uncle survived the Bataan death march only to succumb to disease and starvation later on in the Japanese prison camp. I spent two and a half years living in Japan and met many veterans of the war. I've always held to the belief that these were extraordinary times and conscripted Japanese regulars were only slightly better off than their enemies or conquered subjects. But this book still shook my faith. Could the people I know have really done these things? On a broader level, how could the Japanese culture, even in its grotesquely twisted form as created by the militarists, have generated such horror? On the one hand I know the Japanese to be so simple and peaceful, just barely separated from our roots in nature (If have you seen Pom Poko, that anime film really captures that side of Japanese culture). Shinto is such beautiful and simple animism more akin to Native American and African religions than anything else in principle if not in practice. On the other hand are the tales in this book.

But there was something much worse for me in reading this book. I can't help but feel that equally horrendous things are occurring today right under our noses, and that these crimes will repeat themselves over and over again. Not until these terrible kinds of things happen again to people we care about (i.e. white Americans) will we ever hear about them. Knowledge of horror and survivor guilt will not be enough to prevent further acts of atrocity. (less)

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Jan 29, 2008

Susie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

James Bradley offers an amazing overview of the Pacific War and the impact America's commitment to an aerial war made upon its victory. I appreciate Bradley's ability to examine the war from both the America and Japanese perspective. He does not gloss over the American atrocities of strafing innocent fishermen, firebombing Japanese cities, and even dropping the atomic bombs. He does, however, also paint a clear picture of the Japanese world view, impressing upon his reader's the importance of un...more

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Mar 03, 2009

Nick rated it

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Shelves: history

There were several times in this book where I had to tune it out. Learning of the atrocities committed by the Japanese commanders on United States Navy pilots was enough to make me sick.

James Bradley plunges into the stories of several young American naval pilots who attempted to dive-bomb and destroy the Japanese communications outpost on the island of Chichi-jima, an island 600 miles due south of Tokyo and 150 miles away from Iwo-jima. He does a wonderful job of describing the li...moreThere were several times in this book where I had to tune it out. Learning of the atrocities committed by the Japanese commanders on United States Navy pilots was enough to make me sick.

James Bradley plunges into the stories of several young American naval pilots who attempted to dive-bomb and destroy the Japanese communications outpost on the island of Chichi-jima, an island 600 miles due south of Tokyo and 150 miles away from Iwo-jima. He does a wonderful job of describing the lives of the pilots prior to their enlistment in the Navy and, as a result, does a mighty fine job documenting the rise of naval aviation and the use of aircraft in war.

Bradley doesn't present a one-sided story, either. He was able to paint both sides of what happened to some of the "flyboys" who had the misfortune of being shot down over this Pacific hell, and of the enlisted Japanese infantry whose duty it was to defend the island under a doctrine of fear, instilled by the abusive, dictator-like Japanese commanders.

Bradley also details the use of incendiary bombs through retelling the destruction of Tokyo; this was the first true test of napalm. With passages including such details as:

(R)ivers of fire flowed down the streets. Canals boiled and humans burst spontaneously into flames, blazing like matchsticks. People's heads exploded in the heat, the liquid brains in their burst skulls bubbling an eerie fluorescence..."

set the tone of the hellish nightmares that war, of any kind, creates. It is also worth noting that the bombing of Tokyo killed more people in a single-day than those killed by the atomic bomb at Nagasaki. Only the death toll from the atomic destruction at Hiroshima would surpass--just slightly surpass--the number dead from the incendiary bombing.

Two final notes: during trials after the war, the atrocities carried out by the Japanese commanders were uncovered and the officers responsible were court-martialed and subsequently executed; and one of the pilots who was shot down over Chichi-jima was Lieutenant George H. W. Bush, who was rescued by the USS Finback, an American submarine.(less)

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Feb 02, 2009

Ryk rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 03, 2012

Ben rated it

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At 2am this morning i woke up, unable to sleep. This happens every now and then, enough that i am used to it. Realizing after five or ten minutes that i would not fall back asleep i grabbed this book. I had been picking it up just about every night, reading it, and going to sleep. It was a good book, often keeping me awake to at least finish the chapter. Tonight was different.
After maybe a half hour, all i could think, in stereotypical 2012 fashion, was "OMG, WTHFH!" (OH MY GOD...more

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Jan 18, 2012

Chase rated it

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Shelves: wwii

Some books make you think and I'm glad to say that I actually read this one. I think we forget that the winner in war gets to write the history books about it. Here are the complaints as to why this book is four stars and why not lower:

1. I really appreciate historians and their style of putting down their facts in footnotes. Too often I felt myself thinking that maybe I'm reading Bradley's opinion and not facts. Granted, he has his interview notes, bibliographies, etc., which lea...more

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Jan 11, 2012

Relstuart rated it

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Shelves: books-i-do-not-recommend, history

Post-Modern. First off this is kind of garbled. You start out learning there is some secret trial during WWII. Just when that starts to get interesting all the sudden we are subjected to a chapter of how American's have a history of committing atrocities and wiping out the Indians starting from the very beginning of Western civilization coming to the New World.

Then we get a history lesson on Japan and then a chapter on Japanese atrocities. Japan committed terrible terrible atrocitie...more

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Nov 08, 2011

Tyler Duffy rated it

· review of another edition

Flyboys by James Bradley is a national bestseller, and for good reason. The book follows each Floboy's individual story, most of whose stories were kept a tight lipped secret for over 60 years. The Flyboys were nineteen, twenty, twenty one year olds that chose to serve, enlisting in the US Air Force, a new branch of military that had few supporters and many skeptics. Bradley begins with a backdrop of Japan, the invasion and Rape of China, and the race to catch up to the Western Powers threatenin...moreFlyboys by James Bradley is a national bestseller, and for good reason. The book follows each Floboy's individual story, most of whose stories were kept a tight lipped secret for over 60 years. The Flyboys were nineteen, twenty, twenty one year olds that chose to serve, enlisting in the US Air Force, a new branch of military that had few supporters and many skeptics. Bradley begins with a backdrop of Japan, the invasion and Rape of China, and the race to catch up to the Western Powers threatening the Motherland. Japanese propganda spread like wildfire, and Bradley descrives how Japan did in 80 years what other coutnries had been doing for centuries. He shifts his story into the 1930's, when the thought of planes being but to military use was preposterous, where the "third dimension" would never be the key component in war.
Then Pearl Harbor absolutely shocks the nation. Youth across the United States rushed to sign up, and the more adventurous ones enlist in the Air Force. This is when the individual stories of each boy begins. Bradley devotes different sections of the book to each Flyboy, including former president George H. W. Bush, and his tale. Bradley starts with the stories given to the public, about the dogfights and bombings, but then singles out the individual pilots and illuminates the brutally true and tragic tales about what happened after they survived their crash. It took 60 years of uncovering to reveal the harrowing stories of the nine airmen that were shot down in the Pacific.
I connected with Flyboys, but not really. I might never nedure the anguish of knowing I am about to fly my final mission and not being able to tell my parents goodbye, or writing my last letter to a loved one. I might never endure the grief of not knowing if my son was alive or dead, or just "MIA", never receiving the final letter his cruel captors never mailed. What I do know is that I felt as close to the actual loss as possible, through the gripping, intricately and perfectly weaved threads of this story, but even "story" isn't really the right word. This book was a movie that etched itself in my memory, which showed me a side of war we all think we know. If it is possible to write an experience, then that is exactly what James Bradley did.

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Jul 28, 2011

Albert rated it

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I read this because I enjoyed the movies based on Bradley's World War II narratives, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. This book is different in that it deals with war atrocities that eclipse those portrayed in his previous books. It narrates the true story of the very young navy pilots (most of them 19 years old) -- flyboys -- who participated in the dive-bombing of Chichi Jima island in the latter months of World War II. The main story is about the flyboys that got captured durin...more

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Jul 06, 2011

Matthew rated it

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It's hard to know what to say about Flyboys. It's the kind of book that everyone should read, and yet there are things about it that I wish I hadn't read and didn't know, and I don't want to inflict that information on anyone either. Non-fiction, about what happened on a tiny island a few miles from Iwo Jima during WWII. 8 flyboys (pilots and other air-personnel like navigators and radiomen) survived being shot down at various times near the island. 7 parachuted near enough the island to be brou...more

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Feb 28, 2011

Ben Brenneman rated it

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Fly boys was a great read. In fly boys the story revolves around eight men that become fly boys in world war II. seven of these eight were captured and the one that wasn't happened to be George W. Bush who later became the President of the United States. This story told the stories of the eight heroic men who played a huge part in the war. Fly boys were the ones that paved a path right through the war for the ground troops. These men did the impossible by taking off of a naval carrier in the mid...more

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Nov 20, 2010

Joshua rated it

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Shelves: read-in-10

This riveting, hard to read in places non-fiction book attempts to tell the story of what if was like to be a pilot for the USA in the Pacific campaign during WW2. It also deals a lot with Japan, their culture and the "spirit warriors" that made their soldiers infamous for sacrificing themselves for the emperor. They are also known for a lot of horrific things they did during WW2--millions raped and killed in China, encouraged beheadings and torture and mass cannibalism! American soldi...more

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Aug 06, 2009

JBradford rated it

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I have contended that books should not get a 5-star rating unless they are must read books; this is a must read. There are many people who will bypass this book because it is about an old war, not worthy of their interest. Many others will put it down without finishing it because it is, as the lady who loaned it to me said, rather gruesome. Both of those types should read it, however, because it is full of hard truths about the nature of man in general, and about the nature of men at war in p...moreI have contended that books should not get a 5-star rating unless they are must read books; this is a must read. There are many people who will bypass this book because it is about an old war, not worthy of their interest. Many others will put it down without finishing it because it is, as the lady who loaned it to me said, rather gruesome. Both of those types should read it, however, because it is full of hard truths about the nature of man in general, and about the nature of men at war in particular, and because it sheds some light on things that our government and our culture have tried to keep in the dark.

I have not seen Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers, and I was unaware of the fact that the movie is in fact based on a book, which I also have not read. James Bradley was the author of that book, which he wrote largely after becoming intrigued with the story of his father, who was one of the six servicemen who raised the flag over Iwo Jima, an act that was caught by a photographer in one of the most famous pictures ever published. Having done that, Bradley wanted to find a new subject, and he found it when a mutual friend suggested he contact a retired lawyer in Iowa--who just happened to have been involved in the legal proceedings of a war trial held in a hanger on Guam some 60-plus years ago. The records of that trial had been sealed by the authorities of that time, but much of that information had subsequently been declassified, and the lawyer had collected a stack of documentation over the years, which he made available to Bradley. Bradley then engaged in a two-year research that took him all over the world, interviewing survivors and relations of those who did not survive concerning events that took place on the island of Chichi Jima in 1945, when eight American airmen were captured by Japanese stationed on that island.

Like most Americans, I am sure, I had never heard of Chichi Jima--or, if I heard of it back in those days, and I am sure I did, never bothered to keep it in mind. ChiChi Jima is a very small island (about twice as large as New York City’s Central Park, Bradley reports), located not quite midway between Iwo Jima and Japan. As World War II ground down to its final close, ten American airmen of various ranks approached the island from different planes that were shot down in the grueling task of bringing the war home to the Japanese. One of those ten was a pilot who managed to get into a rubber raft and keep himself out at sea long enough to be picked up by an American submarine; his name was George Herbert Walter Bush. The other nine airmen, however, were captured by the Japanese and taken prisoner. This book is about what happened to them on that island, in a real sense, but it is much more than that. Bradley introduces us to these men as teenaged boys and provides a detailed account of how they all wound up on the island and what happened to them there, but he also provides an intriguing summary history of how the Japanese and American cultures of that time came into being, of how it happened that Japan and America were fighting a war at that time, how men at war behaved, and how their political leaders behaved. More than that, however, Bradley also provides an insight into the thinking of several people involved in both sides of that struggle, as they look back from the viewpoint of some 60 years later. Bradley provides an index at the rear of the book listing more than a hundred books and articles used as reference material for this history, along with a list of hundreds of quotations scattered through the book, with at least one on almost every page of the book. Finally, Bradley has provided a large number of interesting pictures to help the reader understand what these different people were like and how they interacted as they did.

Bradley writes with an interesting style, using short, terse sentences. I found the book an excellent read, and I recommend it to all who have not read it. It meant something different to me than it will to most readers, because I was remembering the propaganda that we were all exposed to during those years, but I learned lots of “new” things--many of which were originally presented in the newspapers I used to deliver to my faithful customers during that same time frame, along with many that I rather doubt ever appeared in any newspapers of that time.
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Apr 10, 2009

Melissa rated it

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Very well written and an incredible eye opener for me.

What an emotional rollercoaster. At first I was angry at the japanese, then I was angrier and disallusioned with Teddy Roosevelt and the 1890s-1950-s government, then I was pissed at the American people. Next I cried with mothers who sent their too young sons off to fight a war when they couln't even sit with their girlfriend alone because they were too young. I cried for the Chinese people, the phillipinos people and for my ...more

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Jul 05, 2010

Laura Leaney rated it

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Recommends it for: WWII history buffs

Recommended to Laura by: My dad

This is ostensibly the story of eight WWII flyboys (and one unknown flyer) who were shot down in attempting to take out the radio communications center on Chichi Jima, a much less notable location than its sister island, Iwo Jima, where most history focuses. One of those pilots was George H.W. Bush, who was rescued by a submarine. What happens to the captured men shows the depravity of war and the perversion of the ancient Japanese way of Bushido. If you've read much about war crimes, you sho...more

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Jul 10, 2010

George rated it

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Shelves: nook-ereads, lacpl-epub, james-bradley, best-reads

EXCELLENT. AN AMAZING READ. More Gonzo history, stridently told.

“…the more I see of this war in the Pacific the less right I think we have to claim to be civilized.”
–Charles Lindbergh, from The Wartime Journals of Charles H. Lindbergh (page 138)

WARNING: This book, and maybe even this review, contains material that might be deeply disturbing.

For the most part, human history, even as sanitized by the winners and laced with l...moreEXCELLENT. AN AMAZING READ. More Gonzo history, stridently told.

“…the more I see of this war in the Pacific the less right I think we have to claim to be civilized.”
–Charles Lindbergh, from The Wartime Journals of Charles H. Lindbergh (page 138)

WARNING: This book, and maybe even this review, contains material that might be deeply disturbing.

For the most part, human history, even as sanitized by the winners and laced with large measures of bullshit, has not been pretty. In ‘Flyboys: A True Story of Courage,’ one of my favorite, hard-hitting writers, James Bradley, relates some very horrific stories from one of the ugliest periods since the dark ages: World War II. A time when advances in technology and declines in morality enabled one or another of our tribes to skillfully mass murder members of ‘other’ tribes, on unprecedented scales—millions gassed, hundreds of thousands incinerated, tens of thousands vaporized—in the name of ‘manifest destiny’ and/or ‘ethnic purity’.

That’s the ‘big picture’. Up close and personal it gets even uglier.

This book has much that I would find repulsive and unreadable were it a work of fiction. In fiction the writer gets to choose the imagery. Why should anyone choose to imagine such diabolical darkness? Only as non-fiction—these regrettable and barbarous events happened and they happened in my lifetime—is this a compelling, must read story for me.

Recommendation: Not written for the ‘my-tribe-right-or-wrong’ crowd, but highly recommended for anyone who thinks, and who thinks that patriotism, and the history of the future, might stand to benefit from a reality check every now and then.

“War is the tragedy of what might have been.”—page 328

[nook eRead #22:] Adobe Digital Edition (ePub), 369 pages: on loan from the Los Angeles County Public Library at http://overdrive.colapublib.org/482D7902...
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May 27, 2009

Jeff rated it

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I've been reading historical non-fiction for a LONG time, and it's rare to find a book about as threadbare a topic as World War 2 that is both informative and, at the same time, causes one to re-examine ones perspective of those events. Flyboys was one of those books for me.

All I knew (or thought I knew) about Flyboys when I bought it last week off the bargain book shelf at Borders was that it was the story of downed US aviators and their horrific treatment at the hands of their Jap...moreI've been reading historical non-fiction for a LONG time, and it's rare to find a book about as threadbare a topic as World War 2 that is both informative and, at the same time, causes one to re-examine ones perspective of those events. Flyboys was one of those books for me.

All I knew (or thought I knew) about Flyboys when I bought it last week off the bargain book shelf at Borders was that it was the story of downed US aviators and their horrific treatment at the hands of their Japanese captors. And at its core, that is exactly what it is. What I did not expect, however, was how Mr. Bradley wraps that core story with a broader description of US and Japanese histories, including social evolution and atrocities committed by both countries at various times in their pasts, up to and including the end of World War 2.

In the earliest parts of this book I began to suspect I had bought a revisionist liberial diatribe, as Mr. Bradley describes the treatment of the American Indian in the late 19th century as "ethnic cleansing", and then went on to describe how US soldiers wiped out entire villages during the Philippine insurrection of the early 20th century. As I continued reading however, I discovered that Bradley was setting the groundwork for a comparison between US and Japanese cultural history up to WW2. And while he pulls no punches in describing the horrific atrocities visited upon the Chinese by the Japanese invaders before and during WW2, and makes no excuses for the treatment of the US fliers captured on Chichi Jima, the reader is reminded that the US didn't exactly come away from WW2 with clean hands, either. The fire bombing of Japanese cities and the resulting heavy civilian casualties is a powerful example of actions taken by the US that, had it been inflicted upon us instead, would have led to screams of war crimes. And yet, Bradley makes clear that the fire bombing of Japan was key to bring the war to an end prior to a US invasion, and also places the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the proper historical context.

Some reviewers on Amazon.com have levelled the charge of "moral equivalency" against this book. I was thinking that way as I read the early chapters as well, but I did not come away with that feeling by the time I read the final page. Nowhere does Bradley make the claim that the US was "just as bad" as Japan, or that the US and Japan were morally equivalent. What I took away from this book is that the perception of morality in wartime and what constitutes war crimes is very much in the eye of the beholder (or more accurately, the recipient). For example, in the US we hold the Doolittle raiders as real military heroes - an opinion that I continue to hold. Bradley effectively conveys that, from the Japanese point of view, the raiders (or at least some of them) bombed a hospital, strafed civilian fishing boats, and killed schoolchildren. While the bomb-related casualties can be excused as unintentional, one cannot say the same about the intentional strafing of civilians. It injects a little bit of dirty reality to the US perception of events, which in the end is what the entire book accomplishes. Bradley doesn't argue that US and Japanese behavior was equal, but rather that our conduct of the war in the Pacific was a lot more gritty and morally ambiguous than we tend to believe. In the end, I found that Bradley had given me a fresh perspective on the Pacific war, and the morality of its conduct by both sides. I appreciate that.(less)

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Jun 22, 2009

Lauren rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone interested in history or trying to learn more about history.

Recommended to Lauren by: husband-Sean

Shelves: non-fiction, own

I am really enjoying this book! I didn't love history in school because of how dry the presentation was. This book puts Pearl Harbor, D-day, and the A-bombs in context. It does not make the Americans always look right or the Japanese always look wrong. It talked about military training differences and why things progressed as they did. There is plenty of detail and background so that the facts presented are story form and not lists of names and numbers.

This book was so sad. War is tr...more

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Nov 01, 2011

MJ rated it

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Dave gave me this book to read on my last visit to St. George. After reading it I am more and more convinced that war is evil and soul-destroying, no matter which side you are on. The book is an overview of the flying war the US waged during WWII in the Pacific. It specifically focuses on the bombing of a small island, Chichi Jima, next door to Iwo Jima, and the flyers shot down and captured there and their eventual fates. Kept secret for many years because of the horrors of the story, Bradl...more

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Dec 23, 2008

Matt rated it

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I great look into America expansioninsm and treatment of a non-Western pwer as a result of conflicting desires in the Pacific. How this led to war with Japan and how the Japanese mindset during the war was exhibited and developed before being sent out to China, Singapore, Guam, etc. The American mindset was nearly identical only a couple years earlier in wiping out full Philipino populations. Both sides viewed the other side as not human but "Other". This led to the gruesome acts o...more

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Mar 07, 2010

Josh rated it

· review of another edition

Fascinating!

The book is primarily about the fate of several American WWII aviators captured by the Japanese off the island of Chichi Jima, a strategically important island near Iwo Jima. The treatment of the prisoners is detailed. The author goes a step forward, however, and reveals some of the psychological and cultural underpinnings for the abuses suffered by the prisoners. The behavior of American troops in other conflicts is also described, as well as the Government's responses...more

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Jun 02, 2010

Steven Monroy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: audio-books, history

Flyboys tells the story of the Pacific Front of World War II from the human perspective. Bradley used thousands of hours of interviews with American and Japanese veterans and civilians to piece together the last years of the young Navy Pilots who died on or around a Japanese fortress island.

The book shows how the naive emotions and beliefs of both countries led to one of the most destructive wars in human history. The Japanese soldiers and civilians were betrayed by their stubborn l...moreFlyboys tells the story of the Pacific Front of World War II from the human perspective. Bradley used thousands of hours of interviews with American and Japanese veterans and civilians to piece together the last years of the young Navy Pilots who died on or around a Japanese fortress island.

The book shows how the naive emotions and beliefs of both countries led to one of the most destructive wars in human history. The Japanese soldiers and civilians were betrayed by their stubborn leadership, and by the their cultural belief in infallible leadership. They willingly fought to their deaths, rather than surrender or retreat, costing the lives of tens of thousands on either side.

Yet, the American's were not without their own sins. The devastation brought about the Atomic booms dropped on Japanese Cities are , rightly, among the most notorious events in the history of the War. Yet, months before, American bombers caused equal devastation when they firebombed the capital city of Tokyo. Even in the face of Japanese atrocities in China, the Philippines and Pear Harbor, there is no justification for the willing murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the own homes. I appreciated that the book did not fail to present this key feature of the air war; where the bombs fall.

Bradley did a terrific job researching the minutia of the pilots lives; their reasons for enlisting, their change from teenage boys to airmen and their ongoing struggle for their own lives.

I was particularly touched by President H. W. Bush's return to the island where he once almost lost his life. That he arrived with a Japanese veteran who served on the opposite side brought a certain amount of closure to the story.

As with any history book, the value is not in knowing the outcome of the story, but in drawing lessons from it. In the end, the Japanese and american young men who fought and died were not so different. Though they enlisted to serve their country, they fought for their comrades. (less)

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Oct 07, 2010

Robert Brase rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This is a brutally realistic look at war. I thought this was going to be a story of several airmen that had been shot down over a remote Japanese island during WWII. And that it was, and so much more. The author covers events leading up to this time and also goes beyond the intended story to the very present. As I said in the opening sentence this book does cover a lot of atrocities committed under the auspices of war. That being said there may be some cautionary advisory to those who do not bel...more

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Feb 03, 2012

Wayne rated it

· review of another edition

Society is fortunate that authors like James Bradley have made the effort to gather the facts surrounding major historical events and to tell it exactly like it was. James Bradley did so about the pacific theater of war during WW II. I learned a great deal about what happened. The atrocities that the Japanese leveled against the American POWs was heart rendering. The destruction of the Japanese cities by our fire bombing was equally moving. War is hell and terrible things are done. I did c...more

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May 20, 2011

Codys rated it

· review of another edition

I choose this book because Its a war book first of all and second I notised that it had the autor of James Bradley and iv read his other book flags of my fathers which was also a great book. historicul fiction. The flyboys is a group of men who are sent on specil missions to kill and this book is about the flyboys heading into japan to pretty much destory there whole conutry. The main character is not really evident in this book. The flyboys are in japan to distory their country but they run int...more

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Sep 25, 2011

Renee rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-books, tear-jerkers

Saying that James Bradley went above and beyond his duty to provide accurate and unique perspectives in this book is an understatement! I have never been so pulled into a book. Although what I was reading often had me literally on the verge of vomiting, I couldn't put the book down. You think you know about the wars, you have ideas in your head of what happened, of how things happened. Upon reading this book, you realize you didn't know sh*t. This book dove deeper than I prepared myself for, uni...more

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Nov 17, 2010

H.Friedmann rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: historical

A fascinating read, although it lacked the narrative structure of Flags of Our Fathers. It did make me think though, which is something I always look for in my reading. James Bradley did a vary good job of showing a balanced view of the war, and how both the Japanese and American sides thought they were the civilized ones while at the same time committing barbaric acts. I also liked that he went into depth about Japanese history of the early 20th Century. The book was structured around the role/...more

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Jan 19, 2009

Daniel rated it

· review of another edition

Author James Bradley, the son of an Iwo Jima flag raiser, writes an account of a WWII naval aerial attack on Chichi Jima, a speck of an island neighboring Iwo Jima, bristling with Japanese communications antennas.

Nine flyers survive being shot down, and all save one -- George H.W. Bush -- are captured, tortured and endure horrific deaths.

Bradley brings a long-term historical perspective to the clash of two very different cultures, dating back to the time in the 1850s when...more

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James Bradley,is an American author of historical non-fiction. His subject is the Pacific theatre of World War II.

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“The Flyboy who got away became president of the United States. What might have been for Warren Earl, Dick, Marve, Glenn, Floyd, Jimmy, the unidentified airman, and all the Others who had lost their lives?...And what might have been for those millions of doomed Japanese boys, abused and abandoned by their leaders? War is the tragedy of what might have been.” — 2 people liked it

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