Aces Against Japan: The American Aces Speak

by Eric Hammel

Heaven Belonged to God. The Sky Belonged to America's Aces. From the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to the last dogfight over Kyushu on July 2, 1945, America's fighter aces blasted their way across the skies of the Pacific and East Asia-- hurling their Warhawks and Wildcats, Lightnings and Thunderbolts, Mustangs and Corsairs-- against the best enemy ever sent aloft. Now, in their own words, forty American eagles vividly recreate the terror, exhilaration, and ultimate triumph of their crusade for airborne supremacy.

Stalk the air with 1st Lt. Jack Jones in his P-400, as he employs his bird-hunter instinct in the pursuit and destruction of the deadly metallic vultures of the enemy. Race with 1st Lt. Jim Swett as his F4F scores an unprecedented seven kills and earns him the Medal of Honor. Ride with Ensign Wendell Twelves on his first engagement in his Hellcat as he rescues stranded American airmen from the Pacific below-- and marauding Zeros above.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

356 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Eric Hammel was born in 1946, in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in January 1964 and earned a degree in Journalism from Temple University in 1972. His road to writing military history began at age twelve, when he was stuck in bed for a week with a childhood illness. Eric's father bought him the first paperback book he ever owned, Walter Lord's Day of Infamy. As he devoured the book, Eric realized that he wanted to write books exactly like it, what we now call popular narrative history. Lord had pieced together the book from official records illuminated with the recollections of people who were there. Eric began to write his first military history book when he was fifteen. The book eventually turned out to be Guadalcanal: Starvation Island. Eric completed the first draft before he graduated from high school. During his first year of college, Eric wrote the first draft of Munda Trail, and got started on 76 Hours when he was a college junior. Then Eric got married and went to work, which left him no time to pursue his writing except as a journalism student.

Eric quit school at the end of his junior year and went to work in advertising in 1970. Eric completed his journalism degree in 1972, moved to California in 1975, and finally got back to writing while he operated his own one-man ad agency and started on a family. 76 Hours was published in 1980, and Chosin followed in 1982. At the end of 1983 Eric was offered enough of an advance to write The Root: The Marines in Beirut to take up writing books full time. The rest, as they say, is history.

Eric eventually published under his own imprint, Pacifica Press, which morphed into Pacifica Military History and IPS Books. At some point in the late 1990s, Eric realized he had not written in five years, so he pretty much closed down the publishing operation and pieced together a string of pictorial combat histories for Zenith Press. Eric nominally retired in 2008 and took up writing as a full-time hobby writing two novels, 'Til The Last Bugle Call and Love and Grace. Fast forward to 2018 and Eric was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and on August 25th 2020, Eric passed from this life to the next at the age of 74.

Reviews

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I said with the previous title in this series, Hammel does a magnificent job of letting the Aces speak for themselves. Much like the first there is not only success shared but also failure. Between each recollection Hammel blends the strategic picture. Great collection of first hand accounts.

[Laurent Reinhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was inspired to read this after cataloguing material donated to the USS Midway Museum from the author's estate relating to over twenty of his books. The most compelling item was original art for the cover of this book by science fiction illustrator Alan Okamoto. I was able to get an inscribed first edition from Abe Books, which I'll be donating to the museum. Hammel was an excellent interviewer, compiling accounts from 39 US Army Air Corps, Navy and Marine Corps aces from World War II in the Pacific. He opens with Frank Holmes, who managed to get in the air in civvies over Hawaii while Pearl Harbor was attacked. Arranged in chronological order, the descriptions of air combat are compelling and reflect the increasing dominance US forces were able to achieve. I was especially enthralled by survival stories of those who had to ditch their aircraft and be rescued by similarly brave submarine crews or resistance fighters.

"They dreamed the dreams of the sky, and when their nation called upon them to stand fast in a hostile world, they raised their hands and asked to be chosen so that their boyhood dreams of flight - and war among the clouds - might be fulfilled." p1

[Mahlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one writes about air combat as well as Eric Hammel, he has a gift for taking the reader right into the cockpit, where they can feel the adrenaline and sweat.

In his Aces series, he has collected the first-person accounts of WWII Aces, while providing the historical context for each story. In the first volume he presents the stories of 40 Pacific Aces.

These books helped ignite my love of Military History. A must read for anyone interested in air combat.