The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II

by Anne R. Keene, Claudia Williams (Foreword)

In 1943, while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year's World Series, one of the nation's strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As a child, Anne Keene's father, Jim Raugh, suited up as the team batboy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personally, watching players hit the road on cramped, tin-can buses, dazzling factory workers, kids, and service members at dozens of games, including a war-bond exhibition with Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium.

Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-American but was crushed later in life by a failed major-league bid with the Detroit Tigers. He would have carried this story to his grave had Anne not discovered his scrapbook from a Navy school that shaped America's greatest heroes including George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn, and Paul "Bear" Bryant.

With the help of rare images and insights from World War II baseball veterans such as Dr. Bobby Brown and Eddie Robinson, the story of this remarkable team is brought to life for the first time in The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, History, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Historical

408 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2020

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a kid, I collected baseball cards. While I have favorites that I got from packs or a few old timers from shows, my prized possession, although tattered is a Ted Williams card from the 1950s that I found abandoned in a parking lot. Growing up hearing about the golden age of baseball from my father, I knew that it was by providence that I found this particular card. What struck me wasn’t his timeless .406 batting average in 1941 but the fact that Teddy Ballgame lost five years of his career in his prime to military service in World War II and Korea. Much has been made of Williams’ time in the service, one aspect that has not been addressed much is major league players from all professional sports and their participation in service time leagues as a part of the Navy pre flight training program. While digging out her father’s baseball memorabilia after he died, Anne R. Keene found a treasure trove of pictures of him as a kid in a baseball uniform alongside major leaguers wearing Navy uniforms. Igniting a spark to discover more about her father’s past, Keene uncovered the Naval service sports leagues and a valuable aspect of military training on the home front.

As soon as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it was expected that all American men aged 18-24 enlist to serve their country. No able bodied man was exempt and this included star athletes and movie star celebrities. Keene equates this to the star athletes of today serving in the military whereas much has been written of Naval basketball star David Robinson continuing to play during the Gulf War. Had Robinson been of a different era, he would have been eager to fight for his country and been labeled a different kind of American hero. As such, Americans of all walks of life were eager to sign up with the armed forces. Eighty percent of Major League Baseball served the country in some capacity during World War II, even stars Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, who headlined baseball’s participation in the service.

In 1943 Williams along with fellow major league players Johnny Pesky, Joe Coleman, Buddy Gremp, and Johnny Sain was assigned to the Chapel Hill, North Carolina Naval Pre-Flight Training School. Only a select few could be selected to be naval pilots, and the Chapel Hill program was a rigorous one. Qualities looked for in trainees included perseverance, good teamwork, respect for all people, and leadership, all qualities found in professional athletes. While he would rather be hitting home runs over the Green Monster, Williams was excited to learn to be a pilot, as the same laws of physics that explained the flight of a plan could be scaled down to explain the flight of a baseball. Throughout the remainder of his career, Williams checked the outfield flags to see which way the wind was blowing to see if it was a good day for hitting. As expected, Williams excelled in the training program, even in the classroom, where he had not been a good student in school growing up; he was determined to be as good of a pilot as he was a hitter, the best of the best. Upon graduating from the Chapel Hill program, Williams decided on a role as a Marine pilot so that he could fly alone, a role he reprised in Korea where he flew in over fifty combat missions. While I think of today’s athletes as supermen, Williams in his duel role of athlete and military flyer exemplified the role of American hero.

The Chapel Hill base commander was James Raugh, Sr., Anne Keene’s grandfather. Keene’s father Jimmy Raugh became the ball boy for the Cloudbuster baseball team and relished the time he spent with Williams, Pesky, and the other ball players. Williams cherished the time he spent with the kids on the base as well, giving them unlimited free lessons in hitting as well as autographs and photographs. None was more so than with Jimmy Raugh who often accompanied Williams to the ice cream shop and the movies and was so moved by his interactions with the Splendid Splinter that he was determined to become a major league player when he grew up. Yet, Raugh did not have the natural talent, and, by the time Anne was a kid, the dream had fizzled out, and her father was relegated to a life of what ifs. Yet, he continued to reminisce about his relationship with Ted Williams and tell countless baseball stories for the rest of his life, stories that Anne unfortunately did not appreciate until after his passing.

I always enjoy reading old baseball stories, and Anne Keene has uncovered a Cloudbuster team from the Naval service that I knew little about. She alternates between interviews, history, and personal recollections, switching from past to present tense, as though she is not quite sure if the story of the Cloudbuster Nine belongs to Williams and the other ball players or to her father. Sticking to one writing mode may have elevated Keene’s story to even greater heights, yet, any story about the Greatest Generation absolutely needs to be told. I enjoyed reading about an aspect of Ted Williams’ life that is not well known, and it was inspiring to read about major leaguers’ participation on the ball fields in military rather than professional capacities.

3.5 stars

[Ruth Morhard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I debated between giving this book a 2 or 3 star rating. The title intrigued me, but as I read the book, I found it to be very misleading. I would have been very interested in a story of these baseballers in the war, especially Ted Williams and Johnny Pesky, but too little of the book was about them or about baseball in the military during the war. Obviously, the author did a great deal of research but research alone does not make a readable book. There was much extraneous information and little organization of the material. The story of her father was totally out of place but might have been interesting used another way. In general I found this to be turgid reading and did a lot of skimming, which I normally do not do. I did find portions of the book to be quite interesting-especially about the ballplayers' training and study at Amherst. I'd love to have seen more of this kind of information.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were the opponents in the 1943 World Series, neither of them are considered to be the best baseball team that took the field that year. That honor was bestowed to a team composed of Navy pilots who were in training before being sent overseas for combat. This team was based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and was dubbed the “Cloudbuster Nine.” This wonderful book by Anne Keene tells the story about this little known team and some of the men on the team.

The author’s father was a nine year old batboy for this team and when she discovered pictures and articles about the team in her father’s belonging, she set out to tell the story of this team. The book starts with a story from the highlight of that year for the Cloudbuster Nine – an exhibition game at Yankee Stadium in which the opponents were a team composed of the best players from the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. This team was called the “Yanklands” and their star was their manager, Babe Ruth.

However, the Cloudbusters had some star power of their own. There were several major league players on the team – players who were going to be soon off to war, but still had the chance to play some baseball on the team before being shipped overseas. Their biggest star was Ted Williams, and two others on the team are very familiar to many fans – Johnny Pesky and Johnny Sain. The book shares some wonderful stories about all three of them as well as other players on the Cloudbusters. These stories concentrate on their time on this team and in the training program more than their major league careers. That makes the book a wonderful look into life as a military member at that time.

The book is not limited to baseball. Indeed, the book dedicates many pages to the training facility, the curriculum the students endure in order to be trained pilots and some of the other graduates of the program. These include future Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, John Glenn and Paul “Bear” Bryant. The makeover of a portion of the University of North Carolina campus into a Naval training facility makes for very interesting reading as does the story of Tom Hamilton, the brains behind the curriculum. He wanted to include competitive sports, especially football and baseball, as part of the training. The reasoning for this was that to keep in shape for these sports, a trainee would be fit for his duties as a pilot and some of the skills needed to succeed in these games would be useful should the pilot be shot down and he needed to have good survival skills in either the ocean or in enemy territory.

No matter how much this review talks about the book, it can’t do justice to the quality of the stories and material. This book should be read by anyone who enjoys reading about baseball, military stories, World War II history – or even just good stories. It is truly a wonderful piece of work that began with someone wanting to tell the stories her father stored inside himself for many years.

I wish to thank Ms. Keene for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book documents the history of the World War II Navy flight training center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which also housed the titular baseball team before they shipped out. It focuses on Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Johnny Sain, Buddy Hassett, and a number of other baseball players of the time. The author is the daughter of the Cloudbuster Nine team’s batboy, who eventually became a minor league player but never made the majors, and a portion of the book is dedicated to her father’s experiences and disappointments. One minor distraction is that it contains a number of anecdotes about famous people that have little (or nothing) to do with the Cloudbuster Nine or baseball (e.g., side trails about future Presidents and astronauts. But overall, I found it an enjoyable read that contains lesser-known information about the connections between baseball and the players’ military service experiences in WWII. Definitely worth reading for those with an interest in baseball or WWII history.

[Gary Anderson]

In The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team that Helped Win World War II, author Anne R. Keene notes that “During World War II, an estimated 1,400 major-league players, umpires, managers, and coaches served in the armed forces.” Some of the best players were concentrated in Pre-Flight training in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, including superstars Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain. While they underwent rigorous Navy fighter pilot training, these players and numerous others simultaneously played baseball to boost morale and raise money for the war effort.

Keene tells all that can be known about the team known as the Cloudbusters, and it is surprising how little attention has been paid to this interesting intersection of baseball and World War II. Keene’s personal involvement arose from the fact that her father was the Cloudbuster bat boy who pursued his professional baseball dreams until they crashed in an episode that turned him into a dour, Willie Loman-like figure.

Among the individuals whose military involvement intersects with the Cloudbuster story are presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, future astronaut John Glenn, coaching legend Bear Bryant, and the brother of Moonlight Graham, the baseball player whose enigmatic single-inning major league career is featured in W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe and the film it inspired, Field of Dreams. The Cloudbuster Nine is a book for baseball enthusiasts and World War II buffs.

[Patten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe if the book had been pitched differently, I would have liked it better but part of the title is “The Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II.” Grantees, I knew a lot of the book would focus on wartime military baseball, but that second part...it never pays off. The focus of the book is on the training the Navy pilots receive at the preflight base in North Carolina and then the book leaps forward to the base closing. The book rarely talks about the actual war (aside from a brief story about George Bush, who was not on the baseball team). We find out what bases a few of the soldiers move to after leaving the team but there is little indication any of these men did anything in the military after leaving Naval Preflight. Of course they did, but you would never know it from this book. And because it’s lacking that key element, the title never really pays off.

[Luke Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a great gift idea for me by my father- a book about Ted Williams and other old-school ballplayers playing for the love of the game and country to boost public morale from a base during WWII? I was amped to rip this with baseball season back.

It was very disappointing. Most of the book isn’t focused on the cool subject matter we were promised, and the author meanders until you wonder what this book is even supposed to be about.

The author did a lot of research but fails to put it together into a meaningful story. Instead, there’s a lot of quotes from 95 year olds telling lengthy tall tales about people that aren’t relevant to the book.

I think 2 stars is pretty generous. Pretty surprised this was published as is. A good editor would have cut 150 pages out of this book.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: The story of the 1943 Navy training school team on which Ted Williams, Johnny Sain, Johnny Pesky and others played, and the baseball hopes and disappointments of the team's batboy, the author's father.

In baseball circles, many consider Ted Williams to have been the greatest hitter to have ever played the game. Williams made a science out of hitting. Many wonder what his records would have been like had he not served in the military during World War II and been called up during the Korean conflict, while admiring his service.

What is not widely known is that Williams played on a Navy team during his pre-flight training in 1943 In Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The team was known as the Cloudbuster Nine, and perhaps reached the pinnacle of its fame in a game at Yankee Stadium to raise funds for the war effort. The game was the second half of a doubleheader between the Indians and the Yankees. The second game featured a combined Cleveland-Yankees team known as the "Yanklands" against the Cloudbuster Nine, whose roster included major leaguers Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Johnny Sain, Buddy Hassett, and others. Babe Ruth managed, and took an at-bat with the Yanklands while Donald Kepler managed the Cloudbusters, who handily won the game 11-5.

Anne Keene became interested in the Cloudbuster story after her father's death, as she rummaged through an old chest in the process of composing his eulogy. She discovered an old scrapbook with photos of the Cloudbuster greats along with their batboy, her father, James Raugh, Jr. His father, Lt. Commander James Raugh, Sr., was second in command at the pre-flight school. This sparked a research and writing project to tell the story of this team, as well as to understand more of her father's own failed baseball career.

Focusing on Williams, who stands out among the players she researched, she tells the story of the team, how its formation was part of pre-flight training, their travels in old buses, and victorious season. She traces the development of the pre-flight training school, and the demanding regimen of classes, physical work and training, including survival training that was the first part of these men's preparation to be fliers. She recounts her interview with 96 year old Ivan Fleser, a pitcher who was the last survivor of the team and his recollections of Williams and the others. She reveals the fights to save the team from those who thought it a luxury, and the role Eleanor Roosevelt played. She talks about other pre-flight graduates, notably John Glenn and George H.W. Bush, and how many of the men who went through it counted it as the most formative experience of their lives.

The other part of this story is how this experience inspired a dream in Johnny Raugh, Jr. to play professional baseball. He played in the minor leagues until 1961 with flashes of brilliance, but never enough to make it to the parent team, the Detroit Tigers. By 1961, his arm was finished as he tried for the "extra something" that it took for a major league fastball that was not in him. As she researched his boyhood with the Cloudbusters, and his minor league career, she came to understand both his love of the game, and the sadness that hung over his life of not having "made it" to the majors.

Keene gives us a previously unknown glimpse into the Cloudbusters, Ted Williams' military years, and the influence pre-flight training had on this "greatest generation" of baseball players. The narrative moves between the Cloudbusters, the training and her father's story, all interesting, but perhaps a bit disjointed. Yet her account gives us a personal glimpse into the character of Ted Williams, his passion for the game, even played on fields before crowds of a few thousand. She helps us see how these are both fields of dreams and disappointments--and how baseball played a role in the winning of World War II.

[Sandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this was a great story. At first I thought it was going to be boring but itvwas not boring at all written by Ted Williams daughter and his pilot training and also playing for the baseball team during the war yeas great story

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading many books on baseball, and many on history, I’ve separated the two kinds of books. There’s a baseball book. In a baseball book, the author tends to focus on a perspective or two, from a player, coach, umpire, or someone else intimately involved in the playing of the game. Level or age doesn’t matter here, it could be kids or major leaguers, there is still a baseball-informed point of view. Or you see the fan’s perspective, or the front office guy perspective. These are similar in that they show thought about the game itself, but not necessarily from the on field perspective. “The Cloudbuster Nine” didn’t strike me as a baseball book, but as a history book about baseball, one step removed from those baseball books I described above.

The author tells a lot of different but related stories here. The story of how the US military used baseball and other sports to train pilots. The story of how baseball continued outside of the major leagues during the war. The story of how the university at Chapel Hill sold the military on creating a pilot training academy on campus. The storyline that was the source of the title is about one of those military teams, with a few major leaguers, some well known, but others not so. There is a story about the Cloudbusters taking on an all star major league team that was managed by Babe Ruth, and where Babe had his final at bat. Outside of that story, which gave some game details, most of the stories were more about travel, schooling, and the like. More of what I’d consider a history book. The author points out that not a lot is known about these teams by current fans, but she then describes how well covered their games were by a press that was looking for stories like this – major leaguers playing with high school kids, against all stars as well as college teams and industrial teams. The impetus of the book was her discovery after her father passes away of photos and mementos of his time with the Cloudbusters.

The author bookends the history with a personal story of her father, who was a Cloudbuster bat boy. She tells a very human story, interweaving anecdotes about her father. He played ball well but never made the majors, and it impacted him for the rest of his life. This was quite a poignant telling.

Interesting, and a good slice of history of military pilot training in WWII, and baseball and other organized sports as part of that training.

[Steve Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. If you love old baseball, or are a fan of World War II, you will like this book. The book is not really about the baseball team, it’s not really about Ted Williams, but they play a major focus in telling of the story. In the end, it kind of felt like it was a story about the author‘s father, and it took 300 pages to tell that story but yet only maybe 80 or 90 were spent on her father. I hope that makes sense… It told the story of her father in a very roundabout way using this cloud buster nine baseball team as the backdrop and the mechanism to keep moving the story forward. Definitely a lot of research here, and felt a little bit like a documentary. The story was a bit choppy and jumped around quite a bit, but from a historical perspective, I found it very interesting to learn the facts and information that I didn’t know already. I thought it was an easy read and I finished it in five days.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather disappointing book (another birthday gift) that should have and could have been so much better. The story about how the US Navy chose to recruit and train pilots for WW2, particularly focused on professional athletes, who were believed to have the best conditioning, coordination, and decision-making skills. The basic training for these cadets included sports in this book focusing on baseball at the Navy Pre-Flight training at UNC-Chapel Hill. This was an unknown part of how country prepared citizens for war for me, even though I have read countless books about WW2.

Unfortunately, unlike the vast majority of history book, the author also goes into overwhelming depth on how she researched the basic story. Most historians writing books confine these types of details to either a forward or an afterward and footnotes, but Ms. Keene does so throughout. It seemed terribly distracting and somehow unprofessional.

[Jim Spicer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read. I've been an avid baseball fan since my childhood. And I have an interest in WWII history. Put the two together, let alone my admiration for Ted Williams (passed on to me by my father) and you have a great reading experience! The book is full of carefully researched facts about the Pre-Flight Navy training schools established not long after Pearl Harbor. The author shares incredible insights about the major league baseball players who played baseball on top of the intense and almost indescribable training they were undertaking. Their stories unfold before you with information I never knew anything about. And intermingled are heart-warming stories about the author's own father, who served as a bat boy at Chapel Hill during this period.

[Michael Mulraney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every baseball fan knows about Ted Williams and many of the sports biggest stars joining the military during the war effort, but we’ve been told very little about their time, efforts, and baseball games during this period.

This book performs an admirable job by informing us just how they lived, the team they played for to raise war bonds, and why they sought to serve.

The writing in places is uneven, and occasionally a little too preachy about the purity of baseball back then rather than today (including a throw away line about driving Mercedes and telling off cops).

Worthwhile for any baseball fan with a dual interest in history and this time.

[Jessica Fellows · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to really like this book. The idea and topic is great. Unfortunately I feel like the author tried to hard to not leave anyone out. I get wanting to show respect and honor all who served but there were just way to many people including in the book to feel like your reading a story verse reading a who’s who of military athletes. Honestly I think if she stuck to what brought her to writing the book, learning more about her father who have been a more intriguing read.

Respect of course to all who served and there were great details within the book absolutely!

[Joe Budzelek · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting chronicle of when WWII halted major league baseball and some of its best talents, namely Ted Williams, sacrificed their peak athletic years to serve our country while also playing for one of our country's most talented baseball teams that few know much about. Keene also intertwines her personal connection to the team, but I would have liked this book more if that interplay was woven in with more seamlessness and regularity. An interesting book for baseball fans.

[Hunter Holt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some pretty interesting stories about Ted Williams and his time in the Air Force during WWII, but it was often hard to track. It is a compilation of random stories from interviews the author did.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful book about the Navy's preflight school and the pro ball players who trained there.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Greatest Generation with surprising baseball elements. Good men contributing to the war while becoming good humans.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The research hat Anne Keene did to enable her to write this book is impressive, as she uncovered lots of facts about which most people, including me, are not aware of. But I think the book would have greatly benefited from a good editor. I found the narrative to be confusing at times, when Keene inserted information from the research she performed, even when it was not especially necessary. Keene went off on numerous tangents, which at times made this book difficult to follow.

[Mary Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a bit unorganized but very interesting. I loved seeing familiar names and learning new ones.

[Charlie Frye · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic interested me, but the book was a little disorganized and included a lot of fluff. There were a lot of in depth bio’s from random people I felt was a little unnecessary. I had to skim past a few parts. The author did her research, but I thought it could have been compiled to 250 pages.

[Stephanie Barko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review copy provided by Texas Book Festival to help me moderate the author's panel at TBF 2018.

You don't have to be a baseball fan to like this book.
The author's dad is in this book. so if you are a daddy's girl, you will get what Anne is trying to convey.
If you think sports memoirs and histories are all action, think differently.
This book is all heart AND action.

If you LOVE baseball and sports, you will love this book.
If you like history or sports history, especially WWII, this is your read.
The archival photos are terrific, some never-before seen.

The hardcover would make a lovely gift book for a grandparent, baseball fan, daddy's girl, NC native, UNC/Chapel Hill alum, Boomers, or history nut.

[Arthur Rehner · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good book, I wish there was more about the war and less about the training. Overall it was very well written and very informational.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book--I wish I could say I loved it, but I found it harder to get through than I thought it would be. This was likely due to the book's organization.

The book meanders between history and memoir, and the author does both of them well as standalone pieces, but they just don't seem to mesh together. I loved the portions of her describing her journey to better understand her recently deceased father and the life he had before her as a minor league pitcher, and, before still, as a batboy for a team at a naval base stocked with major league talent in the midst of World War II. And I loved each little section describing said team, the philosophy behind its formation, the personalities that shaped it (among them Ted Williams), and the city and campus of Chapel Hill that embraced it. But the topics just don't feel organized -- it takes a long time before we understand why the Cloudbusters were so special (it certainly wasn't the only military base that fielded a team of professional ballplayers) and why we should care; she gets there, but not as linearly or methodically as one would like. Often her chapter and section headings don't accurately describe the accompanying text. And I was somewhat perplexed how she could jump right into nearly half the story of the 1943 team (and how Williams got there) with minimal context before jumping back to why there were teams on military bases, followed by how this particular military base got one, and then give some background into the major players, and breaking all that up with family anecdotes that inspired her to write the book, before bringing us back to the remainder of the season.

This is a solid story, and an important story, and she writes well. It's jam packed with some incredible trivia about this weird little niche during this unique time -- and not just baseball/sports trivia, either; one of the things that blew me away was how many major historical figures were tied together simply because they happened to cross paths on the same military base. I'd definitely recommend the book, but I'd also recommend some patience while reading it. You'll get a lot out of it; you just have to wait to get there sometimes. 3***1/2

[Ryan H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always interested in WWII baseball stories and this one was new to me. Since it wasn't talked about or publicized then, it was a little known story then too. Glad this book brought these stories to life.

[Pegi Ferrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am all over the place with this book. I loved the research and passion from the author. Her personal connection with her father's part with this team made the book better--and this review more difficult. I feel the author needed a firm, skilled editor. This book needs more of a narrative arc and less of an "Ooh, I found this really interesting fact, and I can't think of anywhere else to include it!" arc. I understand being distracted with research and with fascinating facts; after all, I took six hours to read a 36-page picture book because of researching its back story. However, that tangential style in writing makes for a bumpy read. However, I would recommend it to baseball and WWII fans because of its historical significance. And I would LOVE to see a picture book version!

[Sam Cox · Rating 1 out of 5]

An intriguing premise ultimately is just too unwieldy, and the book never really makes its mind up on what it wants to be. A memoir of the author’s father, a history of the Pre-Flight program, a snapshot into Ted Williams’s naval and baseball career, a glimpse into the actual Cloudbuster team, plus a handful of other bits - Keene attempts it all and unfortunately succeeds in none of it.

Further, the book is incredibly well-researched but feels like it was written as the research was being completed (without any editing), with each new idea resulting in another three-page tangent before getting back to any semblance of narrative structure.

A wholly disappointing book about a truly unique and fascinating bit of history.

[Peg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fact that there was a Navy pilot training school at UNC Chapel Hill and that Ted Williams attended it made for an fascinating read.
Just as interesting as the Ted Williams’ anecdotes was the story of the numerous sports leaders who volunteered to train the potential pilots. Whether it was the world’s greatest boxer teaching hand to hand fighting skills or some Appalachian backwoods men teaching survival skills, it all led to the development of the best prepared servicemen the country had ever seen.

[Patrick Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The information was interesting and I did like the writer's voice, but this seemed like it needed a LOT more editing. Still, if you are interested in baseball and US military history, this is a book I'd recommend.