Laura’s Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
I had the opportunity to hop on the #NonFictionNovember train with this book, picked by my friend AJ for our book club. The novel is by James Bradley, an author from Wisconsin whose father was one of the men in the famous photo of the American flag raising on Iwo Jima.
The Analysis:
The book details the true story of 10 American airmen who flew air raids in WWII over the Japanese island of Chichi-Jima and survived being shot down. Nine were captured and taken as prisoners of war by the Japanese. The tenth airman, who eluded capture and was rescued by a submarine was future president George H. W. Bush. I think a lot of non-fiction authors are tempted to include every single detail they discovered in their research. While some personal details enhance the story, more technical details drag the story out and don’t add much other than length. Bradley is guilty of a few too many specifics at times, but the personal details he includes humanize the story and put it in perspective. One example of good detailing is when he tells how one of the airmen, Jimmy, was old enough to both fight and die for his country, but was considered too young by his parents to be left alone with a girl on a date just before his deployment. Unfortunately, these personal accounts make the tragic ends of several POWs even more heart wrenching later on in the book.
James Bradley does a great job of presenting a fairly unbiased account of the flyboy missions to Japan during WWII. The Japanese turned military defeats into moral victories. Tokyo generals lacked realistic strategies and often had no plans to send support or evacuate troops if something went south. However, by making defeat honorable through suicide, the Japanese could come out as “winners” no matter how the battle turned out. Bradley points out the brutality of some of the Japanese military, specifically some of the officers, without painting all of the Japanese soldiers as savages or horrible people. American prisoners and Japanese soldiers even became friends, despite the tragic destiny of most captured Americans. President George H. W. Bush visited Iwo Jima decades later in 2002. Bush has declared that he has made his peace and he was warmly welcomed by Japanese residents during his visit.
“War is the tragedy of what might have been.” The author clearly poured many hours of research and fact finding into this book to recreate the stories of each of the flyboys. Reading about these amazing young Americans whose lives were cut short is sad. The book is tough to read and even graphic in some places, describing beheadings and mutilations of American POWs. It is easy to lose hope in the goodness of humans while reading the horrors that soldiers inflicted upon their fellow human beings. However, I think it is important to focus instead on the bravery, courage, and sacrifice exhibited by these American soldiers. Even in the face of absolute depravity, these young men enthusiastically served their country with heroism and grace.
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