Back Bay Books
Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
Key Metrics
- James Bradley
- Back Bay Books
- Paperback
- 9780316159432
- 8.3 X 5.48 X 1.21 inches
- 1 pounds
- History > Military - World War II
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. One of those nine was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine. The others were captured by Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jima and held prisoner. Then they disappeared. When the war was over, the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. The records of a top-secret military tribunal were sealed, the lives of the eight Flyboys were erased, and the parents, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts they left behind were left to wonder.
Flyboys reveals for the first time ever the extraordinary story of those men. Bradley's quest for the truth took him from dusty attics in American small towns, to untapped government archives containing classified documents, to the heart of Japan, and finally to Chichi Jima itself. What he discovered was a mystery that dated back far before World War II-back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's first confrontation with the western world. Bradley brings into vivid focus these brave young men who went to war for their country, and through their lives he also tells the larger story of two nations in a hellish war.
With no easy moralizing, Bradley presents history in all its savage complexity, including the Japanese warrior mentality that fostered inhuman brutality and the U.S. military strategy that justified attacks on millions of civilians. And, after almost sixty years of mystery, Bradley finally reveals the fate of the eight American Flyboys, all of whom would ultimately face a moment and a decision that few of us can even imagine.
Flyboys is a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor. It is about how we die, and how we live-including the tale of the Flyboy who escaped capture, a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush who would one day become president of the United States. A masterpiece of historical narrative, Flyboys will change forever our understanding of the Pacific war and the very things we fight for.
Author Bio
James Bradley is a New York Times number one best-selling author of four books on Pacific history. Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood made the movie of his first book, Flags of Our Fathers. James has been traveling in and learning about Asia since 1974, when he attended Sophia University in Tokyo.
America’s best-selling Pacific historian, James’ first book, Flags of Our Fathers, chronicled the lives of the boys who raised the flag on Iwo Jima; his second, Flyboys, detailed the air war in the Pacific and the dramatic story of George Herbert Walker Bush’s close escape from capture and death; his third, The Imperial Cruise, tells the story of how President Theodore Roosevelt promoted the Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia; and his fourth, The China Mirage, tells of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attitudes towards China in the lead-up to World War II in the Pacific.
Source: JamesBradley.com
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