Kirkus Review
Satisfying thought excessively popularized history of the bomber group that, legend has it, won the Battle of Midway. In the History Channel version, during the darkest days of World War II American carrier planes took off on June 4, 1942, to attack the immense Japanese fleet approaching Midway Island. Orders called for a simultaneous strike, but the planes separated, and Torpedo Squadron Eight sighted the enemy first. Attacking at sea level and unprotected by American fighters, the slow bombers were easy meat for defending Japanese Zeros, which shot down every plane. No torpedo struck home, yet these men did not die in vain. While the Zeros were preoccupied, American dive-bombers arrived overhead and attacked unopposed, sinking the Japanese carriers and winning the battle. Novelist and former congressman Mrazek (The Deadly Embrace, 2006, etc.) provides 200 pages of gripping details that do not tarnish the squadron's heroism but reveal spectacular incompetence among higher commanders. Two months after Midway, the survivors fought around Guadalcanal, a second critical battle in which outnumbered Americans inflicted a crushing defeat on the Japanese. While their role was less crucial, the squadron's bombers inflicted considerable damage, becoming the most decorated naval air unit in history but also the one suffering the highest combat losses. Similar books concentrate on fighters and traditional bombers, so this account of torpedo planes offers an original perspective. Serious history buffs will be irritated by the docudrama style, which features invented dialogue and purports to reveal characters' thoughts and feelings, often up to the moment they die. Yet events undoubtedly happened more or less as Mrazek describes, and his massive original research has produced a richly detailed story that never flags. Despite the lowbrow historiography, an admirable addition to the histories of air battles that turned the tide against the Japanese. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Novelist and former U.S. congressman Mrazek has written an admirable history of the Torpedo Squadron Eight, legendary to World War II buffs. Most of the squadron, flying off the U.S.S. Hornet for the Battle of Midway in obsolete Devastators, perished in a famous low-level attack. But six more modern Avengers flew from Midway itself, and the survivors in them formed the nucleus of a squadron that went on to fly Avengers off the carrier Saratoga until it was damaged by a submarine attack, and then from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in the climactic stages of the campaign for the island. Mrazek has made painstaking use of written sources and the personal memories of surviving members of the squadron to produce a long book, but one that will keep students of the crucial year 1942 reading assiduously. A boon to the literature of the WWII Pacific theater and of naval aviation.--Green, Roland Copyright 2008 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Mrazek (Stonewall's Gold) brilliantly captures the bravery of Squadron Eight in World War II's pivotal battle of Midway and the unit's subsequent involvement at Guadalcanal. Presented in logbook format, the author's clipped narrative offers fascinating vignettes of the aviators' prewar lives. At Midway the squadron, in obsolete torpedo bombers without fighter protection, was ordered to attack Japanese carriers-and was nearly decimated. Mrazek indicts the captain and air commander of the formation's carrier, the USS Hornet, for this fiasco and intimates that the squadron may have been used as a decoy to benefit high-altitude dive bombers as they took the greatest toll on the enemy flattops. Following Midway, Squadron Eight was reassigned to the USS Saratoga as part of a task force charged with expelling the Japanese from Guadalcanal. Mrazek's gripping account of the group's bombing activities is rich in detail and tactical analysis. A special treat is Mrazek's winsome epilog, which details the postwar achievements of the surviving squadron officers and men. A well-written and meticulously researched account of one of America's most distinguished World War II aerial groups; recommended for general military and aviation collections and all libraries.-John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.