Author Lucas is like many military historians. Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and South African exploits are usually lumped in with "British" when relating events from WWI and WW II.

In this book, for example, not only does he pass off in a few words the monumental battle at Ortona, he refers - for the most part - to the attacking troops as "British."

Ortona was, is, and always will be an icon of the gallantry of the men of the 1st Canadian Division. Even the New York Times acknowledged the magnitude of this epic Canadian fight against the German paras, calling it "Little Stalingrad" in reports from the front.

If you want to read about the heroism on BOTH sides in that historic confrontation, seek out Mark Zuehlke's Ortona.

Lucas provides a comprehensive review of the action of the german fallschirmaeger in WW-II, probably one of the better currently available in English. Good section on Crete in particular. Does have sympathy with his subject, but this doesn't make it pro-Nazi (unless you are of the view that all German soldiers were Nazi's), just pro-german (or pro Fallschirmaeger). Doesn't deal with the establishment or organisation of troops but gets quickly into the action. Well worth the read.

This book is simply great. It gives a combination of personal stories and information on all the battles german Fallschirmjaegers were involved in. In every battle he gives a great overview and than the Germans and Allies situations. Than deeply summarizes what all the German paratroopers did in the battle. And than gives great personal accounts. Well done.

Even giving credit to the fact that this book was written by a pilot who was there ( Townsend served in 43 Squadron ), one cannot escape the conclusion that this is just another book about the Battle of Britain. And not the best, unfortunately...

English Ace, Peter Townsend's examination of the Battle of Britain. Cleverly written, Townsend follows the careers of both himself and his German opponents amidst the backdrop of WWII. Of particular note is his excellent discussion of the fledgling Luftwaffe and RAF during their formative years. "WWII Aviation Booklist" http://www.ampsc.com/~prophet/booklist.html

Peter Townsend is an eyewitness to one of history's two exciting air battles. One's the Battle of Midway--a fleet opposed invasion--the other's the Battle of Britain which was opposed by the RAF. In the Battle of Britain, the RAF was a multinational force. It had British, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and other members of the British Commonwealth. There were also squadrons from the countries Hitler had ruthlessly conquered. Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Norway. The Americans were also involved but the British tend to downplay our involvement. We had pilots over there. Many of them were survivors of the sinking of the British liner Athenia off the west coast of Scotland on September 3, 1939. Without them, Britain and the rest of the world, would have fallen prey to the iron fist of Adolf Hitler.

A group of Luftwaffe vets, having suffered the agony of surving WWII, gather round in the American south west to plot a bit of revenge. They gather together and restore and rearm a squadron of WWII fighter planes - legendary Messerschmit Bf-109f's - and wreak havoc across that part of the US. Meanwhile, an aging USAAF vet, who was captured and nearly killed by the German aces on the last day of WWII, spends his time nearby flying a restored Mustang. The Germans nurse a grudge against him, though it's merely symbolic - he's the last Yank they saw before the end of the war, and he's hardly risen to the sort of prominence that would make him an inviting target. Nevertheless, they tear off into their targets with the idea of saving some of their fire for him. When word of the resurrected Luftwaffe gets around (how could it not?), the yankee flier gathers a group of vets himself - more Mustangs and a solitary Spitfire, and it seems that the last air battle of WWII is about to be refought.

"Eagles" was an innocuous enough book - the violence is mostly on the level of the A-Team. I guess we're supposed to like these guys enough to be fascinated about them. The real problem for me was the lack of a central character - the author tosses in another, an investigator who tracks down the grayed eagles and tries to persuade them to end their flights, before being forced to join them. The flying scenes suffered because there's no single POV, but that's not unusual for technothrillers and similar books. But the book also wastes an opportunity to get into the "warbird" subculture, in which old combat aircraft and their stories are restored and preserved. Instead, once each side gathers their troops together, they begin to think as if they were back in WWII. Last of all, the book has a lught touch, which is fine, but it turns violent and sad by the end. Still, "Eagles" was a worthy read, if not a memorable one.

The author writes very well and the plot is a good one. Aging German pilots decide to challenge American Air Aces to combat one-more-time. Perhaps only a male reader would understand the "need" to re-fight a lost war with all the trappings of restored aircraft, uniforms, and military customs (all this might be lost on a female reader). A good tension-packed read wherein you cannot wait to see what happens next. Good editing would have cut this book 15% or so, since some scenes and conversations are repetitious, but that is my only criticism. I would recommend this book to my male friends without reservation.

Gray Eagles is an action-packed, thrilling book that I must say kept me reading. The rich details and gritty action is very realistic, and it takes the reader on a wild airplane ride. This is about a group of old Luftwaffe aces who decide to plot vengenace on a group of old American flyboys, and in the result, well I don't want to ruin the ending so I'll just leave it here for you to guess.

This biography of Curtis Le may is fairly comprehensive and favorable to its subject, the pilot who rose from being a lowly officer at the dawn of America's entry into WWII, to command the nation's military forces at the brink of global thermonuclear war. Le May's ideas on air strategy bucked existing tactics (like how aircraft are grouped, or use of evasive tactics during their attack runs), but results (at least in comparatively minimal casualty rate sustained by his B-17 unit in Europe) raised his fortunes. Soon sent to the Pacific to command a unit of the trouble-prone B-29, Le May's star rises even higher, setting the stage for his post-war commands of USAF-Europe, SAC and USAF Chief of Staff. His greatest post-war accomplishments were turning SAC from a shell of a command into a global-ready air arm. (Coffey dwells much on SAC's sheer absence of security, and the mock attacks by ersatz saboteurs - engineered largely by Lemay himself - who left notes like "there is a bomb in the suitcase I left in the hangar; it is set to explode at 6:05 am.") When taking over SAC, Lemay tested the unit by staging mock attacks with the rules stacked in favor of the attackers - and the results were still dismal. From turning SAC around, Lemay was primed for his tempestuous tenure as CinC-USAF. As the iconic cold-war air force boss, Lemay's frequently clashed with his boss, Maxwell Taylor (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) and the civilian administration (personified by Robert McNamara). Hot topics were the military policies of "gradualism" in Vietnam as well as procurement of the joint-service fighter, the F-111, and manned bombers to replace the B-52.

Unfortunately, whether or not you're familiar with the subject of this book or air warfare in general, you're likely to put it down feeling like a lot is missing. In generally historical terms, "Iron Eagle" seems insufficiently critical of Lemay. Even if you're predisposed to favor Lemay, the book will still sound like apologia. Coffey writes constantly about how the general was misquoted on such subjects as the use of nuclear weapons in Korea or Vietnam or the no-1st strike policy, without satisfactorily explaining what the general did mean or the context in which his statements were made. Also, though taking Lemay's foes to task for being inaccurate in quoting him, Coffey remains a bit inexact himself. McNamara and his circle at DoD are repeatedly called "Whiz Kids" (probably because of their reliance on burgeoning information technology, statistical analysis and other space-age ideas in decision-making) so often that it seems that Coffey believes that that was their official name. At times, it's not clear what the source of the misquoting is - whether deliberately created or innocently spread by Lemay's enemies. Historically speaking, Coffey spends more time re-telling history than placing the historical weight where it belongs. In WWII, bombers fly missions, absorb losses and burn down Japanese cities, but never conveys the gravity of these missions on those who flew them or were targeted by them. Coffey deals slightly with the use of the a-bomb against Japan because Lemay didn't think the bomb necessary (the war was nearly over, and Lemay had accomplished his primary goal of whipping the buggy-prone B-29 into shape), but this is still a huge error. The consequences for the next world war (which loomed closely even as the existing one still raged) together with liquid-fueled missile technology proven by the Germans meant that aviation technology was about to take a massive turn. It's impossible to believe that the bomb itself, used in combat, would have little interest for him. (On a more practical level, having learned of the bomb, security reasons forced Lemay from flying any more combat missions.) Lemay's fliers themselves withstand not only brutal combat conditions but brutal training as well, but Coffey, though repeatedly stressing the training, doesn't dwell much on what that training was, what standards Lemay set, and how he observed them. After the war, Coffey similarly charts the General's political battles, but the gaps are obvious. The general is popular on capital hill, we're told, but little else on those warm relations. (Coziness with congress seems only a counterpoint to the thinly-veiled hostility Lemay received from the White House). The pivotal issues in this period involve both the Cuban Missile Crisis, procurment of a sucessor to to the B-52 and a multi-service fighter, and the manned bomber v. missiles controversy. In Cuba, Coffey goes little further than telling the story without getting to the egos underneath. Neither the fighter (soon to become the F-111) nor the bomber (the eventually cancelled B-70) rise above being the issues of budget battles in Coffey's pages - their merits as aircraft seem to have escaped him entirely, and one wonders whether we should be grateful that the government eventually against Lemay's advice (the F-111 evolved into a superb multi-role strike fighter, while Lemay's B-70 would have been made obsolete by high altitude missiles and interceptors. The debate over missiles and manned bombers is also a murky one - Lemay seeks both manned bombers and missiles for the nuclear triad, and this middle-ground is never explored. Also neglected are the B-47 and B-58, the controversy over the Northrop Flying Wing, the non-use of B-36's over Korea, advances in air defenses, or any mention of Russian innovations. Lemay's tenure covered those years reckoned as a golden age for military aviation, but Coffey seems to miss that entirely. None of the aircraft really come alive in Coffey's pages. For all of its size, "Iron Eagle" says less about Curtis Lemay than you'd find in a few pages of William Anderson's memoir "To Fly and Fight". In that book, the author recalls having to brief the General on the troubled parasite-fighter program. "That's the craziest idea I've ever heard, crazier than any of that stuff that comes out of Edwards Air Force Base......but keep working on it." If only the General edited this

This biography of Gen LeMay is an easy-to-read, informative book about Gen LeMay's life and career. Coffey's use of narratives to give the reader an insight to Gen LeMay's character make the book an enjoyable read. He does not bog us down with a lot of mundane details, and as a result, certainly some details about Gen LeMay's life and career are left out or not delved into. More attention is paid to his early career and his World War II accomplishments and not as much to his years as SAC commander and CSAF. The conflicts and controversies he was involved in as CSAF are not analyzed in depth. However, this is probably not the purpose of this book; the purpose is more of an introduction to Gen LeMay. "Iron Eagle" is a must read for Air Force personnel in order to get know one of the generals who had such a powerful effect on the Air Force and US national defense. Those interested in military history and good stories about military leaders will also find this an interesting read.

Iron Eagle is an intensely interesting biography of one of the pivotal military thinkers of the 20th Century. It is doubtful that, without Curtis Lemay's incredible forsight and military genius, WWII would have ended as soon as it did. The air campaign against Germany was going poorly until Lemay deivised the effective method of bombing that became the standard throughout WWII, Korea, & Vietnam. This book is a must for anyone who wants a true perspective on those who shaped the United States Air Force. Sadly this biography and "Mission With LeMay" are two of the very few accounts of LeMay's career and his tremendous contribution not only to the Air Force, but to the United States. Because he was such a politically incorrect thinker, most of what he has done for his country has been swept aside by revisionist historians. Truly an excellent book, well worth the reading.

Most books written about the IRA sacrifice any notion of relism to the agenda of the author-the IRA become dim-witted psychopaths stalked by noble and idealistic British agents- so it was a welcome relief to find this dark, factualy-based story set in one of the most intriguing areas of Ireland, East-Tyrone. The IRA Volunteers in the book are certainly violent,but they are also profoundly human, Seymour puts their frailties on display and paints them as victims of the conflict rather than its villains. In one revealing passage he describes the 100-year history of one IRA family and asks "where was escape? Escape was impossible." In contrast it's hard to be sympathetic with the young British agent who seems a vain, shallow careerist( In a droll scene in a later book we see that Brennard has become a pencil-pushing beaurocrat with MI6). The book's main flaw is its blind adherence to the conventions of the modern thriller, with plucky Brennard making the lucky shot against his adversary, a far more sympathetic IRA man. Also jarring is the fact that Seymour gives the impression of not having spent much time in Altmore, the setting for the novel. Physical descriptions are sparse and although Seymours' character descriptions are spot on, he has no idea of how people from Tyrone actually speak- he simply props the word "feckin'" in every second sentance and hopes for the best. The author might have benefitted from a little more time walking the roads of Altmore, like Brennard in the book he has tried to assimilate the nature of the place from the reading room in a library, like his character he fails.

If you're into the real macoy of what it feels like to live undercover, where everything and anything you say and do may give you away, this is the book for you. Always sharply focussed and with enough suspense to stop you putting the book down before you've turned the last page. The only down side is the lack of a sequal!

Captured the essence of the Catholic/Protestant conflict. The reader empathises with the Irish people but can still appreciate and applaud the actions taken by the British security forces. The use of a strong central female character in the initiation of an inexperienced male operative in this arena is at the heart of this book. Their interactions, and his own internal battle in justifying the cold, calculated acts committed in the name of God and country serve to introduce two unforgettable characters. The icing on the cake is the blending of history with the present in the introduction of, and frequent allusions to, a historical character who seems to come alive in another central character who is the protagonist of the "dynamic duo".

As the intelligence office for the Black Sheep Squadron, author Frank Walton had access to their daily combat reports. He himself had written them. From these records and his later interviews with the surviving members of the group, he penned this history. Written primarily to dispel the myth created by the TV production, he most certainly shows the men in a more realistic light. The false presentation of these men by the writers of that series as "brawling bums" and "fugitives from courts-martial" does not stand in the light he casts upon them, their character and their record. In the second half of the book, Walton introduces each man as he was when the book was written in 1986. By and large, most became very successful.

But the drama of their fighting over the Solomons falls flat in the telling. Their aerial exploits read with all the excitement and anticipation of the menu at the corner hamburger joint. The men of the Black Sheep fought together for only 12 weeks and amassed the best kill record in the South Pacific: 94 kills in only 84 days. Pappy Boyington accounted for 26 (or 28, if he is to be believed). Unfortunately, these moments of high achievement are told in the driest of voices.

Perhaps the biggest fault in the book is Walton's almost non-telling of Boyington's troubled life. He originally left the Marine Aviators days before they would have put him out for unbecoming conduct and he left the Flying Tigers for much the same reason. This highly skilled combat pilot and gifted leader of men was deeply troubled and it manifested itself in his drinking and unpredictable fighting. Playing it down adds nothing to Walton's attempt to "set the record straight" for the rest of the squadron.

Given the resources at his command, his personal friendship with all 51 original members of the group and his intimate friendship with Boyington, one would have expected a better result. Walton's stated purpose was to clear the record for the men, to present them as the men of ability, honor and skill that they were. In this regard, he does succeed.

I was a bit leary of this book when I started it. The claim of the author to be one of the Black Sheep, even though he was not one of the pilots seemed a bit odd. Well, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It is a very easy read and contains a good deal about the day to day life of a pilot in the South Pacific.

It also gives a terrific look into the people behind the personas of the Black Sheep, especially Pappy Boyington. The writer does a good job of relating the respect that his men had for him as well as about the team of pilots the Black Sheep were.

A very good read for a very good price.

The Black Sheep legend, as retold through the eyes of the survivors. The first half of the book is the squadron history of VMF 214, from the time of its resurrection under the command of Major Gregory Boyington, until the squadron was disbanded, and the squadron number reassigned to another outfit, after Boyington went missing in action (and was presumed dead), near the end of their second tour under his command. The last half of the book is a personal history from each of the survivors, as to what the experience was like, how it has affected their lives, what they did in post Black Sheep life. An assortment of interesting characters, molded under the guidance of Boyington, in to "the terrors of the South Pacific". Very interesting, although it does vary some from the version told by Boyington himself in his autobiography "Baa Baa Black Sheep". As is only human, each man sees 'the truth' from his own perspective, so it is interesting to see the whole thing through the eyes of someone other than Boyington himself. This book shows that the Black Sheep were more than Boyington. They were a well rounded team, molded and hardened under the realities of aerial combat. It comes across quite clearly however, that regardless of what they thought of Boyington as a person (they didn't all look up to him like a bunch of starry eyed boys, as depicted in the TV show...some in fact were older than Boyington), they definitely respected him as "a warrior, a fighter & a leader", and one pilot recalls thinking of Boyington as "Jesus Christ himself", upon first being introduced. Originally published in 1986 (before Boyington's death), it is surprisingly frank in it's assessment, some might even say it's condemnation, of the leader of the Black Sheep, not so much in his days as the commanding officer of the 214, but in his postwar life. Many of them felt betrayed by Boyington, after his role as 'technical advisor' on the TV series. Overall it makes for an interesting read. Well worth it. Dave White

An accomplished diver who lives happily with her mother and stepfather in Florida, Sandy is startled by the appearance of her biological father. Frederick is a crack-pot archaeologist who having lost his professional footing with colleagues due to his Atlantis theories wishes to discover the 20th century equivalent to Schliemann's Troy. He convinces Sandy to lie to her parents, meet him on the Greek Isle of Thera and dive in the treacherous expanse of sea that houses a live volcano. For Sandy this beomes an experience of polarizing emotions---while the Minoan traces on the island speak to Sandy in a way she does not quite understand, the precarious position of Thera, between two tectonic plates, keeps her permanently unbalanced as does the flirtatious relationship that develops between her with Jim, a young archaelogist working for the competition and the father-daughter tie she feels despite the seemingly insensitive actions of her father.
Intermingled with the usual Barbara Michael's mix of historical data and romance, is the coincidental reunion of Frederick, Sir Christopher (another archaeologist), a mysterious woman with an equally mysterious name---Kore, and an ex German officer who shot Frederick and Sir Christopher's companion on Crete during the German occupation in WWII.
Although the modern sensibilites alloyed to the island's ancient past makes for a climate fraught with electricity, I felt that Sandy's overtly feminist opinions adversely dated what could have been a more timeless narrative. Instead of everywoman, Sandy epitomizes the 70s working woman, quick with a retort that ensures an immediate knee-jerk defense reaction.
Otherwise the novel was a good read about an interesting subject.

I am amazed. Michaels' has proven that a little research can go a long way. This novel was really very good. The plot weaves together like a well-designed tapestry of mystery and intrigue. This one hooked me so well, I have a new passion for underwater archaeology."

I have been a fan of this author's Elizabeth Peters books for a long time, but this is the first of her Barbara Michaels books that I've read. It is just as exciting and suspenseful as her Peters books. I especially loved the Greek archaeological background.

Great book for small children - especially those who want to do things themselves and be very independent, but aren't quite there yet.

Great book for small children - teaches them that they can do many things on their own, but may sometimes need a little help. Good for that age where they want to be independent, but not quite ready yet.

It's been awhile since I read "Orchestrated Death" the first book in Ms. Harrod-Eagles Bill Slider series, but I decided to get back in the series. This is the second book in the series, and it's a good one. If you're a fan of English cozies, then give this series a try. Bill Slider is a real doll and his adventures in the fight against crime are good. I really enjoy Ms. Harrod-Eagles writing, and I'm starting to really like her characters - Bill and his sidekick Ahterton (Mr. Perfect). Dixon is wonderful too.

This was a good book that made it hard to put down.