War in the Air: True Accounts of the 20th Century's Most Dramatic Air Battles--By the Men Who Fought Them

Stephen Coonts has compiled a work of non-fiction from many different sources and put together an OUTSTANDING book of the legacy of fighter pilots spanning the 20th century. This book is excellent reading, very entertaining and thought provoking. From World War I, through to present day (including the oft negelected Korean War), each story will bring you as close to being there as possible. This book is broken down into many excerpts, and would make a supreme bedstand novel for anyone even remotely interested in war, aviation, air combat, or even just incredible stories of humans and their machines under pressure. I give this book an easy 10 stars for entertainment. You wont be displeased.

This is a collection of 26 in-the-cockpit memoirs of air warfare: three from World War I, seven Vietnam and the rest (inevitably) WWII. All are taken from best selling biographies. Experienced readers will find nothing new, but it is always fun to go through these well-chosen yarns again, and the book will be a treasure for newcomers. Best of all, it stimulates the reader to track down the original books and points the way to lots of reading fun.

If you're just getting started in building your library, then get this book! If you already have a library started and don't know what to find to add to it, get this book! Stephen Coonts draws from a wide range of autobiographies, biographies, and other books and has compiled what I consider to be the most comprehensible collection of the top stories ever written about air combat, from World War I to Vietnam (the hunting ground of America's last ace). Inside the book you'll find some of the most gripping action as told by the men who lived it or those who's job it was to document it. A great book for reading on vacation or weekends at the house, as the chapters are self-contained (i.e. one chapter does not lead-in to the next, since each chapter is only a part of a larger book and no book is covered twice). My advice: get this book, read it, and then make sure you read all of the other books that Coonts uses in this one. You won't regret it!

I especially liked the way he presents different sides of air battles like germans, japanese, american and english. When reading you realize that they all form a special brotherhood. And reading the vietnam parts of the book really makes you shudder about that rotten war.

For those of us who never lived our dreams of flying in combat, this book takes us there. The combination of raw emotions and cool thinking of the pilot-authors is enough to humble ordinary humans. By including a cross section of pilots of different nationalities, including American, German, British, and Japanese, Coonts emphasizes the sheer courage, physical endurance, and underneath it all, the simple love of flying common to all of these air warriors. While other compilations may express the joy of flying more clearly, nothing else I have ever read could induce the adrenaline rush evoked by some of the stories in this book. I originally checked the book out from my local library off of the new arrivals shelf, but before it was even due, I had already ordered a hardback copy for myself and my 8 year old son, Jake, who thinks he wants to be a Naval Aviator like Coonts. This book will please anyone interested in the effects of war on the human spirit, even if they are not particularly interested in flying or aircraft. Most wonderful of all, the pilots' writing (or ghost writing?) is clear, vivid, and lacking of all pretense; they use the language and phrasing of ordinary men while humbly recounting tales which could only be lived by extraordinary men. And the author's final chapter, The Last Ace, is sobering and almost melancholy, as he rationally outlines his belief that fighter aces are almost as anachronistic as knights in armor. Reflection on this thought, however, leads you to recognize just how special the men who wrote these stories are, and how lucky we are to be able to read them, and probably re-read them many times, in one compilation like this. And finally, how could you go wrong by buying a book with a cover like this one? The only mistake you can make if you buy this book will be if you fail to display it so the front cover is visible.