FIGHTER PILOT: THE WORLD WAR II CAREER of ALEX VRACIU by Roy E. Boomhower

 

Published in 2010 by Indiana Historical Society Press.

Alex Vraciu (1918-2015) was a World War II flying ace, ranking fourth in the U.S. Navy in World War II. He destroyed 19 Japanese planes in the air and 21 on the ground. 

This short book is very approachable and tells the story of Vraciu's childhood during the Great Depression in Northwest Indiana (now commonly known as "The Region") and his college years at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. 

Vraciu took advantage of a U.S. government program that trained civilians to be pilots with the understanding that if the U.S. went to war those pilots would become military pilots. He trained in Muncie, Indiana and immediately joined the U.S. Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Vraciu had a remarkable military career over the next 23 years. Besides destroying 40 Japanese planes, he lost multiple planes, including being shot down over the Philippines and leading a group of guerrilla fighters against the Japanese, he became a test pilot, he led squadrons after they navy transitioned to jets and scored the highest in the predecessor to the Navy's "Top Gun" training program in a jet 12 years after the end of World War II. 

The book is very readable and full of interesting photographs. It would be good for a well-read student of World War II or an interested newbie. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FIGHTER PILOT: THE WORLD WAR II CAREER of ALEX VRACIU by Roy E. Boomhower.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

STAR-SPANGLED JESUS: LEAVING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM and FINDING a TRUE FAITH (audiobook) by April Ajoy

Image
Published in October of 2024 by Worthy Books. Read by the author, April Ajoy. Duration: 8 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. Star-Spangled Jesus is the story of April Ajoy and her spiritual evolution since the political appearance of Donald Trump in 2015-2016.  Is it weird that a politician caused a spiritual evolution?  No, not in a world of Christian Nationalism. For the most basic definition, I am going to say that it is a belief that a person can't truly be an American if they aren't Christian and their rights as an American should reflect that. Also, this is precisely what happened to me, so I get it. Trump shocked me out of the Republican = Good Christian mindset because of the simple reason that he is so overtly antithetical to so many Christian ideals and is proud of it. If the previous paragraph offends or confuses you, you will hate this book.  Ajoy's pre-2015 Christian experience was much more conservative than mine and more intense. Her father was a conservative p...
Read more

YEAR WITHOUT SUMMER: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
Published in July of 2024 by Hourly History. In April of 1815, a volcano called Mount Tambora on an island in Indonesia erupted in a massive explosion. It was one of the largest explosions in human history. It obliterated most of the volcano, buried nearby villages and causes tsunamis. There were more eruptions that followed. It was a massive local problem, but the rest of the world had no idea it had even happened. But, the rest of the world soon was affected by these explosions. Debris from the explosion got into the stratosphere and spread all around the world. There was so much ash in the upper atmosphere that 1816 became known as "The Year Without a Summer."  This short e-book details some of the results, including snowfalls well into what are popularly regarded as summer months in regions of North America that rarely see snowfall after March. There were crop failures across North America, Europe, and Asia and political instability soon followed, especially in the Old Wo...
Read more

SING DOWN the MOON by Scott O'Dell

Image
Originally published in 1970. Named a Newberry Honor Book in 1971. Set in the New Mexico and Arizona territories in 1863-1865, Sing Down the Moon is the story of a teenaged Navajo girl named Bright Morning.  Despite the fact that the American Civil War is raging in the East, this is a tough time for the Navajo. There are pressures from the people they call Spaniards who raid the Navajo and other Native Americans in search of slaves (undoubtedly the "Spaniards" were Spanish-speaking Mexicans that were living in the territory before Mexico lost it to the United States at the end of the Mexican War in 1848.) But, that's not the worst of it. In 1864, the U.S. military under Kit Carson (called Long Knives in this book) rounded up all of the Navajo and put them in a concentration camp called Bosque Redondo. The Navajo in the book are unsure as to why they were forced to come to the camp, but the ongoing threat of Confederate raids into Arizona and New Mexico had a lot to do wi...
Read more

THE BEST of 2024

Image
This is a "best of" list based on the 89 books I read and reviewed in 2024. I do not focus on new books, so there are books on this "best of" ranging from being published in 1953 to being published in October of 2024. The titles are active links to my reviews. *** = Best of the best in that category. HISTORY/MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY/NON-FICTION This is a tough category every year. Every one of these is great, but Tim Alberta's book just stuck with me. His look into the world of Christian Nationalism was an alarm bell in the night for all American Christians. *** The Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta. Attucks! Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team that Awakened a City by Phillip Hoose.  Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy by Nathaniel Philbrick. Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith by April Ajoy. The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family ...
Read more

Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate by Rick Bowers

Image
A Dual Biography of Sorts Published by National Geographic in 2012. Note: This is a YA book aimed at 5th graders and above. This adult enjoyed the book also. From time to time the dual biography comes back into vogue. Dual biographies are a great way to compare and contrast two people's lives and, in this case, this style is used to compare and contrast two different organizations: The Ku Klux Klan and Superman, Inc. and see how these two radically different groups interacted. There is, of course, so such thing as Superman, Inc. - I made that up. Superman is owned by D.C. Comics, but there are people who make all sorts of decisions on how to present Superman. What will he stand for and stand against? What will the next comic be like? How about the next movie? Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan   tells the story of the creation of Superman (and the two young Jewish boys from Ohio who created him) and how Superman quickly caught on once a publisher finally took him on in 1938. ...
Read more

USHERS (short story) by Joe Hill

Image
Published by Amazon Original Stories on November 1, 2024. Synopsis: In Ushers , Martin Lorensen is being questioned by two federal agents that have noticed that he almost died twice in two mass casualty incidents. One was a school shooting that primarily took place in the classroom he shared with the shooter when he was in high school. He got to school that day, but turned around and went home when he got to the front doors - just a few minutes before the shooting started. The other was a tremendous train crash - he almost got onto the train - he was at the station with ticket in hand and walked away after telling a girl and her mom to not get on the train. The federal agents are curious. Is he some sort of terrorist that sets up mass casualty events? Or, is he the luckiest man on the East Coast? My review: This is a well-told short story with an ending  that would have been a welcome addition to the Rod Serling's old Twilight Zone series. I rate this story 5 stars out of 5. It can...
Read more

WILD BILL HICKOK: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
Published by Hourly History in November of 2024. Hourly History offers free e-books every week. Each of the books take about an hour to read and the smaller topics are really quite good. The series is good for things you want to know more about, but you don't want to read a 400 page book on the topic. There is probably a large book about Wild Bill Hickock (1839-1876), but I don't want to read it. This length made for a perfectly enjoyable and interesting read. Hickock started out fighting in the pre-Civil War Bleeding Kansas conflict on the anti-slavery side, worked as a guide, a hunter, a sheriff, and eventually ended up being shut in the back of the head while playing poker in Deadwood in the Dakota Territory by a man who was too afraid to fight Hickock in a duel. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Wild Bill Hickock: A Life from Beginning to End . 
Read more

KURT VONNEGUT: THE LAST INTERVIEW and OTHER CONVERSATIONS (Last Interview Series) edited by Tom McCartan

Image
  Published in 2011 by Melville House. The Last Interview Series is a collection of 42 books that collect interviews with various artists, celebrities, and political figures. The book includes the last interview given by the featured person. In the case of Vonnegut, his last interview is very short because he was ill at the time so he cut it short. There are six interviews here. The best is a co-interview with fellow author Joseph Heller (best known for Catch-22 ) from Playboy (turns out their interviews were a good reason to buy the magazine!) Heller helps Vonnegut focus a bit - he tends to go off on riffs and some interviewers don't know what to do with that (the first one seemed annoyed by this tendency.) If you like Vonnegut's essays, you will enjoy these interviews. I love his collections of essays so I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview and Other Conversations .
Read more

SIN MIEDO: LECCIONES de REBELDES (en español) by Jorge Ramos)

Image
Published by Celebra in 2016. In Sin Miedo: Lecciones de Rebeldes , Jorge Ramos brings us stories of people that he has interviewed over the years that he considers to be rebels with lessons to offer to all of us. The title can be translated as Fearless: Lessons from Rebels . Some really are literal rebels, some are rebels that became dictators (he has 4 of these), and some are people that really aren't rebels, but are very successful in areas where people like them are not normally successful. If you don't know who Jorge Ramos is, you probably don't watch Univision TV very much. Univision is a Spanish language channel based in Miami and Ramos is their most recognizable news anchor.  The interviewees range all over the place, including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Fidel Castro, Barbara Walters, George W. Bush, Daniel Ortega, former Presidents of Mexico, two Venezuelan dictators, a Mexican revolutionary leader, Spike Lee, and Richard Branson. Some of the interviews are pretty c...
Read more

BRAVE COMPANIONS: PORTRAITS in HISTORY (audiobook) by David MCCullough

Image
Originally published in hardback book form in 1991. Published by Simon and Schuster Audio. Read by the author, David McCullough Duration: 11 hours, 19 minutes Unabridged Brave Companions: Portraits in History  is a collection of previously published articles and speeches. It's a smattering of this and that - sometimes it's about art, sometimes about scientists, sometimes about politicians and sometimes it's just some musings from McCullough about history. It doesn't matter, almost all of it is interesting and well-told. McCullough understands the value of telling history as a story - as always he is very approachable. My favorite entry was the story of the railroad that preceded the Panama Canal. It was an amazing story of the power of human will against nature. McCullough reads this audiobook, which is great because McCullough has a fantastic speaking voice and is well known for his voice work. I envy both his writing ability and his talents as a speaker. My fav...
Read more