The Aviators; Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight

Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2013. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Carl Mehler (Maps) and Gregory Ugiansky (Maps). 464 pages. Verso last line states 13/QGF-CML/1 which is interpreted to mean first edition and first printing. Includes Map of Pacific Theater in World War II; Notes; Notes on Sources and Acknowledgments; Bibliography, and Index. Also includes chapters on These Three Men; The King of Dirt; The Man with the Outside Loop; Can Those Be Stars?; Air Combat Is Not Sport, It Is Scientific Murder; New York to Paris; Man's Greatest Enemy in the Air; I Was Saved for Some Good Purpose; An Inspiration in a Grubby World; His Halo Turned into a Noose; The Raid; We Were Slowly Rotting Away; The Lone Eagle Goes to War; and Masters of the Sky. Winston Francis Groom Jr. (March 23, 1943 - September 17, 2020) was an American novelist and nonfiction writer. He is best known for his 1986 novel Forrest Gump, which was adapted into the popular 1994 film Forrest Gump directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film was considered a cultural phenomenon and won six Academy Awards. He published a sequel, Gump and Co., in 1995. He also wrote numerous nonfiction works, on diverse subjects including the American Civil War and World War I. Derived from a Kirkus review: Joint biography of three legendary pilots. Groom takes his subjects from their earliest days through World War II, when they all found a way to aid the struggle against the Axis powers. All three of Groom's subjects earned their renown by doing something extraordinary. Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) rose from auto mechanic to champion race car driver and then became the top American flying ace of World War I. Jimmy Doolittle (1896-1993), a tough kid who boxed to pay for college, became the military's leading test pilot in the 1920s. Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) dropped out of college to be a stunt pilot before becoming the most famous man alive for his New York to Paris flight in 1927. Groom traces their early careers, showing how they learned the nuts and bolts of aviation in the process of becoming pilots. This stood them in good stead in their later careers. Lindbergh personally oversaw the building of the Spirit of St. Louis, the plane for his epic flight, and, later in World War II, helped U.S. forces in the Pacific improve the range of the P-38 fighter planes. Doolittle is probably best known for his 1942 bombing raid on Tokyo, in which he used innovative tactics to shake the enemy's confidence in the impregnability of the Japanese homeland. Rickenbacker, on a secret mission to deliver orders to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, survived more than three weeks on a life raft in the shark-infested South Pacific after his plane went down, nearly starving, continuing the mission as soon as he recovered from the ordeal. Groom lets his empathy with his subjects somewhat outweigh their flaws, notably Lindbergh's initial failure to recognize the evil of Nazism. Ultimately, though, the author convincingly portrays them as true American heroes, men who changed the world by their deeds and who inspired countless others to emulate their examples.
A gripping document of a brilliant era in our history and a few of the men who helped make it so.