War Bird: The Life and Times of Elliott White Springs

by Burke Davis

'War Birds' is the first biography of the legendary Elliott White Springs - World War I ace, best-selling author, advertising genius, and maverick master of a textile manufacturing empire.

267 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Courtney Grayson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a comprehensive overview of the life of Elliott White Springs, a very interesting man who seemed to live several lives in one: pilot, tycoon, father, railway owner, and more. While comprehensive, this book does have some flaws.

I will give the first half of this book grace since it was written in the 80s by a man clearly infatuated with the confederacy and all things war. However the author does seem to scatter racist quotes into his book for no apparent reason at all, such as “spring had the colossal determination and was almost like an Indian” (p. 59) and needlessly citing one captain’s name as N***** (p. 47 and 166).

Though no fault of his own, the book also suffers from the fact that the author only had letters and stories from family members to go off of. I would have loved more detail on some briefly mentioned topics, such as allusions to Elliott being suicidal during the war, references to a “mammy” nanny, the strikes that his father Leroy crushed at the Lancaster mill and more detail on the later strikes during the Great Depression, which I found to be an interesting tangent. Burke seems to go into excruciating detail on some topics while giving others barely a sentence. I would also have appreciated more information on the opinions and life of Frances, Spring’s wife, who seems to haunt the narrative but not impact it in any meaningful way.

This book also suffers from the fact that the author does not lay any context to the time period. He goes into great detail about Springs, which is of course appreciated in an autobiography, but he puts in little to no effort to lay the scene to provide cultural context or background information for the issues of the day. He seems to take for granted that the reader is a history buff already familiarized with the intricacies of WWI and its places, dates, people, and battles, and politics, which is simply not the case for most readers. It also lacks outside research and detail into such topics as the WWI planes Springs flew (which the author goes into excruciating detail about his daily flights and actions) but little detail on why the planes appeared to have so many issues.

The novel is perfectly readable without this historical and cultural context of WWI and the Great Depression, but I feel it makes the experience lack a flavor that would give Springs experiences more depth since we as readers are so far removed from this period of time.

That being said, the second half of the book is immeasurably more enjoyably than the first half, which I found to be a bit of a slog. The chapters on the Springs mill and Elliott’s transition from partying playboy to an invested and conscientious mill owner was very interesting. This book is stellar in its (sometimes excessive detail) and I can’t imagine a more compressive overview of Springs and his life. Definitely worth reading if you have an interest in the aerial ace who helped make Fort Mill and the surrounding areas into what they are today.

[Baker Roddey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story beautifully written