Wisconsin's Flying Trees in World War II: A Victory for American Forest Products and Allied Aviation

by Sara Witter Connor

Wisconsin's trees heard "Timber " during World War II, as the forest products industry of the Badger State played a key role in the Allied aerial campaign. It was Wisconsin that provided the material for the De Havilland Mosquito, known as the "Timber Terror," while the CG-4A battle-ready gliders, cloaked in stealthy silence, carried the 82nd and 101st Airborne into fierce fighting throughout Europe and the Pacific. Sara Witter Connor follows a forgotten thread of the American war effort, celebrating the factory workers, lumberjacks, pilots and innovative thinkers of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory who helped win a world war with paper, wood and glue.

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 19, 2013

Reviews

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm currently on page 59, and so far, this doesn't feel like a cohesive book. It feels more like lists of people who worked for various lumber companies who then went to war, and various products the lumber companies made, but no narrative.

...

I'm now done (well, giving up on page 193 of 218 pages of text), and it never really got better. It had moments when it looked like it was going to become a cohesive narration, but then it didn't.

[Kent Archie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting subject, especially since I grew up in Northern Wisconsin where much of the work described was done.
The writing is kind of clumsy and that is distracting.
The main subject of the book is the use of plywood in aircraft and after reading it I still am not sure how sheets of wood are removed from a log or how plywood is shaped into curved aircraft sections.
I had no idea how much wood went into shipping things to the front and that you could build aircraft from plywood.
The authors grandfather ran a company that made plywood for use in the British Mosquito bomber.
This became important to the book when she wrote a letter to a German company that provided some equipment they used to ask about any records they had about her grandfathers visit to Germany in the late 1930's.
They said they couldn't because airplanes built with plywood her grandfather had made using the German equipment and destroyed their archives during the war.

[William Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting book about the trees of Wisconsin being used to built the Horsa & Waco gliders of WWII as well as the DeHavilland Mosquito.

Details how the glues and the laminating processes were developed right in the Wisconsin plants that would give plywood the strength to be used in these aircraft.

[Jeb Myers · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great historical World War II book about the importance of wood to the US winning the war.

Tremendous research of facts, figures and human stories. I found it completely fascinating. I struggled with the writing and organization of the book. It took great effort to read, understand and finish the book.

[Dave Hoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting chapter on the Home Front during WW2, with rationing, hard to find itemss for living, the need for workers in defense plants & in the forests, getting logs for the hundreds of forest product needs. Other chapters, Gliders for the Airborne to go into combat, the British all wood mosquito bomber, and how waterproof glue came into being interesting. Much info for those in wood product production & sales, but others, probably not..