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

by Stephen Coonts (Editor)

Presents twenty-six real-life accounts of aerial warfare, including "The Hero's Life" by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker" and "The Flight of Enola Gay" by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts

Genres: History, Aviation, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Military History, Historical

331 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Stephen Coonts (born July 19, 1946) is an American thriller and suspense novelist.

Coonts grew up in Buckhannon, West Virginia, a small coal-mining town and earned an B.A. degree in political science at West Virginia University in 1968. He entered the Navy the following year and flew an A-6 Intruder medium attack plane during the Vietnam War, where he served on two combat cruises aboard the USS Enterprise (CVN-65). He accumulated 1600 hours in the A-6 Intruder and earned a number of Navy commendations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war he served as a flight instructor on A-6 aircraft for two years, then did a tour as an assistant catapult and arresting gear officer aboard USS Nimitz (CVN-68). His navigator-bombardier was LTjg Stanley W. Bryant who later became a Rear Admiral and deputy commander-in-chief of the US naval forces in Europe.

After being honorably discharged from duty as a lieutenant in 1977, Coonts pursued a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree at the University of Colorado, graduating in 1979. He then worked as an oil and gas lawyer for several companies, entertaining his writing interests in his free time.

He published short stories in a number of publications before writing Flight of the Intruder in 1986 (made into a movie in 1991). Intruder, based in part on his experiences as a bomber pilot, spent 28 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists in hardcover and launched his career as a novelist. From there he continued writing adventure-mysteries using the character from his first book, Jake Grafton. He has written several other series and stand-alone novels since then, but is most notable for the Grafton books.

Today Coonts continues to write, having had seventeen New York Times bestsellers (out of 20 books), and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his wife and son.

Taken from Wikipedia

Learn more about Stephen Coonts on the Macmillan website.

Reviews

[Chris C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent as a collection of excerpts.

[Ronald Spitzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book to read. I have always found aerial combat, especially from World War I and II interesting. This book goes beyond the pilots winning the battles to also how when some are who are shot down manage to survive to return and fight again. The common denominator here seems to be the character quality of just not being able to give up which is also why they became aces. I especially enjoyed the German and Japanese pilots featured. Korean and Vietnam accounts were also fascinating. Nothing from the Gulf Wars, but then our enemies decided contesting the skies was expensive suicide.... I highly recommend this book.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books you pick up because they remind you of books you used to read. Coonts is the editor of this group of stories of aces and other fighter/combat pilots from World War I to Vietnam. I have always been fascinated by the stories--read "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" when I was 12. It is excerpted in Coonts collection.

[Jacob Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book with just passages this novel was well put together. I liked the overall idea of it, but it couldn't catch an interest like other books can. If your looking for a drier book with many facts this book is good for you

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compilation of excerpts from books published over the years. The editor made excellent choices providing an overview of warfare in the airplane over the last century. The sources were some of the most well-known books of their day.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good look at air war from the beginning of the 20th century till the end of the Vietnam war.

[Bill Reavey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book, fantastic short stories about aviators that fought in some extreme battles and lived to tell about it!

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

My kids gave me this book as a gift after finding it in a second-hand shop. They thought it would appeal to my "airplane nerd" tendencies. They were right. It did. But I quickly realized that what I thought were short stories, were in fact excerpts from other books written by former airmen and combat pilots. OK, still interesting stuff, so no problem, right? Well...not exactly. In order for a collection of excerpts to come together as a readable book, a fair amount of actual editing needs to be done. In that regard, I don't think Stephen Coonts hit the mark any too well here. I strongly suspect this was due to him respecting the source material by not altering it in any way. Commendable, but it makes for a very uneven presentation. Some of the excerpts are well contained and stand alone nicely as short stories. Others, however, have the uncomfortable feeling of having been cut from a much more comprehensive accounting of events and unceremoniously pasted into this collection. Which is too bad, really. Because again, the subject matter is some truly fascinating stuff. So overall, just kind of a middle of the road opinion of this book. Not bad by any means, but too choppy to really pull you in.

[Brad Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a nice thing to read if you get your rocks off on war at all. the author/editor presents the material chronologically, and as a reader i developed a slight understanding for the evolution of air warfare - for which i am thankful. not heavy reading, that's for sure, but that's not really the point - the point is that some guy got shot down twice in one day in World War II, and that he flew the next damn day. another guy shot down something like 350 enemy aircraft. awesome. war porn. fantastic.

[Grant Aagard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good air combat stories but I thought it was a book written by Stephen Coonts, instead it is an anthology with him writing the story intros and the final story. Was a little disappointed because of this.

[Csrabb · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some very good stories but some that were a bit longwinded.