Quote Originally Posted by jcustis View Post
Gents,

Looking for an assist here, as I need some new nightstand material, and most of what I have is too clinical and dry right now.

I am looking for the book that I think was discussed on SWC some time ago, which detailed American fighter pilots in WWII, and covered IIRC, their training. Does anyone remember the book in question? It came highly recommended because it was a very good and detailed work.

I'd like to pick it up at the same time that I grab Stuka Pilot off of Amazon.
I think the book you are talking about is The First Team by Lundstrom. It is about the Navy fighter pilot community and how they evaluated the Wildcat vs. the Zero and came up with tactics and training to vitiate the Zero's performance superiority before the war started. It was one of the most insightful books on the subject I ever read. The sequel is called the The First Team & Guadalcanal Campaign.

You also might like The Jolly Rogers by Blackburn and Zemke's Wolfpack by Zemke. They are by a Navy squadron commander and USAAF group commander respectively. Both are extremely good works about leadership combined with the problems of flying and using groups of warplanes effectively.

A book that I thought was great about the Pacific war was The Japanese Merchant Marine in WW II by Parillo. It was a completely fascinating work about a seemingly dull subject and its' importance.