History

Title: The First Hellcat Ace
Author: Cdr. Hamilton McWhorter III, USN (Ret.) & Jay A. Stout
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0935553681

THE FIRST HELLCAT ACE Cdr Hamilton McWhorter, III, USN (Ret) with Jay A. Stout Though he objected to being called such, Hamilton McWhorter III's service to family and country make him a standout among America's Greatest Generation. A Georgia native whose family roots date from that region's settlement during the 1700s, Mac McWhorter was a naval aviation cadet undergoing training when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. After earning his Wings of Gold in early 1942, Ensign McWhorter was trained as a fighter pilot in the robust but technologically outmoded F4F Wildcat. Initially assigned to VF-9-a fiercely spirited and hard-playing fighter squadron-he saw first combat in November 1942 against Vichy French forces in North Africa. After returning to the United States, VF-9 became the first unit to convert to the new Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter-the fighter the U.S. Navy would use to crush Japanese air power during the long offensive from the Southwest Pacific to the shores of Japan. From mid 1943, Hamilton McWhorter was constantly engaged in the unforgiving and deadly aerial warfare that characterized the battles against Imperial Japan. His fifth aerial victory, in November 1943 off Tarawa Atoll, made him the first ace in the Hellcat, and seven subsequent victories ensured his place in the annals of air-to-air combat. McWhorter's combat service, from the beginning of the war to the last campaign off the shores of Okinawa, makes his story a must-read for the serious student of the Pacific air war. Hamilton McWhorter III retired from the Navy as a commander in 1969. He passed away in 2008. A Marine F/A-18 pilot from 1981 to early 2000, Lieutenant Colonel Jay A. Stout is a combat veteran with over 4,600 flight hours. He has also authored Hornets over Kuwait, which recounts his own experiences during the Gulf War. What the experts are saying about The First Hellcat Ace: "Mac McWhorter not only survived three carrier deployments in World War II, he earned a reputation as one of the Navy's deadliest fighter pilots. His memoir captures the attitude of his generation-the heroism and the sacrifice, and the return to a loving famiy. It was an era never to return again." --Barrett Tillman, author of Hellcat: The F6F in World War II "Mac McWhorter became a noted Navy fighter ace during World War II, his three carrier deployments characterized by intense combat, the loss of numerous squadron mates, and the pain of separation from his wife and family. His memoir is not the stuff of legends or glamour so often associated with fighter pilots, but a sensitive look at the realities faced by carrier aviators who go in harm's way." --Bruce Gamble, author of Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington "Not only a thrilling account of some of the great air battles of the Pacific war, Hamilton McWhorter's book provides a window through which we can view a generation of young men at war, impressed by their camaraderie and spirit and humbled by the hardships and fears they overcame." --M. Hill Goodspeed, historian at the U.S. Navy Aviation Museum "Today the U.S. Navy's World War II fighter pilots remain less well known than their Army Air Forces counterparts. One reason is that they have left far fewer memoirs, a great loss, because nothing can replace authentic descriptions of fighter combat by those who actually did it. Fighter ace Hamilton "One Slug" McWhorter, a member of elite Fighting Squadron 9, flew nearly the whole war, first over Northwest Africa, then in the 1943-44 Central Pacific offensives, and finally in the grim assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and in the skies over the Japanese homeland. Vividly written, The First Hellcat Ace is an important contribution not only for the Pacific but the air war in general." --John Lundstrom, author of The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to MidwayMWSA Review

Title: Street Fight in Iraq: What It's Really Like Over There (Valor in Combat Series)
Author: Patrick Tracey
Genre:
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0977143112

A day by day account of the battle for Ramadi, Iraq during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from August 2004 until March of 2005. The legendary Fox Company, Second Battalion, Fifth Marines battled insurgents on a daily basis and this book serves as a blow by blow account; told by Fox Company Gunnery Sergeant, Patrick M Tracy. The author brings you along for the ride through many battles and skirmishes and has an upfront, no-nonsense style of telling his story.

Title: THE GULF WAR CHRONICLES: A Military History of the First War with Iraq
Author: Richard S. Lowry
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1605280062

Extensively researched, painstakingly documented, and dedicated to the courageous men and women who fought and served in the First War with Iraq, this is a factual military history of Operation Desert Storm-and the only readable and thorough chronicle of the entire war.From the first night of battle to Day Two, when Saddam struck back, to G Day and the eventual cease-fire, accomplished military historian Richard S. Lowry delivers a detailed, day-by-day account of each battle and every military encounter leading up to the liberation of Kuwait.Desert Storm was a war of many firsts: America's first four-dimensional war; the first time in military history that a submerged submarine attacked a land target; the Marine Corps' first combat air strikes from an amphibious assault ship; the first time in the history of warfare that a soldier surrendered to a robot; and more. And it was an overwhelming victory for the United States and its allies.Intentionally presented without political commentary and ending with a complete listing of the heroic Americans killed in Desert Storm as well as a battle timeline, glossary, bibliography, and resources, The Gulf War Chronicles provides a much-needed understanding of the nature of modern-day, high-tech warfare and honors America's collective resolve and commitment to freedom.

Title: Hell Wouldn't Stop: An Oral History of the Battle of Wake Island
Author: Chet Cunningham
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B000FA4VJ6

In this gritty, poignant, often disturbing oral chronicle of one of the first and most tragic military engagements in World War II, Chet Cunningham gives the gallant U.S. defenders of Wake Island—among them his older brother, Kenneth, then a private in the Marines—their long-overlooked due. For Kenneth Cunningham, a serviceman in the defense battalion stationed on Wake Island, World War II began on December 8, 1941, just five hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It ended on December 23. That day the Marines on Wake Island—their twelve Wildcat fighter planes lost, their forces diminished—faced an overwhelming enemy invasion, with the Japanese arriving in so many ships that, as one eyewitness put it, they could have walked from one to the other on the open sea. Private Cunningham and his fellow Marines fought intrepidly, until their commanding officers ordered them to surrender. Their term in hell, though, had just begun. When the Marines laid down their arms they were stripped naked. With their hands bound, they sat naked in the hot sun all day; at night they shivered in the cold. They suffered endless days at sea jammed in the holds of ships that took them to prison camps in China and Japan. Forty-four months later, liberated at last, they would return home unheralded and largely forgotten. Their often horrific, frequently heroic story now stands recorded, for the most part in the words of the soldiers, sailors, Marines, and civilian personnel who were there, as well as of their wives and widows, in startling, unforgettable detail. Eight pages of black-and-white photographs add to this gripping reconstruction of the sixteen-day battle for Wake Island and its aftermath.

Title: Marines in the Garden of Eden – The Battle for An Nasiriyah
Author: Richard Lowry
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B001OMHTES

On March 23, 2003, in the city of An Nasiriyah, Iraq, members of the 507th Maintenance Company came under attack from Iraqi forces who killed or wounded twenty-one soldiers and took six prisoners, including Private Jessica Lynch. For the next week, An Nasiriyah rocked with battle as the marines of Task Force Tarawa fought Saddam's fanatical followers, street by street and building to building, ultimately rescuing Private Lynch.