Non-Fiction

Title: Wind to Water
Author: David Hamershock
Genre: Non-Fiction, Inspirational
Reviewer: Claudia Pemberton

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1598587889

A United States military plane is shot down over the Iraqi countryside; its young pilot is presumed dead. A decade later, his fiancé, Maryn, takes a trip to Australia to finally say goodbye to her airman who never came home. The Seattle school teacher meets a divorced marine biologist named Grant on a tour. Grant soon discovers he's attracted as much to Maryn's wit as to her looks. But occasionally, a melancholy creeps into her eyes. Eventually, she allows Grant to read a letter from her fiancé--the kind soldiers write "just in case." Grant halts his romantic feelings and their friendship blossoms. Later, they reunite in California, but Grant wonders if Maryn's past is truly behind her. 'Wind to Water' is a love story, travel adventure and romantic comedy. It chronicles an ordinary man's search for an extraordinary love in a world mostly unfit for such a venture.

Title: Flight Surgeon: Diary of Medical Detachment, 1943-1944
Author:Ernest Gaillard, Jr.
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewer: Weymouth Symmes

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1410746712

The text consists of a World War II war narrative from the perspective of the flight surgeon. The setting is in the European Theatre of Operations on a Fortress base in East Anglia. This deals primarily with an ancillary ground command and with only testimonial reference to any aerial combat. It deals with more in the way of the pertinent day-to-day logistics and emotional anxieties and ordeals of the supportive, ground-based non-combatants when dealing with returning crews. This is a whole other story and rarely, if ever, addressed.

The text comprises a foreword, additional readers' notes, the body of the text, numerous photos and images, secret reports and endnotes, and a contemporary, explanatory glossary of period terms and acronyms.

Title: The B-45 Tornado: An Operational History of the First American Jet Bomber
Author:John C. Fredriksen
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: David Tschantz

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0786442786

The North American B-45 Tornado was America's first jet bomber and was used in a number of vital missions for nearly a decade. Drawing from declassified secret documents, this history explains the bomber's use in strategic reconnaissance and atomic-weapon strike missions from its 1944 development to its role in the Cold War. The book includes numerous photographs and more than 100 interviews with pilots, navigators, and ground personnel.

Title: Cleared to Land: Memoirs of an Army Air Traffic Controller Vietnam--Mar 68-Sep 71
Author: Jeffrey K. Fozard
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewer: Rob Ballister

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1438971222

Memoirs of my three years as an air traffic controller in Vietnam. I worked in Soc rang, Can Tho, Bear Cat, Phu Hiep and Phu Bai. Air traffic at the most was over 2000 operations a day in Can Tho. We had one PSP runway of 3000' and two swamps for approaches. On my days off, I flew as a door gunner. I have crewmember time on UH-1D Slicks, UH-1C Gunships, CH-47 Chinooks. O-1 Bird Dogs as an Observer, three missions as a crewmember on the AC-47 Spooky kicking flares out the cargo door. I have a few night missions on Navy PBRs out of Binh Thuy. I have flown around the tip of the Delta up to as far North as Quang Tri and Dong Ha.

Title: Grumman F9F Panther/Cougar
Author: Brad Elway
Genre: Non-Fiction, Reference
Reviewer: jim greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1580071457

By the end of World War II, piston-powered fighters were at their absolute zenith. As good as those airplanes were, America's aviation industry found itself starting over in the Jet Age with new airplanes powered by anemic and somewhat cantankerous turbine engines. More importantly, just as these new aircraft were maturing, they were thrust into war in the skies over Korea. Grumman's first jets were potent aircraft in their own right, but also proved to be the building blocks from which two more famous Grumman 'cats' were born -- the supersonic F11F Tiger and swing-wing Mach 2 F-14 Tomcat.

Grumman F9F Panther/Cougar tells the story of the pivotal F9F Panther from its initial concept through early design and manufacturing, flight test, aircraft carrier trials, and combat operations in the Korean War. Completing this story is coverage of the more advanced swept-wing transonic Cougar that goes on to become an effective trainer and photo-recon aircraft as well. Detailed appendices provide the reader with complete data on F9F production numbers, carrier deployments, and squadron histories.