Product Description

In World War II Sam Hynes was a young Marine bomber pilot. He flew more than a hundred missions against the Japanese at Okinawa and Ulithi. But now, some sixty years later, it is not the mechanics of flying and war-making that remain uppermost in this pilot's memory. What Hynes remembers best and describes so eloquently in this memoir are the sensations he experienced in his rites of passage from untrained cadet to war-weary aviator, from youthful innocence to manhood.
Hynes tells the story of his training and fighting, and of the growing up that went with it, by re-creating the world of the 1940's as he knew it. A Midwestern boy, he was just eighteen when he left home to learn to fly and turned twenty-one at the war's end. In the decades since, Hynes has become an established author; and here his lucid, simple style engages the reader in his exploration of the mysteries of coming of age in wartime.
With humor and compassion Hynes presents unforgettable portraits of his fellow aviators. Neither judgmental nor sentimental, his disciplined understatement communicates an acute sense of the spectacular madness of war--the exhilaration and tedium, the admiration for a pilot's prowess, the inpenetrable absurdity of the death of friends. At the same time, he gives us a sense of the wondrous feeling of flying--that harmony that exists between a pilot and his machine aloft in the unsubstantial air.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #644780 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-04
• Released on: 2003-02-04
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .40 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Paul Fussell, author of THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY
"The depth of Hynes's understanding and his tactful art have created a war memoir which will become a classic."

James Dickey, National Book Award winner
"Hynes can write; his story is fascinating, imaginative, and unforgettable."

WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
"An unusual and moving book . . . an authentic fragment, poignant and real, of a great and tumultuous past."