The Flying Circus: Pacific War-1943- As Seen Through a Bombsight - Hardcover

Wright, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1592286569 ISBN 13: 9781592286560

Publisher: Lyons Pr, 2005

Synopsis

In the late evening of April 24, 1943, the first of thirty-six B-24 Liberator bombers, manned by skeleton crews, lifted off from the airstrip at Hamilton Field, just north of San Francisco. The planes were en route to Australia and flew singly, takeoffs scheduled five minutes apart to ensure secrecy. On board was twenty-year-old James C. Wright, who went on to serve in congress for thirty-four years, serving as the Speaker of the House from 1987 to 1989.

It was the first of five legs in the overseas movement of the 380th Heavy Bomb Group, known to a small circle within the Army Air Corps as “The Flying Circus.” Wright was a second lieutenant trained as a bombardier, with just a few hours of “stick time.” He was wholly unprepared for this first night leg of the journey into the Pacific combat zone, and for the horrors of war to follow.

Wright takes the reader to the slapped-together base camp in a desolate section of Australia, close to the Japanese bases with whom the 380th traded raids almost nightly. Wright flies sorties over kangaroo wastelands and into Timor, as well as into “Suicide Alley,” where lay the airfields on the heavily defended Solomon Islands.

The Flying Circus is about the action, but it’s also about the melting pot that was the army greeting a young man from Texas, what it took to be the bombardier--whose proficiency made or broke missions—and what formed a man who would stand astride the national stage for more than three decades.

About this title

About the Author

James C. Wright, just Jim Wright to most of the country, was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and represented that state in congress through four decades. He now lives in the Fort Worth area.

From the Back Cover

In the late evening of April 24, 1943, the first of thirty-six B-24 Liberator bombers, manned by skeleton crews, lifted off from the airstrip at Hamilton Field, just north of San Francisco. The planes were en route to Australia and flew singly, takeoffs scheduled five minutes apart to ensure secrecy. On board was twenty-year-old James C. Wright, who went on to serve in Congress for thirty-four years, serving as the speaker of the house from 1987 to 1989.
It was the first of five legs in the overseas movement of the 380th Heavy Bomb Group, known to a small circle within the Army Air Corps as "The Flying Circus." Wright was a second lieutenant trained as a bombardier, with just a few hours of "stick time." He was wholly unprepared for this first night leg of the journey into the Pacific combat zone, and for the horrors of war to follow.
Wright takes the reader to the slapped-together base camp in a desolate section of Australia, close to the Japanese bases with whom the 380th trades raids almost nightly. Wright flies sorties over kangaroo wastelands and into Timor, as well as into "Suicide Alley," where lie the airfields on the heavily defended Solomon Islands.
The Flying Circus is about the action, but it's also about the melting pot that was the army greeting a young man from Texas; what it took to be the bombardier, whose proficiency made or broke missions; and the events that formed a man who would stand astride the national stage for more than three decades.

Reviews

The lengthening shelf of Greatest Generation memoirs gets a pleasant if somewhat rambling and soft-focus addition in this reminiscence by the former Democratic Speaker of the House. Wright traverses the usual rites of passage, including post-Pearl Harbor enlistment, impulsive war marriage, immersion in a melting pot of fellow recruits, poignant farewell to family and, finally, combat with the Japanese as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator. He survived his plane's run-ins with Zeroes and flak unscathed, but his unit suffered heavy losses, and he recounts the ordeals of other aircrews who were shot down and captured-and sometimes beheaded-by the Japanese. Still, Wright's was not the grimmest of wartime experiences; he was stationed at a relatively comfortable base in Australia. Much of the book is taken up with meandering, quotidian anecdotes-one chapter is titled "Mail Call, Mess Hall and Egg in My Beer"-and it is suffused with nostalgia for a "hopelessly romantic and very wonderful" time. Wright is also not an entirely reliable source of information on the wider war, and rather grossly overestimates the military significance of the engagements he participated in. Not particularly interesting in its own right, his book coasts on its association with the still-potent glamour of the Good War.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Wright, author of such books as You and Your Congressman (1965) and Reflections of a Public Man (1984), is best known as a former U.S. Congressman with a lot of clout. The Texan served in Congress for three and a half decades and was Speaker of the House for two years (1987-89). But when he was a pup, Wright, a newly minted bombardier in World War II, took part in a historic event. In April 1943, 36 B-24 bombers took off from California's Hamilton Field, bound for Australia, from where they flew numerous sorties over Japanese bases. They were the 380th Heavy Bomb Group, dubbed "the Flying Circus." Wright recounts his time with the 380th in his usual plain-speaking, gently humorous style. It's a dramatic and poignant story, but the author doesn't turn it maudlin by milking it for every drop of emotion. In his hands, it's a lively story of comradeship, adventure, and a young man who had to grow up a lot faster than he would have preferred. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Lyons Pr
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1592286569
• ISBN 13: 9781592286560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214