No Margin for Error; The Making of the Israeli Air Force

xiv, 426, [6] pages. Footnotes. Illustrations. Author's Notes. Notes. Sources. Maps. Index. DJ is price clipped. DJ worn. Some pencil marks and highlighting. Inscribed on fep by George Lichter. There are 10 references in the index to George Lichter. Yonay helped make the Top Gun school at Miramar Naval Air Station famous. A journalist and a student of the military, he had written an article about the Top Gunners for California Magazine. In turn, the magazine article was read by Hollywood producers, who used it as the basis for the movie starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. After writing the magazine piece, he went back to Israel where he researched and wrote another impactful military-themed book, No Margin for Error: the Making of the Israeli Air Force. George Lichter flew P-47C/Ds and P-51Ds with the USAAF's 374th Fighter Squadron From November 1943 to just before the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944. On Dec. 23, Lichter and others left for Israel. Lichter spent the rest of the war in Israel. The Air Force assigned Lichter to 101 Squadron, under the command of Ezer Weizman. later IAF HQ transferred him to Ekron to become the chief test pilot there. His next assignment was to head the IAF's advanced flying school. Derived from a Kirkus review: An exciting, suspenseful history of the Israeli Air Force. Investigative reporter Yonay re-creates the travails and triumphs of the IAF through a skillful interweaving of interviews with scores of airmen and government leaders, official archives, published memoirs and articles, and private diaries. When Jordanian and Egyptian forces invaded Israel in 1948, the just-born nation's air power consisted of only a handful of secondhand WW II light aircraft and a small international group of volunteer flyers. The pilots were top-notch, but they were also undisciplined. Chief among the hell-raisers was Ezer Weizman, in later years head of the IAF; balancing his influence was that of serious airmen like Aharon Remez, operations chief of the Haganah Air Service, who sought to mold a sober air force like that of other countries. The attack-oriented IAF believed in striking enemy installations and concentrations behind the lines. Unshackled in the Six-Day War, the IAF's destruction of the bulk of Egypt's air force on the tarmac enabled the ground forces to win their epic victories. A well-researched, valuable contribution to military/Judaic history. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing.…