Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator

A firsthand account of the experiences of war describes the author's life as a combat pilot in the Pacific during World War II, from his joining the Marines at the age of eighteen in 1943, to the end of the war, two years and several hundred missions later

Hynes, a professor at Princeton, looks back with amused nostalgia at the wide-eyed, eager youngster he was as an aviation cadet and then as a Marine lieutenant who saw action in the Pacific as a light-bomber pilot. The memoir, however, is only secondarily about combat. Mostly it tells what it was like to be "young and happy and silly" while training for, then participating in, the Second World War. The author recalls that he had three major goals in those days: getting drunk, getting laid and getting into the war. Hynes includes classic military-on-the-make anecdotes, and, although he and many of his fellow pilots considered "gross and ugly" the behavior of the more sexually aggressive members of the squadron, their gross and ugly antics are tenderly, and hilariously, depicted. The author married during the war, and his description of the relationship (he and his wife were part of a "game" that, in retrospect, he calls "Grown-ups") is as moving as his account of the first combat death he witnessed. 35,000 first printing.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Teenager Hynes (now Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature, Princeton) took naval flight training, became a Marine bomber pilot, and late in World War II flew over 100 missions against the Japanese. His scintillating descriptions of this time, of his friends and often bawdy fellow pilots, of his tentative romantic adventures, and of new vistas and challenges, are woven together with skill and intelligence. This is not a standard story of courage in war, but rather a tale of the dogged and mortal persistence to pass many versions of "the Test" that training and combat and even sex presented to a young man preparing for war. An introspective, winning, and vivid recollection sketched by a gifted observer. Mel D. Lane, Sacramento, Cal.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.