Starr Smith

What would it be like to excel in two fields? How often does a man come along who excels in two fields, yet remains a gentleman?

Smith's hagiography and occasional awkward phrasing is worth sticking with, as the reader ends up with the facts concerning Stewart's achievements as Liberator pilot and officer. Intelligence, diligence, and moral clarity made the man what he was. His fellow warriors recognized it when they worked with him, just as millions recognized it on the silver screen.

The end show more matter in this volume is very interesting. It includes General Andy Low's and Abe Wilen's accounts of POW experiences, an excerpt from Churchill's "Post-War Comments on the Allied Victory in Europe," and Smith's essay on the TAC school.

It includes as well an excerpt from Gurney's "The War in the Air," consisting of quoted remarks by Goering. These fascinate, as Goering reads like he and his buddies were off their meds, matter-of-factly reeling off the state, at various moments, of their plans for world domination. The scary thing about that is that so much of that planning they enacted, and other of it could have been enacted also. Here's Goering:

"The allies owe the success of the invasion to the air forces. They prepared the invasion; they made it possible; they carried it through.

Without the US Air Force the war would still be going on elsewhere, but certainly not on German soil." show less

Well done book that focuses on Stewart's military service. This is a book assembled by a journalist and focuses on his love for aviation--mostly about his WWII service. Summarizes the military life of a quiet patriot. The book contains a few, quite a few, quote from others that occupy multiple pages as well as quotes from Stewart's old friends and flying buddies. Pretty well written and I enjoyed it.

Well done book that focuses on Stewart's military service. There is a good deal of information about planes which was not of interest but the book still provided the fan of Stewart the actor with new information. Stewart served admirably and seemed to be an officer who was respected but well-liked by his men.

The Stewart we meet in this book is much like the Stewart we saw on the Silver Screen. Apparently well liked by his men and highly thought of by the Army Air force leadership, Stewart moved up the chain of command because of his quiet and efficient methods. At the end of the War, he served as the President of a court martial of two airmen who had accidentally bombed Zurich, Switzerland, a job that had major diplomatic implications. According to this book, he did an admirable job. The book is show more full of anecdotes from friends and men who served with him. show less