Bill Yenne

The subjects of this book are not the greats, nor the near greats, of aviations history. They are the black sheep that have embarrassed their builders, enraged their owners and frightened their pilots. In many cases, these are aircraft that never should have been built and which are more starkly bizarre than the most deranged flights of fantasy. This book of "black sheep'' includes some of the worst and most dangerous contrivances ever perpetrated, such as Count Caproni's Transaereo, which show more was really nothing more than three huge triplanes nailed to a houseboat. Then there's the worthless Brewster F2ABuffalo, the asymmetrical Blohm & Voss Bv-141, the "disposable'' Bachem Ba-349, and the infamous Yokosuka MXY7--the only airplane ever designed to kill its own pilot--just to name a few. show less

Operation Long Jump looks at the German plot to kill President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Russian leader Joseph Stalin at their meeting in Tehran. It opens with a fictional bleak picture of the Germans succeeding. The book then goes into the background of each countries intelligence operations at the time and what Iran was like at that time. The author also gave a background of some of the local individuals that played a major role in the events in Tehran. Then the events of show more Operation Long Jump were covered, explaining how the operation failed. The final portion of the book is looking at how the world and the end of WWII could have been affected if the plot had succeeded. I found the book to be a smooth read. It gave a lot information about a part of WWII that I didn't know had even happened. I very much enjoyed this book. show less

Aces High, Bill Yenne, 2009, Berkley Caliber, 330pp, photos, maps, appendices, index, ISBN 978 0 425 23230 9

This book tells the saga of the "rivalry" between Richard Bong and Tommy McGuire and their combat in the South Pacific. One of the blurbs on the back cover stated it had "...all the elements of an old-school Hollywood blockbuster..." and I would tend to agree. The book was very engaging and seemed to me to paint a pretty good story of the race to 40 victories and all of the drama that show more played into each man's service.

The author's writing was engaging and easily kept me turning the page. He provided enough maps to help the reader keep up with where each man was and provided enough background without getting bogged down in it, to assist the reader in understanding the men and their service.

I highly recommend this good story.

10/10 Get It Read, Get It On Your Bookshelf. show less

Big Week, Six Days That Changed The Course of World War II, Bill Yenne, 2012, Berkley Caliber, 274pp, photos, maps, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 978 0 425 25575 9

Generally I do not care for books of this, preferring first person accounts. But, and that is a big but, I enjoyed this tell of the Big Week in February, 1944, where a sustained air attack resulted in heavy damage to the German aircraft industry.

The author spends a good deal of the early part of the book discussing the show more various events and factors that went into week's bombardments. He gave a sobering discourse on the build up of US strategic airpower and the unsustainable losses incurred in 1943 on raids such as Ravensburg and Schweinfurt, outlining what went wrong and why.

The authors writing style was engaging and he held my attention well. He told the story of several individual men and the widespread heroics they displayed. There is a lot of good information for the scholar, without irritating hyperbole, but is written such that the novice would enjoy it also.

9/10 Would Read Again. show less