Dwight R. Messimer (1937–2022)

What I found to be the particular value of this study of the Signal Corps as the air arm of the U.S. Army, is that the author turns an analytic eye on all the participants in this sorry tale, as the aviation enthusiasts produced a victor's history of this organizational adventure. There was much to castigate, but it's also the case that the behavior of the pilots often did not bear close analysis either. In the end, aviator arrogance and the self-serving empire building of the leadership of show more the Signal Corps produced a combustible mixture, resulting in an outcome where the Corps hierarchy nominally chastised the dissidents, but found themselves discredited. Though it really took the failures of American aviation in 1917-1918 to produce the U.S. Army Air Corps. It is to be admitted that this is a rather dry study, but Messimer is very careful in pulling together the fragments of a poorly understood incident. show less

History of the early Naval air campaign in the Pacific.
Patrol Wing Ten was the only U.S. Navy aviation unit to fight the Japanese in the early weeks of World War II, and the daring exploits of its PBY scout-plane pilots offer a dramatic tale of heroism, duty, and controversy. Poorly equipped and dead tired from flying back-to-back patrols with no fighter cover, the men lost sixty-six percent of their aircraft in just eight weeks as they took on an enemy that outnumbered them nearly 1,000 to show more one. This forceful narrative places the reader right in the midst of their courageous battle. Dwight Messimer's aggressive research on the topic has resulted in a work that provides moving details to their desperate but valiant acts against the seemingly invincible Japanese juggernaut that swept across the southwest Pacific at the opening of the war.
By Christmas Day in 1941, Patrol Wing Ten was forced to split into two groups, one fighting an air and sea campaign in Java, the other fighting as infantry on Bataan and Corregidor. Moving back and forth between the two groups, Messimer skillfully interweaves their experiences with the major events of the overall war. He uses material from the fifty survivors he managed to track down and deftly captures their ability to maintain a sense of humor in the face of overwhelming danger. The more than one hundred personal and official documents uncovered during years of research reveal new information relating to technical points about the planes, facts verified by the PBY crews that do not agree with popularly accepted ideas. To those who believe the wing accomplished nothing--and this group includes many pilots--Messimer argues that while attempts to bomb the Japanese fleet proved futile because the PBYs were unsuitable for such a task, the wing's rescue and evacuation missions saved many lives. The airdales themselves were not so lucky. When Corregidor fell, nearly half of them were captured and many died in captivity. show less

Considering when this book was written I really should have read it ages ago. Which is to say that while the loss of "Langley" and "Pecos" is a historical footnote that most students of the period are aware off, it's usually treated as simply another small addition to the tally of damages left in the wake of the initial Japanese onslaught. The author manages to remind you that the loss of no ship in action is a small thing, and the story of these ships and their crews is well worth show more remembering for its own sake. This is particularly true of the "Pecos," which went down fighting to the end. Messimer also does a good job of putting the loss in the strategic context of the times. show less

Good book, necessarily short. Story of the 1925 US Navy effort to fly nonstop to Hawaii. Given the young age of aviation in general and the newness of the planes utilised, it is impressive that crews were falling over themselves to be on the attempts. There was a very slight chance of success and they did get close. What happens when they are on the water for nine days is quite a survival tale. Over time the plane was cannibalised to sail to Kauai. These men had guts and brains.