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Super Book on WWII Aviation Jul 27, 2008
I am still reading the book and am now on page 186. I feel compelled to add my review now before finishing the book. I am 63 and came along too late for WWII. All of the airmen Dick Baughn talk about in this book are my heros! The pilots and air crew members mentioned are old enough to be my parents. They were honorable, very talented people who made many sacrifices so I could grow up in the relatively safe, secure time from 1945 to 1963. Thank you General Baughn!
Jeffrey Blair
Wharton, TX
When Heroes Roamed the Skies over Europe Jul 20, 2008
The Eagle's Last Flight
Brigadier General Richard M Baughn (USAF, Retired) is one of those rare authors who can pull a period of World War II history off a dusty book shelf and breathe fresh new life into it. In his latest book, The Hellish Vortex, he describes the air campaign in the European theater between 1943 and 1945, during which waves of American B-17 and B-24 bombers, escorted by P-38, P-40 and P-51 fighters, pounded Germany. In the same narrative, he chronicles the daily lives of the men who flew them. The result is pure magic; a book well worth reading. How did he do it? It's simple. For one thing, he is a good writer and for another, he flew P-51s in Europe during the same period. As the saying goes, he has "been there, done that." It works every time!
The principal character in the book is 2nd Lt. Robb Baines, a nineteen year old fighter pilot who arrives in the U.K. underage and under trained for his new assignment flying P-51s and escorting bombers to Germany. Like most nineteen year olds, Baines, who I suspect is General Baughn's alter ego, secretly wonders if he is up to the task at hand. But tangling with German ME 109s and ME 110s is dangerous business with no margin for self doubt, as Baines quickly found out. In time, he became a seasoned combat veteran, a confident leader, and a candidate for bigger and better things in what would become the United States Air Force in 1947.
There are several other characters in the book worth mentioning. There is "The Colonel", a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the group commander who led his pilots with a calm steady hand; "Big John," a sergeant whose well meaning support for the war effort included seducing the wife of a local chicken farmer to get eggs for the pilots' predawn breakfasts; and "Rocco", Baines' long suffering wing man who lives his life with characteristic gritty, New York City bravado. These characters, and many others like them, add spice to an already well prepared dish. Speaking of spices, there is love, romance and sex in the book as well; but the author is careful not to let these asides draw him off the main theme of the book.
One of the things I like about The Hellish Vortex, is that the author periodically inserted excerpts from a paper entitled "The Army Air Forces and 8th Air Force during World War II," purportedly written by Baines while at The Armed Forces Staff College. These asides afford the reader a chance to take a break and look at the big picture. It was there that I learned things I never knew, or had forgotten, about the growth of American air power between World War I and 1947. And it was also there that I read a statistic I still can't get out of my mind; namely, "There were 41,802 airmen killed in a force that never exceeded 100,000 pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and aerial gunners." This grim statistics reinforces something I have always believed, namely: that it is tempting for warriors to tell their stories loudly, garnering praise and admiration wherever and whenever they can. But the plain truth is that not all warriors are heroes; just as not all heroes are warriors; and those that are, often prefer to speak softly in deference to the heroes that never made it home.
This is a book about real heroes, written by a soft spoken man who remembers those who could not make it home. It is a book to read and remember.
A good WWII read. Jul 08, 2008
For anyone interested in the air war in Europe this is the book for you. The fact that it is written by a P-51 pilot gives it credibility. The War College report from the 50's is a nice touch. The stories about the interaction between the Bittish people and our servicemen is an important aspect and tells it like it was. I recommend it highly.
 Hellish Vortex Between Breakfast and Dinner Jun 27, 2008
I'm a WWII buff and originally saw this reviewed in the WWII magazine recently (June 2008). It's definitely different in that is is very detailed and technical in the moment-by-moment descriptions of what flying a P-51 fighter (mainly as bomber escort) was like, and also in describing day-to-day life for this young pilot in war-time England. The author Richard Baughn was a decorated P-51 pilot, and he states that what he set out to do was write a book about what it was really like. The book is a fictional account of a 19 year old pilot. It succeeds on both the fictional and the historical level, containing interesting characters, fast action, and a not small amount of action with the ladies.
One aspect of this different book is it makes you very aware of how extremely hazardous every mission was for all the airmen (fighter and bomber crews alike), with a much higher casualty rate than for any other service. The hazards posed by flying in bad weather, collisions, and various other accidents added greatly to the casualty rate. One final interesting point - from the description on the book it sounds like they lived on SPAM througout the war. Makes you want a nice SPAM sandwich.
The other side of the picture Jun 08, 2008
This is one of the best fiction books I have read on the air corps since Len Deighton's "Goodbye Mickey Mouse". I had heard of Marines having had a couple of weeks of basic training in WW II and being given "training" on the 19-day sail to Guadalcanal, but I did not know that pilots had sometimes had very little training. Thank goodness this pilot read the manual on P-51's on the boat ride to England. With only a couple hours in the P-51, his instructor put him in the cockpit and said basically, "Go solo". And then he was sent to a unit and certified as combat ready. You get the feeling that too many kids were treated this way and became cannon fodder. I had never seen the statistics that the Army Air Force had the highest percentage of fatalities of any of the services in WW II. My eight uncles and cousins, who fought in WW II, always felt the air force had the best deal, but after reading this book, I realize how little the sacrifice of 155,000 airmen has been acknowledged.
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