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Title: Goodbye to Some: A Novel (Classics of Naval Literature Series) by Gordon Forbes ISBN: 1-55750-277-3 Publisher: Naval Institute Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: from a Short List of Best Books
Comment: I keep a short list of my favorite books of the 20th Century. Forbes' is one of the Top Five; not as a best War, or Anti-War, or even air or sea stories, but simply one of the best ever. Forbes writes in a very direct style that is easy to read and just sets out what it must have been like to go through the last year of the Air War in the Pacific, or any war. If you have a conclusion on what it must have been like, well he lets you draw it, and the feelings are always very strong. I read it again every other year and I do not lend out my hard copy. It stays put as part of my short list.

Rating: 5
Summary: Best Military Fiction In The English Language
Comment: This outstanding work is all the more surprising because so few people have ever heard of it.

The cynical humour, dry wit, action descriptions and characterisations make it a stand out novel that sets it apart from other navy classics such as 'The Caine Mutiny' and 'The Cruel Sea'.

Many reviewers consider this an anti-war, anti US Navy story but I consider it neither. Set in the final year of WWII it is a snapshot of a few months of one pilots military career that draws together the stresses of a lifetime of combat missions. In it you can find just about every character you have ever met in life, in business or in the military and it is this observation and detailing of characters that make the book so intriguing. The descriptions of flying and air combat are clearly drawn from personal experience so the work should be seen as semi-autobiographical, and if this is so, which character does the author play?

Goodbye To Some is highly personal it that it is written in the first person and allows the reader to come into intimate contact with the emotions of the main character. The fears, the petty jealousies, the tragedies, the love of some characters and the bitter hatred of others, the Navy system, the war - it's all there - waiting to be soaked up and experienced. Perhaps it is this intimate writing style that makes American reveiwers so nervous - and in some ways it is un-American. There is no gung-ho, flag waving, ticker tape parades; there is just the dull, leaden burden of dozens of combat missions, each one taking the main character closer to his breaking point. And the narrative doesn't actually end, it just stops at a convenient point, without fanfare and without any real drama.

To find this novel republished in hardback as a naval classic is a real gift to military buffs worldwide - an absolute must-have for every armchair (and left hand chair) pilots library. As a personal note, I have two copies of this book, the first copy is the paperback edition that have read for thirty years!

Rating: 5
Summary: This is a classic!
Comment: I've read a lot of memoirs and novels of WWII in the air. This is perhaps the most memorable of all I've read. What makes this book exceptional is the narrative voice--intelligent, cynical, funny and compelling. The story moves along nicely and the ending is heartbreaking to the reader though the sense one gets is that the narrator has seen so much that he is just numb to it all. I am so happy to see that this is back in print after years and years. If you are a WWII aviation buff you will enjoy this.