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Title: Flights of Passage: Recollections of a World War II Aviator by Samuel Lynn Hynes, Penguin Putnam ISBN: 0-14-200290-9 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 February, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A realistic account of Americans going to war
Comment: Samuel Hynes, professor emiterius of literature at Princeton University, went to war in 1943--there simply was no alternative as he says--and in time graduated from flight school as a Marine pilot of a TBM, a torpedo bomber used for several types of missions.
To those who went through flight school during WWII, his accounts of the trials, and sometimes failures, of a flying officer in training ring authentic, as does the sometimes pettiness of the armed forces and the hurry-up-and-wait process that dogged us as we impatiently waited to get into action. He also details the drinking, the sexual adventures, and other less savory, perhaps, actions of men at war. When he finally arrived overseas in early 1945, the actual combat was somewhat of an anti-climax. No great aerial battles, relatively few losses, and much relatively routine patrol work. In fact, the most terrifying event was after the war when a giant typhoon hit Okinawa and his base. As is true of those in service, he seems oblivious of the war other than his own small part. He was stationed, for example, on Saipan in April for two weeks or so awaiting assignment, but makes no mention of the many B-29 operations from there or neighboring Tinian against Japan.
A curious thing about the book is that before he went overseas, he was married. Viritually nothing is said of his wife, her letters, of the relationship. Much more is said of he and his Marine buddies trying to obtain booze and other leisure pursuits, in addition to combat.. Perhaps Hynes marriage was one of those wartime marriages that didn't last. On the other hand, maybe it's none of our business since Hynes' purpose is to try and give one a realistic view of training to go to war and the event itself. In this regard he succeeds brilliantly.
Rating: 5
Summary: an interesting read for adventure, history, people
Comment: I read Samuel Hynes's THE GROWING SEASONS with a book-club, I said why don't I also read this famous novel of his together with it. It turned out to be a good idea! Flights of Passage has a lot of recounting of people's relationships, emotions. Not only it is a good 'literary' novel, it also captivates people who's interested in adventure with detail descriptions of flying. To me, it is a good novel because it offers a glimpse in American life from several different angles, the language is smooth and interesting, the story telling is truthful.
Rating: 4
Summary: Talk About Situational Irony!
Comment: By the time I got to the last page of Samuel Hynes's memoir GROWING SEASONS, I had developed such an attachment to young Sam that I was reluctant to quit reading. Luckily Hynes had written an earlier memoir about his days as a dive bomber pilot during WWII entitled FLIGHTS OF PASSAGE. Imagine my surprise when I spotted the book already in my bookcase. I'd read it when it was published in 1988. I had to read it again.
Hynes writes with such humility it's easy to put yourself in his shoes. Sam is continually worried about being cut from the flight program and sent to Great Lakes to train as an enlisted man. He also doesn't shirk from describing the times he crashed his plane or did something stupid, trying to show off. Although he went on over a hundred missions on Okinawa, he isn't sure his contribution to the war effort was worth that much. He's disappointed when he's left behind when his squadron goes on a bombing run of Japan.
As an ex-Navy man myself I can relate to a lot of what Hynes went through: the depressing bus stations, the sexual braggadocio, the feeling of vertigo when changing duty stations, the hurry-up-and-wait mentality, the obsession with drinking and playing cards.
About the only problem I have with the book is that the other pilots don't really come alive for me--I had trouble remembering who they were. Sam also gets married (at nineteen) before going overseas, but we never get to know his wife. He doesn't say much about her letters; he doesn't even seem to miss her. I had an ominous feeling about that marriage.
Perhaps the most memorable part of the book is when the war ends and Hynes and his fellow pilots are sitting around waiting for orders and they're caught in a typhoon! It blows away several tents and several men are killed. Talk about situational irony.
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Title: The Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood Before the War by Samuel Lynn Hynes ISBN: 0670031933 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 24 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Soldiers' Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War by Samuel Lynn Hynes, Samual Hynes ISBN: 0140261540 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War by John R. MacArthur, Ben Haig Bagdikian ISBN: 0520083989 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Dispatches by Michael Herr ISBN: 0679735259 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 06 August, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two by George H. Jr. Roeder ISBN: 0300062915 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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