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A Real Good War (Cassell Military Paperbacks)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Phoenix (2001-05-10)
ISBN: 030435855X
EAN: 9780304358557
Dewy Decimal #: 813
Paperback: 288 pages
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Customer Reviews
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A refreshingly honest account
Rating  (4)
Date: 2004-05-21
I actually came across this book by accident - picked it up from my father's bookshelf as an emergency read on a long train journey. In spite of that begining, I had finished it in a couple of days. While not the best constructed novel and sporting a few glaring inconsistencies, Sam Halpert's rough, down to earth style evokes an earthy realism not often found in personal accounts of the war. Through honestly foul language and frank descriptions of the "laddish" behaviour of a bunch of young men living, flying and dying together he commutes the sense of absolute, deep-rooted, all pervading fear that few others have managed to convey.
Flying missions over Germany wasn't like Hollywood and television has depicted it. After reading Sam Halpert's account, I wonder how any flyer could ever form the stereotypical 'casual yank' relationships with war-weary locals so frequently depicted on film. Flying or waiting for the next mission: just a different kind of Hell - a time bomb constantly ticking.
Yet Halpert gets the lighter side over too. The laughs during training; the crew's antics in London; his own encounter with the intriguing dutch girl, Martha.
This twenty year old navigator goes to Hell and back in a couple of months. It is evident from his authorship that Halpert survives but this doesn't stop the reader from breathing one helluva sigh of relief when that B-17 touches down on English soil for the very last time.
The book ends with a bizarre sense of anti-climax. Exactly how every survivor must have felt. Good stuff.
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Fictional Account from B-17 Veteran
Rating (4)
Date: 2003-03-25
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I bought this book mainly due to the fact it was published by Cassell Military, I had never heard of the author or book, and had very little interest in bomber planes. That said, this book soon had me engrossed and I finished it in a few days.The fact that the author did actually fly 35 missions as a B-17 navigator, gives this tale more than an air of authenticity. Well worth the money and well worth reading.
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A reader from Long Island, age 24
Rating  (5)
Date: 1999-06-29
A moving narrative that reminds us in a little time capsule of the incredible courage and nerves that young men, most not even of modern day drinking age, showed under conditions of unimaginable stress and danger. Well written in a realistic journal style, I was little confused at first when they went from two missions to having completed several but that cleared up later and seems necessary for brevity. Overall a good slice of WWII reality and a reminder of why we celebrate memorial day.
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A real challenge to put down.
Rating (5)
Date: 1999-02-02
A Real Good War took a couple of chapters to lock me in but once it did I found the book a real challenge to put down. Halpert's "less is more" style is a refreshing pause from some of the painfully detailed (is skimming cheating?) bestsellers I've read recently. It is impossible for us to really share the living nightmare of a B-17 crew mandated to fly 35 missions ("the magic number") into Hell and back before they can go home. But A Real Good War brings me real close to imagining what it felt like for those thousands of seemingly expendable American boys.
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A Real Good Book
Rating (5)
Date: 1998-07-18
Written in a memoir type style, "A Real Good War" is a realistic and at times hilarious read. Far less pretentious than the surreal so-called classic "Catch-22," this book is much more genuine and honest in its portrail of bomber crews in the war against Hitler's Germany. The descriptions of B-17's flying into flak and fighter filled skys are terrifying and believable. The narrative does not get bogged down in needless descriptions of characters in an attempt to "flesh them out," an annoying habit of many of today's writters who seem to suffer from diarrhea of the word processor. The narrative is also greatly complimented by a host of genuine 40's expressions which recapture the spirit of the times.
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Retail Price: £6.99
Amazon.com's Price:£0.01
That's 100% Off!
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