New Books Highlight Naval Aviation
By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor
BLUE MOON OVER CUBA:
Aerial Reconnaissance During
the Cuban Missile Crisis
By Capt. William B. Ecker USN
(Ret.) and Kenneth V. Jack. Oxford,
U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 2012.
287 pp. $25.95
ISBN: 978-1-78096-071-5
The Cuban Missile Crisis of
October 1962 meant high drama
for the top levels of the U.S. government, but historical
accounts largely have overlooked the courageous
photo-reconnaissance pilots of the Navy, Marine Corps
and Air Force who — unarmed and unafraid — flew
the jets that detected and tracked the progress of the
Soviet ballistic-missile deployment in Cuba. The
authors, both members of Light Photographic
Squadron 62 during the crisis — Ecker was the commanding officer — tell the stories of the pilots and the
missions they flew through the flak in their RF-8A
Crusader jets to obtain the photographs President John
F. Kennedy needed to make the informed decisions
needed to avert a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
NAVAL AVIATION IN THE
KOREAN WAR: Aircraft,
Ships and Men
By Warren Thompson. South
Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword
Aviation, 2012. 175 pp. $50.00
ISBN: 978-1-84884-488-9
The grinding air war over Korea during 1950-1953 included daily missions flown against well-defended
troops and logistic lines, often at night or in bad weather,
that were exceptionally dangerous, especially when they
ended with a carrier landing in the Sea of Japan. Naval
aviators, many Reservists and World War II veterans,
persevered with determination to provide cover for U.N.
forces on the ground. The author has dug up anecdotes
of the flyers and unpublished photos — including many
in full color — of the carrier-based aircraft that enrich
this account. The book also is well-stocked with appendices, including lists of carrier deployments, aircraft losses and aerial victories. The significant Marine Corps contribution will be featured in another book.
FLOAT PLANES & FLYING
BOATS: The U.S. Coast Guard
and Early Naval Aviation
By Capt. Robert B. Workman Jr.,
USCG (Ret.). Annapolis, Md.: Naval
Institute Press, 2012.
324 pp. $41.95
ISBN: 978-1-61251-107-8
Of the three branches of U.S. naval
aviation, the Coast Guard is the least chronicled, a situation now much rectified by this new book on the establishment of Coast Guard aviation from 1911 through
1938. The author acknowledges the pioneers of naval
aviation, including the first Coast Guard aviator, Elmer
Stone, as visionaries who launched new technologies
and concepts of operations that established aviation as
an integral part of the three services. Aviation proved a
natural for search and rescue and maritime law enforcement. The book also describes the aircraft — mostly
float planes and flying boats — that equipped the air stations and ships of the Coast Guard.
THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY
By Craig L. Symonds. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2011.
452 pp. $27.95
ISBN: 978-0-19539-793-2
The Battle of Midway in June 1942
continues to fascinate students of
naval and aviation history, as more
facts are discovered and new perspectives are formed. The battle,
fought mostly by aircraft against ships, was a shattering defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy by a smaller
U.S. Navy force supplemented by Marine Corps and
Army Air Corps aircraft only six months after the raid
on Pearl Harbor. The author, a history professor at the
U.S. Naval Academy, incorporates new research,
including Japanese records, and corrects some earlier
misconceptions about the battle. While he sets the
stage for the battle narrative with the events and strategies leading up to the clash, he also tells the stories of
the ordinary and extraordinary men who made the victory possible. ■
