Book Reviews

Jet Age Man

We have just received notification that the book Jet Age Man (SAC B-47 and B-52 Operations In The Early Cold War)  by Earl McGill, one of our members, has been nominated for the best military history book in the preceding year by the Air Force Historical Foundation. You may be interested to know that the hardcover edition has now sold out and is eliciting outrageous prices on the Internet (Amazon, new $469, used $206). The eBook version ($11.49) has been out for some time now and looks really nice on iPad and Kindle Fire, plus photos can be enlarged. It’s also out in paperback and due to arrive in North America within the next few days. Take a check on Amazon or wherever books are sold. Earl attended the Tucson Reunion and provided his initial offering at the registration.

There are no other books to review at present.

4 thoughts on “Book Reviews”

  1. I just finished reading “Jet Age Man” and I really enjoyed it. One gets a very good impression of the life of the men who flew the B-47 and B-52 in those early years of the Cold War, when tension between East and West had become so great. Most people of later generations have no clue at all of the sacrifices made by people like Earl McGill.
    What shocked me was the great number of B-47’s that crashed in the fifties. Indeed, if this was happening today with an aeroplane, it would not last for a long time! But I guess this all happened under an enormous cloud of secrecy, partly to not concern the American people, but also to not inform the Soviet Union about the number of B47’s and also of its shortcomings. It had an enormous impact on the life of so many families, and I regret that deeply.
    I am 64 years of age and, being an aircraf enthousiast for all of my life, have also taken interest in the The Cold War, which seems to become alive again now, thanks to the agressive attitude of Russia.
    Thanks to this fine book my understanding of what was going on in the world when I was still a child has again been vastly improved.

    Regards,

    Gerard Sloos
    The Netherlands

    1. I lost a hero of my youth to a 1961 B-47 crash. When I recently found his crash on the list here, I was appalled by the list’s length.

      Quote from the online article: “The B-47’s Deadly Dominance”
      by Walter J. Boyne, Air Force Magazine, Feb 2013

      “Sadly, the B-47 also suffered losses on a scale that would be utterly intolerable today. Over its lifetime, 203 aircraft (about 10 percent of the total procured) were lost in crashes, with 464 deaths. This article focuses on the two peak years, 1957 and 1958, when 49 B-47s crashed—incurring 122 fatalities.”

  2. Thanks to both of you for the kind words, re. Jet Age Man. FYI, my book is now available in electronic format from Amazon for $2.99.

  3. I just finished reading “Jet Age Man.” As a retired Boeing aeronautical engineer, I participated in the design, analysis, testing, and operations analysis of the B-47 and B-52. Your book gave me a different perspective, and a wealth of information. It brought back memories. I have intimate knowledge of some matters in the book. I represented Boeing to the highest levels of the Air Force on matters of structural integrity. While my memory has faded, and I lack documentation,I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to communicate with you.

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Preserving the legacy of the Boeing B-47 StratoJet Bomber