Ace of Aces Books

I bought several courses. The cards offer basic concepts in small bites. The information was relevant to what was presented by my teacher. The cards and CD's gave good review before exams and a head start at the start of the new school year. The cards had a lot of questions; you can carry them in your pocket and learn a few each day. The software was easy to use. It is like the cards but on the screen. You can take a test or just review. Front is question, click for answer on back of card. The software can also show the cards on the screen at random, first the question, then the answer. They change every few seconds. That keeps you reading and wondering what's coming up next. It's entertaining while you're studying.

I bought the cards for students I tutor for SAT/ACT/GED. I have them memorize the cards first. Otherwise, I'd have to dictate a vocabulary and formula list to each of them and that wastes time better spent on solving problems together and discussing concepts.

The author, Robert Denny, a former WWII B-17 pilot, puts a marvelous insight into how it really was for the aircrews flying into Germany. He is also obviously a student of history regarding WWII as he accurately and faithfully inserts historical personages and facts into the story line. The reader whose knowledge of the era is limited will learn much aboutsome of the decisive events of WWII plus enjoy a really good novel. The Brits and the Germans are blended into the story in a accurate and non-stereotypical portraile.

Read it and truly enjoy!

Tom Pearson

Aviation Buff and Military History Buff

W. Wayne Patton returns with a second helping of stories and artwork on aces of all nations. Continuing the tradition started in the first ACES volume for Squadron/Signal, Patton includes 'aces' whether they flew a P-51, commanded a Tiger tank or skippered a U-boat. It makes for an interesting mix, to say the least.

As with Volume 1, most of the aces covered in ACES 2 flew in World War II. So, you'll find stories and/or anecdotes on Adolf Galland, Chuck Older, Wilhelm Herget, Franz Schall, Giora Rom, Joe Foss, Motonari Suho, Ivan Kozhedub, etc. along with a pencil drawing of the ace. The book includes 30 pages of Patton's artwork depicting: aircraft flown by Galland, Georges Guynemer, Hans-Joachim Marseille, Dave Schilling and Saburo Sakai; 'theme pages' such as Eastern Front opponents; a page with three-views of Ernst Barkmann's Tiger tank; and two pages of German and Japanese submarines. Quite a smorgasbord!

Volume 1 featured front- and back-cover artwork by Patton. ACES 2 wisely uses artwork by S/S workhorse Don Greer instead; Patton's combat scenes in Volume 1 were imaginative but not in the same league as Greer's.

Whatever his limitations as an illustrator, you have to give Patton points for his novel approach to the Aces subject. Leafing through ACES 2, you switch from Guynemer's Spads to Barkmann's Tiger to Dave Schilling's P-47s and so on. It's a fun, informative book. Recommended.

Wayne Patton continues his interesting series on Aces with this 2004 Squadron/Signal book.

From the first, Patton has taken a slightly offbeat approach to the subject of Aces. Reasoning that other branches of the service can have Aces, his books have included profiles and text on, for instance, U-boat and tank aces. So you'll be paging through the book and, right next to pages of color side-views of Corsairs, Zeros and Hellcats, will be two pages on Michael Wittmann's AFVs!

Patton's artwork isn't on a par with Squadron/Signal's Don Greer or Osprey's Chris Davey but it is steadily improving. What's most interesting about this series is the variety of subjects you might find on a page (late-war Luftwaffe and RAF aircraft, the Hurricanes and Spits flown by Bob Tuck, MTO adversaries, etc.) That emphasis in variety extends as well to his subjects, which can range from Dick Bong to Le Thanh Dao to Kurt Wusthoff.

A colorful, interesting title and series.

***
Prior to the book's publication, different artwork was substituted for the FW 190 scene depicted above.

In yet another superb, originally conceived offering, noted military historian, Eric Hammel brings us first-person accounts from thirty-nine of the American fighter aces who blasted their way across the skies of the Pacific and East Asia from December 7, 1941, until the final air battles over Japan itself in August 1945.

Coupled with a clear view of America's far-flung air war against Japan, Hammel's detailed interviews bring out the most thrilling in-the-cockpit experiences of the air combat that the Pacific War's best Army, Navy, and Marine Pilots have chosen to tell.

Meet Frank Holmes, who defied death in an outmoded P-36 while still clad in a seersucker suit he had worn to mass earlier that morning. Fly with Scott McCuskey as, single-handed at Midway, he takes out two waves of Japanese dive-bombers that are attacking his precious aircraft carrier.

Sweat out the last precious drops of fuel in a defective Marine Wildcat fighter as Medal of Honor recipient Jeff DeBlanc bores ahead to his target to keep the faith with the bomber crews he has been assigned to protect. Experience the ecstasy of total victory as Ralph Hanks becomes the Navy's first Hellcat ace-in-a-day when he destroys five Japanese fighters over the Gilbert Islands in a single mission.

A superb interviewer, Hammel has collected some of the very best air-combat tales from America's war with Japan. Combined with the four other volumes in "The American Aces Speak" series, this work will stand as an enduring testament to the brave men who fought the first and last air war in which high-performance, piston-engine fighters held sway. These are stories of bravery and survival, of men and machines pitted against one another in heart-stopping, unforgiving high-speed aerial combat. "The American Aces Speak" is a highly-charged emotional rendering of what men felt in the now-dim days of personal combat at the very edge of our living national history. There was never a war like it, and there never will be again. These are America's eagles, and the stories are their own, in their very own words.

Thorougly revised from the 1966 edition. Updated biographic information, vastly more detail about kills, probables, and damaged claims, serials, dates. An invaluable cross reference for RAF as well as Naval aviators. Many previously unseen pilot portraits, but no aircraft profiles as were in the original issue. (Many of those were speculative and subsequently discredited anyway) Volume 2 is available with additional material. The many similar titles are confusing, check the publisher and publication date, and author(s) carefully

Five years after he published his classic ACES HIGH volume on Commonwealth aces of WWII, Shores put out this volume, which supplements and complements the 1994 work. Anyone interested in Commonwealth aces in action will want to pick up a copy of Volume 2.

The bulk of Volume 2 is devoted to updating and revising over 700 of the 1,200+ pilot biographies found in Volume 1. In some cases, this translates to a single sentence(!) or, in several cases, an entirely rewritten page-long biography. In some cases Shores has been able to identify the actual enemy pilot downed, his unit, etc. Some ace's scores have been revised in Volume 2 as a result of Shores' research.

Other chapters in the book deal with pilots claiming four victories, V-1 'Diver' aces, Commonwealth combats in subsequent conflicts (Korea, Falklands, etc.), corrections to Frank Olynyk's STARS AND BARS compendium, etc. Volume 1 also features a 12-page photographic insert.

Shores' take on what constitutes an ace stretches the traditional definition. Historically that's been five confirmed aerial kills over manned aircraft. By that standard, some pilots found in Volume 2 don't qualify. For instance, B. R. Bennetts is credited with 3 confirmed and 2 shared destroyed. If they're shared, doesn't Bennetts' score come to 4? Cedric Masterman is down for 2 and 4 shared destroyed. Again, doesn't that give him 4 total? The ultimate stretch is probably Archibald Hope whose total is 1 and 2 shared destroyed, 2 unconfirmed destroyed, 3 and 1 shared probable, 4 damaged. That equals 5?? Perhaps Shores should have included a section on Questionable Aces.

In any case, ACES HIGH is brimming with tidbits, facts and stats. It doesn't always make for the most exciting reading but that's the nature of the beast. Recommended.

Every now and again, a simulation comes along that commands respect by delivering variable degrees of realism coupled with really good AI (Artificial Intelligence) and lots of replayability. Aces Of The Deep is one of them. More than 10 years after its release, I find myself returning to it again and again, and I never seem to tire of it.

Why? Well, AOTD is blessed with a good design...good graphics for its time (640x480x256 colors), good AI, an easy-to-use interface, and very few bugs. Nothing ruins your gaming fun like having it crash just as you're whipping your AI opponent's butt, but this has never been much of a problem with AOTD.

Speaking of the AI opponent, the AI in this game, at the higher "realism" levels, is good enough to hunt you down and depth-charge you to pieces. Still, I find enemy destroyers are vulnerable to down-the-throat torpedo shots. It's a good tactic to practice and it has saved my butt many times.

Aces Of The Deep is very historically accurate. When the war starts, you are Kapitain of a slow & weak Type-II sub. As the war progresses and you & your crew gain experience & survive patrols, more powerful sub designs and better torpedoes become available. Also, as the war progresses, the Allied sub-hunters (surface ships and planes) get better and better at hunting you down and sending you plunging to Davey Jones Locker.

The first version of Aces Of The Deep was the DOS/Diskette version. An expansion disk was later released which added the Mediterranean Sea theatre and also patched several known bugs.

The "Command" version -- "Aces Of The Deep: Command" -- is CD-based and runs natively on Win95/98. AOTD Command includes both the orignal AOTD missions as well as the expansion/add-on missions, it rubs smoother and crashes less than the DOS version, AND it includes voice-recognition, which allows the player to use a microphone to command his U-Boat crew.

Whichever version of AOTD you buy, I guarantee that you're in for quite a gaming experience, playing a deadly game of cat & mouse under the cold, unforgiving waves of the North Atlantic. Good luck Kaptain, you'll need it.

Williamson's book is simply magnificent, the best introduction to the great array of land, sea and air aces that Germany produced during World War II. The reader who does not have any idea about the levels of heroic achievements that the Wehrmacht individuals made, will be surprised to say the least. The Germans had a different view toward medals, prefering to honor the great scores or the unique records in order to produce idols for the youth, in a similar way that modern athletes do their utmost for medals and victories. Germans also had the habit to wear their decorations all the time, even in the heat of battle! In the process they produced the most specatcular fighter, submarine and tank aces, as well as scores of daring commandos, paratroopers and brave officers. If you are interested in World War II Germany don't miss this book!