After Ron's father, Howard, passed away, Ron found a treasure trove of pictures, journals and letters. This book takes those writings to create a detailed picture of Howard's time in the Navy as a Black Cat pilot. I enjoyed this book. Howard was quite a character, his stories and adventures were a fascinating look into the life of a WWII pilot. Overall, well worth reading.

Howard Miner was a Black Cat- pilot of a Catalina PBY Flying Boat during the Pacific campaigns of WWII. With their long range, ability to land and take off from water or land, and their reliability and robustness, Catalina pilots were involved in some hair-raising and almost unbelievable missions. Ron Miner tells his father’s story in this memoir.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* It is hard to miss with good material, and the author certainly had that available. His father was both a journalist and sketch artist, and did a masterful job of capturing both the extraordinary adventures and mind-dulling routine of life during wartime. Ron Miner does a nice job of capturing and editing these recollections with a light and deft touch.

* As usual with war stories, there are always stories that often seem surreal. Miner relates flying over Japanese positions at night, and dropping anything available, including beer bottles, just to disrupt the sleep of the enemy. No fiction author would dare conceive of a beer-bottle bomb run.

* The book is a nice mix of all aspects of Howard Miner’s wartime experiences. He doesn’t dwell on either the positive of negative aspects of his life, but he doesn’t sugar-coat them either. In the end, the book presents a nice overview of the incredible adventures of the life of a PBY pilot. It is just another of those stories where you walk away shaking your head at what the guy who lived next door was capable of when pushed.


=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* The book was written in rather a strange voice. The source of the book were Howard Miner’s journal entries, but it was written by his son…but in the first person. I found that while the format worked, and I could understand the reason behind it, it seemed a bit “odd”.

* The galley version I was reading was “space limited”, and this did not contain all the drawings and sketches mentioned in the text. This was unfortunate, and I hope it is not a feature of the commercial Kindle edition.


=== Summary===

I was only vaguely aware of the role of the flying boats in the Pacific Theater, and walked away shaking my head at just how far these guys pushed the envelope of long-distance aviation. I can’t imagine what it took to fly a large, slow, ungainly aircraft that was easy prey for any Japanese fighter pilot hundreds of miles behind the lines…and over water.


=== Disclaimer ===

I was able to read a preliminary version of the book through the courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher.


Weoiru
Sdfsd