An Ace! For airmen and the public, an ace is someone to look up to and admire. They had mastered simultaneously flying and fighting and managed to bring down at least 5 enemy aircraft. The Red Baron was a famous German ace of World War I who is best known now for fighting Snoopy. But being an ace was no easy task since only bout 5% of all World War II fighter pilots managed to get 5 confirmed "kills." However, in the Southwest Pacific, General Kenney inspired the Fifth Air Force to chase down WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker's record of 26 enemy planes as a way to boost morale. This book tells the story of many who participated in the race for this crown.

John Bruning opens the book with General Kenney checking out the state of the Fifth Air Force based in New Guinea which was getting pounded by Japanese Air Force while the Japanese Army was approaching the few bases still operational. He needed fighting spirit and better planes than the P-39 Aircobras and P-40 Warhawks he had. What he got was the Lockheed P-38 Lightening, a twin engine fighter that could out-dive and out-run the current Japanese planes. Then he started getting pilots such as Richard Bong, Gerald Johnson, and Tommy McGuire. These pilots and a host of others managed to turn the tide against the Japanese, but at a cost of living in a jungle environment at the end of a very, very long supply chain. The pilots of the Fifth Air Force strove to match and then beat Rickenbacker's record of 26 enemy planes. This race cost lives and ended a few careers as pilots became obsessed with being the top ace. In the end, Richard Bong came out on top with 40 enemy planes shot down. Looking back, the race to be the top ace was cursed as only one top contender lived a long life after the war.

If you have an interest in air combat or the Southwest Pacific Theater in World War II, you will want to read Race of Aces! John Bruning brings you to the front lines of combat and provides all the thrills you desire.

A story of how a WWI pilot Eddie Rickenbacker said he would give a bottle of bourbon to the first to become an ace. The story follows five men who at first that is all that they thought about but soon that had changed and they had forgotten their sense of duty and the real reason they were fighting and had signed up in the first place. And excellent story with back ground information on all of the pilots as well. Very much worth the read.

This is the fascinating telling of the race to become the deadliest and therefore greatest American fighter pilot. It is also a story of how these men rallied buy in for the war back home and turned the tide for the War in the Pacific. Written following several key players in the ace race in their journey into and through combat, this tale could have been told in a very dry and boring way, but the narrative structure really brought the facts to life. At certain points I could feel myself in those fighter planes soaring over the jungles of the Pacific with my heart beating in my ears. I became very invested in these men and their lives and definitely did some internet research after reading to see their photos and read more about their lives.

Author John R Bruning https://theamericanwarrior.com/ published the book “Race of Aces: WWII’s Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky” in 2020. He is the author or co-author of twenty-two non-fiction books. Four have been New York Times bestsellers.

I received an ARC of this book through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this book as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of violence.

This book examines the race between the pilots of the 5th Air Force. Their goal was the title of the leading Pacific Ace during WWII. WWI US Ace Eddie Rickenbacker had toured the Pacific Theater in 1942. With morale low, he made a challenge to the fighter pilots. The first to break his record from WWI would earn a bottle of bourbon. His record of 26 enemy aircraft shot down was their target.

Commander of the 5th Air Force, General George Kenney, promoted this “race of aces”. There were many Aces. The leaders were Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neel Kearby, Charles MacDonald, and Gerald Johnson. Over the next three years, the press kept the US apprised of their progress. Their scoreboard showing progress towards 26 appeared often.

The pilots often had to live in less than ideal conditions. They not only fought the Japanese, but also the weather and disease. Few survived till the end of the war.

I enjoyed the 12+ hours I spent reading this 545-page WWII history. The book is full of facts, but very well written. The result is a very readable account of the race to be the top Ace. I like the selected cover art. I rate this book as a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

What kind of nerve does it take to go up alone in a fighter plane and duel with an enemy? Race of Aces is an account of the best Allied fighters in the South Pacific during World War II. My thanks go to Net Galley and Hachette Books for the review copy. When I missed the publication date, I obtained a copy of the audio book from Seattle Bibliocommons. This proved to be a very good thing.

John R. Bruning does a fine job introducing each of the best fighters to us, and when he begins with a young man from Portland, Oregon, which is where I grew up, I was instantly engaged. There are five fighters whose stories are told here: Portlander Gerald Johnson, Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neal Kearby, and Charles MacDonald. The framework for the story is a competition for a prize offered by the iconic pilot, Eddie Rickenbacker, who promised a bottle of excellent bourbon to the first pilot to break his record of 26 planes shot down. The men’s heroism—and sometimes recklessness—makes for a compelling narrative for readers of military history.

I begin by listening to the audiobook as I make dinner, following up later each day by going over the digital review copy. However, I soon discover that the detailed descriptions of noteworthy dogfights are impossible to envision unless I do both at the same time. Soon my routine is to listen to the passages in between battles, knowing that whatever I am doing, I’d better drop it and grab my tablet so I can follow along once the pilots take to the air. When I do this, I am rewarded with a clear mental movie of what is unfolding. Some of these fights are breathtaking in their intensity.

A flying ace is someone that shoots down five or more enemy planes. The vast majority of World War II flyers were competent and may at some point have shot down a plane or two, but the aces were few and far between. They were often working with substandard equipment—with the best American machinery reserved for the war in Europe. One noteworthy statistic caught my attention.

“Fewer than 5 percent of combat fighter pilots achieved acehood, but they accounted for 47 percent of all the enemy planes knocked out of the sky.”

Again and again, I read instances in which the Allied fighter pilot plays a game of chicken with his opponent, flying straight at the enemy plane; usually the enemy veers off at the last minute, and once in awhile it’s the Allied fighter. There’s one noteworthy instance when they fly so close that the American pilot’s wing knocks into the Japanese plane; they find a smear of green paint on it after he lands. And so I kept wondering, what if nobody blinks? Of course, my mindset is diametrically opposite that needed for warfare; I think like a teacher. Don’t run with scissors. Slow down. Watch where you’re going, young man. Don’t wave your pencil or you’ll put somebody’s eye out. These guys, on the other hand, were warriors:

“Carl held his course and refused to break first. Blev watched in horror as he flew straight into a Zero, the two planes exploding with all the violence of a 500-mile an hour collision.”

Despite short rations at times, missing mechanical tools and parts of planes, and a number of other challenges, these men crippled the Japanese air corps in this part of the world, and because of this, the five aces were particularly loathed by the Japanese pilots. One of them is shot down toward the end, and although he survives the crash, he is shot repeatedly after he goes down. It’s just as well that he’s dead by the time they get to him:

“After he fell to the jungle floor, the Japanese stripped everything off him, including his boots, watch, clothes, jacket, and dog tags. They left his naked body unburied, sprawled facedown at the base of the tree, his parachute still entangled in its branches like a canopy for his anonymous grave.”

It’s a weird sort of compliment.

The audiobook frees me to check details not provided in the book itself. There is a description of the different aircraft available to the men, and as I listen. I search for images of them and find some diagrams; there are parts of the craft mentioned and I have no idea what they are. Hopefully those that pick up the finished copy may find some photographs or illustrations, but I have none, so I run some searches.

Ultimately, I don’t care at all who wins the bottle of bourbon, and I have trouble remembering who is who, apart from Gerald Johnson. But that doesn’t bother me; I am not in this thing for individual biographies of the pilots, or because of the Rickenbacker contest. I want to know more about the World War II pilots, and the contest between the five men provides an excellent framework for that information.

The audiobook, while useful, does have some small glitches. The narrator should have taken the trouble to find out how to pronounce place names. The story begins in Oregon, and every time the word “Willamette” is used—Willamette Valley, Willamette River, and so on—the mispronunciation sets my teeth on edge. I catch myself snarling at the reader as if he is there in the room with me. His general manner while describing the military aspects of the book, which of course is most of it, has a documentary feel to it, and it works well, but now and then we veer into the private lives of the pilots, and when more sensitivity and nuance are called for, the reader is still using that clipped documentary voice you’d associate with a movie shown in your high school social studies class. Because of these things as well as the complexity of the fight scenes, I recommend the printed version over the audio. However, if you can swing it, the best way of all is to use them both simultaneously.

Nobody can dispute that Bruning knows his material, and copious research was done to produce this book, at least on the American side of it. It is a bit longer than it needs to be, and my own preference would be to edit it down a bit. Also, although the “J” word is only used in quotations, it shouldn’t be used at all. Those that squawk about authenticity should try inserting the “N” word, which was also freely used during this time period, into the quotes, just to test the assertion, and then it’s obvious that of course no reputable author should publish such a thing. Racist terms, no matter how common to the time described, have no place in any reputable history publication, and he should have worked around them.

With these caveats, I recommend this book to those that enjoy military history.

This book is out of my comfort zone to be sure! I normally read just about the European theatre of WWII but this book did not disappoint! I really enjoyed the book and wish I could use it for my classroom but it is just a bit too advance for my students.
Definitely recommend for someone’s personal library!

“Race of Aces” is an enjoyable and comprehensive account of flight training, austere living and air combat. I, personally, am a lover of aviation and aeronautics but sometimes find overly detailed historical fiction a bore. However, Bruning does a great job with his liberties adding in character development and delightful additions to the story lines. This book is excellent for those wanting to learn about WWII aviation but need a more enjoyable avenue to stay interested.

”Race of Aces” is a must read for any World War II or aviation enthusiasts. John Bruning tells the story of a group of American aviators in the South Pacific theater who took up Fifth Air Force commander General George Kenney’s challenge to be the first to break American “Ace of Aces” Eddie Rickenbacker’s World War I record of 26 planes shot down. As Bruning notes, “Fewer than 5 percent of combat fighter pilots achieved acehood”—at least five confirmed destroyed enemy aircraft—“but they accounted for 47 percent of all the enemy planes knocked out of the sky.” What originally began as Kenney’s desperate attempt to improve morale and rally his group of underequipped pilots at their remote and dangerous jungle outposts soon became a heated competition—one that caught the imagination of the home front and produced a group of fighter pilots who became the best in American history. Bruning takes the reader inside this elite group of aces, introducing men such as Dick Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neel Kearby and Gerald Johnson, and tells their stories both in the air and on the ground and before and after the war. Beyond his gripping aerial combat recreations and eye for the telling detail (as when, for example, he notes that the extreme humidity of jungle life meant that “the longer they wore headphones on missions, the more likely they’d return with something sprouting in their ears”), Bruning also considers the moral questionability of pushing men to risk everything to win a contest—a Kenney gambit that often had tragic and far reaching consequences. Propulsive and suspenseful.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Books for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

An in depth story revolving around the five great Aces of World War II in the Pacific. The book entails the journey of their day to day lives and struggles to become the greatest fighter pilot of their time. When General Kenney arrived to his new command, he found a ragtag fighting force with low moral, so the current holder of the highest number of enemy kills in the US Air Force, Eddie Rickenbacker was invited to speak to the men. A friendly rivalry ensued to beat his record. The book covers the lives of the Aces from childhood and how they came to be in the Pacific all the way through to the end of the war and the effect it had on their families. Easy to read and highly recommended for people interested in air fighting in WWII.

I really tried on this one, but it was all too predictable, the sort of Gee Whiz! account that was popular during the Second World War and the years immediately following. I didn't finish and won't be recommending it to my followers.

This is a hard one for me to rate. If I consider only the story and concept of the book, I rate it 5 stars. The details are plentiful and very interesting. The story follows the timeline of events in a chronological order.

I acknowledge the version I read was an ARC copy and hasn't been through a final edit, but boy is filled to the gills with errors. One common error was the misuse of "passed" vs "past." I lost count of the number of times the word should have been "past." There are many instances of missing words, sentences without a verb, and many times extra words appear in the text. Another major issue is the number of repeated phrases where the text was changed but the original phrase is remains in the sentence. I also lost count of the numerous times the word used was "they" but should have been "the" and vice-versa.

I hope the editor of the text is detail oriented and reads every single word of every sentence.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy for me to read and review.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Some reviewers have described this book as an historical novel. The author probably took liberties with conversations and situations but all in the context of telling the story. I did find it difficult to stay interested with the characters and the situations they found themselves in, both in the civilian world and in combat. 'Race of Aces' does give the reader valuable insight into flight training and the minutiae of living in bare bones outposts. Good information just no wow factor.

In an effort to improve morale in the Southern Pacific theater, General Kenney said he’d give a case of scotch to the first fighter pilot to best Eddie Rickenbacker’s total of 26 kills in WWI. Rickenbacker sweetened the deal by throwing in a case of his own.
The south Pacific was a grim place. The European war received the lion’s share of supplies. The men of the Fifth Air Force had to cope with bad food, bad living conditions, diseases, and not enough planes and parts.
Several fighter pilots sought to become the highest scoring ace. Many were obsessed. Neel Kearby and Tommy McGuire got themselves killed because they crossed a line between duty and ambition.
Charles Lindberg showed up, wanting to fly and get kills, even though he was a civilian. And he scorned the American fliers for their immoral actions when they strafed enemy pilots they’d shot down. He would have gotten himself killed with his poor situational awareness if not for those immoral pilots. He was pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic, and a hypocrite.
I learned a lot about the Fifth Air Force. The lifestyle was atrocious. The ground crews were the unsung heroes. Admirable aces like Jerry Johnson and Dick Bong, survived the war, only to die in crashes in 1945.
I found one statement by the author shocking. The Japanese intended to fight to the bitter end and, for the aces, this may have been welcome news. They would have plenty of opportunities to score. Would they seriously want to prolong the war, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and sailors, so they could get more kills?

What an interesting historic novel. Bruning takes us on a fascinating read about the exploits of our air campaigns in the South Pacific. We follow the true lives of several pilots who go from average every day life to that of being wartime hero's. But on the way we get a great documented telling of the struggles of getting the right planes, the right pilots and the right leaders into the war theatre.

It was disheartening to read about the many pilots that never made it into war because they were killed flying planes that were untested and needed further development before they could go to war. How terrible it was to loose pilots just because equipment wasn't truly ready to fly!

But the story documents the lives of airmen who are challenged to break the record of ACES from WWI. Can they do better than scoring 20 plus kills? Can they become the next "ACE" pilot? Can they survive all of the cards stacked against them? Can they provide air cover for our ground troops and Navy so that we can prosecute the war in a way that will allow us to win?

I found this book interesting and yet sad because of what war does to people.

I think anyone would benefit from reading this account of the war and learning what brave men and women had to endure, overcome and accomplish so that we could live in a nation like the United States.

A detailed account of the air war in the Pacific from the perspective of Air Force aces. Bruning brings 30 years of research to play in this account of the aces who sought to break Eddie Rickenbacker's record and their goal to be be top American ace of WWII. Bruning makes the characters come alive, flaws and all.
The book is a record of the heroics of the Pacific War, but also a warning about the popularization of individual achievements in combat. The media, as well as the ambition of the pilots, drove the race of aces. Unfortunately, many died in combat due to their reckless actions in pursuit of kills.
This is a long and detailed book. However, after 100 pages I could not put it down. I recommend it to anyone interested in WWII or the history of aviation.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a prepublication ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Have read many books about WWI figher pilots, but none on WWII. I've been missing out, because this book was a great retelling of WWII fighter pilots competing to surpass Eddie Rickenbacker's total of 26 victories in the First World War - the highest scoring American ace. This competition took place in the Pacific Theater as five pilots jumped in the race to 27 & was reported nationwide to an excited audience. However, the pilots involved struggled with the conflict sense of duty and their desire for glory. Very exciting read.

I received an advance copy of "Race of Aces", by John R. Bruning, courtesy of the publisher. I am delighted to report that it was a wonderful read. The first thing to note is that the framing literary conceit is the intense competition in the Army Air Forces (AAF) under the command of Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific Theater of War for the title of ace of aces. Eddie Rickenbacker's status as the best known American ace at the end of World War I and his enormous business success since then provided a sort of preview of the possible rewards awaiting the successful pilot. However, rather after the fashion of a recent popular movie, "There can be only One." The interesting thing here is that the framework sets up a prism through which to view the whole Pacific War, particularly the campaigns on New Guinea and building towards the invasion of the Philippines. The gritty and well written narrative gives an unprecedented view of the air war against Imperial Japan as seen through the lens of the AAF. The story is both moving and frightful, with a fascinating cast of charaters and their aircraft. Most notably the Lockheed P-38 Lightning in its various incarnations. Despite the title's rather universal implications, only an occasional casual mention is made to the AAF in Europe or even to the Marine and Naval aces in the rampaging Carrier task forces in the Pacific. Marked by humanity, erudition, and solid research, this book is an invaluable addition to the shelves of anyone with an interest in military aviation during the Second World War.

My typical fare is Sci-Fi/Fantasy but I have an abiding love of history, particularly military history. This checked so many blocks for me.

Reading a pre-release version, there were a few small things that I am sure will be caught and corrected before publication so I won't even count those as a negative. Towards the positive, it is apparent that Bruning has done his research (quite extensively based on his listed resources). Summarizing a list of sequential events is not difficult, but he has taken the multitude of sources and information then sorted and done a superb job of combined them into a compelling story.

I greatly enjoyed the book and would love to see a version with the photographs that were mentioned at various points through out. A definite recommend for anybody that enjoys military history, and could still be enjoyable even for those that don't.