The author starts with a history of the Marine Corps aviation then leads you to what and who he is going to be writing about, mainly the men who have ten kills or more. He begins with Guadalcanal which really was a long and intense battle on land, sea, and air. He describes the loneliness and also desperation that these men were dealing with every day not only for themselves and the other pilots but also for the troops on the ground and also for the men who kept the planes maintained. A really good look at the different pilots of the Marine Corps during WWII.

I fully enjoyed reading a Paiute the Marine fighter pilots of the Second World War. We typically only see stories told of the Army Air Corp aviators and naval aviators so this book is a welcoming sight. If you are looking for a new perspective on the air war I would recommend this great book.

This is a book that goes a long way to address the relatively poor understanding, at least in non-US audiences, of a savage conflict fought by young men who were a long way from home in a distinctly alien environment. The battles around Guadalcanal have received significant attention in accounts of WW2 but have tended to focus on the naval battles, particularly those associated with ’The Slot’ and the exploits of the Tokyo Express. The name of Henderson Field, the airfield that was so fiercely contested after US forces landed on Guadalcanal, has found its way into many accounts, but the intensity, significance and duration of the operations conducted from the various airfields constructed or captured by US forces is little known outside the small group of readers who have dug deeper into the dusty accounts of the fighting in the Solomon Islands. ‘America’s Few’ restores the fighting that took place around and from these airfields to it’s rightful place in accounts of The Pacific War. Bill Yenne captures the sense of isolation, relentless pressure and the unending sacrifice of so many young men who fought and died as the US and allies slowly regained the initiative. The brief portraits of some key figures and the descriptions of the exploits of some of the ‘aces’ gives the reader a strong - if necessarily limited - sense of the high pressure environment in which these largely forgotten aerial battles were fought. Highly recommended..

Author & historian Bill Yenne https://www.billyenne.com published America’s Few: Marine Aces of the South Pacific last January. He has published ten novels and more than three dozen non-fiction books.

I categorize this book as ‘G’. This book looks at the aerial aces in the Pacific during WWII. Specifically, he focuses on the two dozen Marine Corps pilots who earned the rank as double-digit aces. The author begins with a brief history of Marine Corps Aviation. He then lays out the story of each of the Marine Corps flyers who ended WWII with 10 or more aerial victories. He spends some time with the early life of each ace. The real focus of the book begins in 1942 on Guadalcanal.

As time moves forward, Yenne follows each ace and summarizes their achievements. Some, but not a lot, of details are given on their individual aerial victories. Mostly it is the day, mission, and general location where the Japanese aircraft was shot down. He follows up with each of the surviving aces noting their post-war careers.

I enjoyed the 8.5+ hours I spent reading this 437-page WWII history. I learned a lot more about the Marine pilots in this book. This is the third book by Yenne that I have read. The other two are Aces: True Stories of Victory and Valor in the Skies of World War II and MacArthur’s Air Force: American Airpower over the Pacific and the Far East, 1941–51. They have all been readable, enjoyable, and informative books on WWII aviation history. I give this book a rating of 4 out of 5.

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

"America's Few: Marine Aces of the South Pacific," by Bill Yenne is being published by Osprey (who graciously provided me with an ARC). It is one of a recent spate of books examining the experiences of America's aces in World War II. This is an area of study that has always been there but seems to be enjoying a resurgence of popularity as authors struggle to understand what it is to be an "ace" and what kind of competitive pressures shaped these men and promoted their success. Of course, no group of American "aces" during the war (with the exception of the Americans who served in the AVG in China or as volunteers in the RAF or RCAF) were more colorful than those who served in the South Pacific from the days of the Guadalcanal based "Cactus Air Force" to the far more sophisticated air forces that proliferated late in the war against Imperial Japan. Of particular interest to this reader was the author's focus on the machines these men flew and the tactical situations that evolved to exploit them as well as how those tactics and machines compared to their Japanese counterparts.. I enjoyed the text thoroughly, and it will make a fine addition to the library of anyone interested in the development of war fighting capabilities in the hotly contested airspaces over the vast expanses of the Pacific Theater of War.

A very well written book! The first hand accounts and interviews make this an outstanding read for the WW2 and aviation enthusiast. The stories are compelling and full of action. What these men went through is truly inspirational.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.