The author goes into detail about aerial fighting during the Vietnam War, dog fights, and bombing runs. The advantages of our planes, jets against the enemy, and so forth. He has interviews with pilots as well and their take on everything. Once again you can see that our lack of back and forth between Washington, and the Generals made this extremely difficult for the men and women fighting whether on land or in the air. A good book.

Mr. Cleaver has titled this book aptly. "Going Downtown" is exactly right. North Vietnam was the most highly protected air space in the world. The pilots and aviators who went "downtown" were highly skilled. Mr. Cleaver does a fine job of conveying the history of the air campaign in South East Asia.

This is a thorough listing of every mission flown by the US Air Force and Navy from the beginning of the American involvement to the final flights in 1975. Literally Cleaver describes every bombing mission, it's effect and each dog fight and shoot out between the jets of the North Vietnamese Air Force (some flown by North Koreans and Red Chinese).

Cleaver's descriptions are so specific that he mentions the type of air-to-air missiles that the planes fired at each other. He makes the point (from comments by the actually pilots) of the weakness of the US fighter jets and the weapons they were forced to use. Some hardware continued to be used even after the pilots complained of it's ineffectiveness because of pressure from the different military contractors through their congressional delegations.

For me all this data was overkill (pun intended) but there will be those who will revel in it.

An amazing look at the air war conducted in Vietnam from the start to the finish. I was astounded at the ineptitude of the generals and politicians conducting the war. It was heartbreaking to see how badly they let our troops down and the needless casualties that were inflicted on them. It is an eye-opening book that is sure to please the history fan.

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

Despite the sub-title, this book focuses almost exclusively on the air war over Vietnam, and most from an Air Force vice Navy perspective. More a collection of individual stories than a history of the overall air war.