Book Review: America’s Few: Marine Aces of the South Pacific

(See all my Book Reviews and Author Interviews) – 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 received an ARC of this book through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. 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.

Further Information:

1. MacArthur’s Air Force: American Airpower over the Pacific and the Far East, 1941–51
2. Air Apaches the 345th bomb group in the South Pacific

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

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If you have an interest in the WWII era of history, you may find these three pages of interest. 

• The “World War II Resources” page is a constantly growing collection of more than 570 links to museums, memorials, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and other sources with information on the World War II era in history.
• The “World War II Timeline” page expands almost daily and shows events leading up to WWII, as well as during the war. Events are broken down into the Pacific and European Theaters by date.
• The About WWII page is a collection of links to posts that I have made over the years that are relevant to WWII.