BOOK REVIEWS: 1. The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 2. The Price of Vigilance: Attacks on American Surveillance Flights 3. Rise to Rebellion 4. Marbury v. Madison: The Origins and Legacy of Judicial Review

• Author: Major Michael J. Mccormick
• Pages: 05

136 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 173

THE WILD BLUE: THE MEN AND BOYS WHO FLEW THE B-24s OVER GERMANY1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR MICHAEL J. MCCORMICK2

The word "plagiarism" derives from Latin roots: "plagiarius," an abductor, and "plagiare," to steal. The expropriation of another author's text, and the presentation of it as one's own, constitutes plagiarism and is a serious violation of the ethics of scholarship. It undermines the credibility of historical inquiry. In addition to the harm that plagiarism does to the pursuit of truth, it can also be an offense against the literary rights of the original author and the property rights of the copyright owner . . . . The real penalty for plagiarism is the abhorrence of the community of scholars.3

1. Introduction

   2002 did not start well for Stephen Ambrose. While enjoying the success of his latest best seller, The Wild Blue, an article in The Weekly Standard raised charges of plagiarism in the work.4 The article showed that Ambrose lifted quotations from Thomas Childers' Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II,5 without properly footnoting the material (although Ambrose did

   acknowledge the work in the bibliography and several footnotes).6 The Weekly Standard correctly pointed out:

   Sentences in Ambrose's book are identical to sentences in Childers's. Key phrases from Wings of Morning, such as "glittering like mica" and "up, up, up," are repeated verbatim in The Wild Blue. None of these-the passages, sentences, phrases-is put in quotation marks and ascribed to Childers. The only attribution Childers gets in The Wild Blue is a mention in the bibliography and four footnotes. And the footnotes give no indication that an entire passage has been lifted with only a few alterations from Wings of Morning or that a Childers' sentence has been copied word-for-word.7

   Confronted with the evidence, Ambrose quickly admitted to guilt by negligence.8 Despite this honorable admission of his mistake, the damage had been done to Ambrose's reputation.9 As one fellow historian noted, "This would be, for me as a teacher, unacceptable in a student, much less in a professional historian. It's sad because he is a historian whose work I have often used and admired."10 The question now is should the student of military leadership and history read The Wild Blue in spite of the plagiarism?

   Plagiarism is a serious charge. It completely cuts the author's credibility. In the academic world, Ambrose may have suffered a fatal blow to his credibility. Ambrose, however, had been moving away from the academic world for some time. His recent works11 are entertaining and moving, but have not contributed any new theories or profiles to the history of World War II. No one can argue that Ambrose knows how to capture the stories of the average troop in World War II. Because of this, his works have been very successful with the general public. Thus, setting aside the

   plagiarism issue, if that is even possible, this review turns to the question of whether The Wild Blue is worthy of the reader's time.

2. The Wild Blue

   The Wild Blue begins with the following query:

   The Army Air Corps needed thousands of pilots, and tens of thousands of crewmembers, to fly the B-24s. It needed to gather and train them and supply them and service the planes from a country in which only a relatively small number of men knew anything at all about how to fly even a single-engine plane, or fix it. From whence came such men?12

   One of the young men that came forth to fly the B-24 was George McGovern, later the senator from South Dakota and unsuccessful candidate for president in 1972. In this, his latest book on World War II,13

   Ambrose elicits the stories of the young men, such as McGovern, who made up the fighting force who in Ambrose's words "saved the world."14

   The stories involve the background, training, and combat experiences of those who flew the B-24 Liberator Bomber in Europe during World War

2. While The Wild Blue does not contribute anything new to the literature on World War II or, more specifically, the aerial campaigns, it is an enjoyable and interesting book that captures the story of the young men who grew into warriors and leaders.

   The Wild Blue has an interesting genesis. This book arose out of McGovern urging his long-time friend Ambrose to tell the story of the notso-well-known B-24 Liberator and the role it played in the European Theater of World War II. While this is not a book about George McGovern, his experiences as a B-24 pilot are the book's linchpin. The friendship between Ambrose and McGovern was the bridge between McGovern's

   wartime experiences and Ambrose's desire to tell the story of the junior ranks that actually operated and maintained the aircraft.

   Ambrose's admiration of McGovern and the men of his generation who fought the war comes through unabashedly in the book. Unfortunately, this may be the book's weak point. Ambrose provides almost no critical analysis of their missions, although he briefly discusses the issue of the accuracy of bombing attacks. He devotes only a few pages to whether the Army Air Corps actually succeeded in the strategic bombing attacks, and whether the attacks actually resulted in needless deaths of civilians or the destruction of a countless number of historic buildings and civilian homes.15 Ambrose dismisses any criticism of air power as mere inter-service rivalry.16 His answer to the critics is a simple conclusion: The Allies won the war, and a big part of the war was the bombing campaigns. Thus, the bombing campaign was a success.17 Any reader expecting lengthy analysis of whether the bombing campaigns were successful will come away disappointed.

   The Wild Blue focuses on the B-24's role in the European front, where McGovern and others flew the B-24 for the Fifteenth Air Force. At that point in the war in 1944, the Allies had occupied southern Italy, and there the Army Air Corps stood up the Fifteenth Air Force. Ambrose briefly describes the origin and background of the Fifteenth Air Force, but unfortunately, it is only a superficial examination of this major flying combat organization.

   This is disappointing since Ambrose entitles an entire chapter "The Fifteenth Air Force." The reader receives a brief introduction to the advocacy of air power and the main reasons the Army Air Corps created this second major air corps unit in addition to the Eighth Air Force. Beyond only the simplest survey, however, the reader does not take much away from the chapter, either on the leadership of the unit or its overall mission. Therefore, the chapter only detracts from Ambrose's main purpose in describing the men who flew the B-24, without lending any true insight into the Fifteenth Air Force.

   The chapter entitled "The Tuskegee Airmen Fly Cover" equals the scant attention paid to the Fifteenth Air Force. The story of the fabled 99th

   Fighter Squadron manned by African Americans has rightly received great attention over the last ten years. Their war record was exemplary even without factoring in the barriers they had to overcome. While these fascinating warriors, who overcame so much, deserve an entire chapter in The Wild Blue, Ambrose, for unknown reasons, goes on to devote only three pages of the chapter to their story. Instead, the Tuskegee Airmen story intersects with the B-24 story because the Tuskegee Airmen successfully flew cover for B-24 crews such as McGovern's. Naming the chapter after the famed Tuskegee Airmen is misleading: it only promises the reader something that Ambrose does not deliver.

   The reader also will not find much analysis devoted to whether the extraordinary destruction caused by the bombing was proportional to any military success. McGovern's crew and others assigned to the Fifteenth Air Force dropped 13,469 tons of bombs at just one target: the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania.18 The cost of these bombing runs was high; the Fifteenth Air Force lost 318 bombers in July 1944 alone.19 Ambrose just touches on the high cost of these missions. The destruction on the ground due to inaccuracy of free-falling bombs was equally devastating. Ambrose briefly mentions this destruction, 20 but never engages in a meaningful analysis of whether the bombing's collateral damage was worth it for the target's successful destruction. Like the chapters on the Fifteenth Air Force and the Tuskegee Airmen, if Ambrose raises the topic, he owes the reader more than a cursory discussion.

   The lack of analysis on bombing accuracy and extensive collateral damage as well as the curt examinations of the Fifteenth Air Force and the Tuskegee Airmen will disappoint any reader wanting more academic substance. Multiple books and articles have been written on all of these topics.21 It is unclear whether Ambrose deliberately gave the topics little

   discussion or if he felt only a brief discussion was necessary to complete the background of the World War II European Theater. A better approach would have been to maintain the book's primary focus on describing the young men who piloted and crewed the B-24s. Wandering summarily into the other topics detracts from the book and promises more than Ambrose delivers.

   Despite the shortcomings, Ambrose delivers vivid portraits of the men who flew the

   and the crew lived to see another day. For his actions, the Army Air Corps awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.24

   This and other harrowing accounts of B-24 crews provide vivid examples of how ordinary men were trained to deal successfully with extraordinary situations. While Ambrose may not have set out specifically to write a book on leadership, the stories of the B-24 crews provide excellent leadership examples. Literally putting their lives on the line every time they went into the air, each member of the crew worked closely together to ensure mission success. Ambrose correctly points out that the leadership of young men like McGovern was instrumental...