War, Wings, Women

About the Book

Flying the mission is one thing.  To live to write about it, another.

As a child I reads all I could find about the beginning of the use of airplanes in World War 1.  Listening to stories of foot slogging infantry men, I was determined that when war came, I would be in the air.  I would be a pilot.

Flying was foremost.  War was incidental, and the fact that I could be killed, never entered my mind.  I had always been a rat-packer of information, useful or not, so when it came time to write this story, I had all the details at hand to breathe life into the story line.

The first draft covered 1300 pages.  By the time the story was tightened up, it was in the 400 page range.

Staying in the Reserves, I was a Bombing Squadron commanded, then transitioned into another venue and ended up in Korea.

That action over, I felt it was time to settle down and either become Regular Navy or Regular Civilian.  I took the latter in deference to my wife Barbara and our daughter Kathleen.

My search for information about our last strike on the Japanese battleship/carrier IJN HYUGA finally ended in Hiroshima, Japan in March 1999 when wife Barbara and I met face to face with Japanese survivors.  No longer enemies, but now friends, we discussed the tragedy of war.

I have other stories in the process and will keep writing about Naval Carrier Aviation so long as there are stories to tell.

                                               H. Paul Brehm

About the Author

see cover notes.