heroes of yesteryear's aerial wars, compiled and annotated.
twenty-six of the most dramatic true stories ever told of men in aerial combat, from World War I to Vietnam.
...excerpted the autobiographies of Eddie Rickenbacker, Ted Lawson, Robert L. Scott, and Gregory (Pappy) Boyington. Plus short takes recounting the airborne adventures of British (Ginger Lacey, Bob Tuck), German (Adolf Galland, Erich Hartmann), and Japanese (Saburo Sakai) aces (i.e., fliers with five or more kills). Paul Tibbets on his flight in a B-29 called Enola Gay to a rendezvous with history over Hiroshima...
Skyraiders on ground-support missions during the Korean conflict. Steve Ritchie, the last US fighter pilot to gain five victories). vivid account of how in 1915 a young Royal Navy pilot became the first of his breed to shoot down a zeppelin.

Coonts has taken excerpts from memoirs and biographies of men who flew fighters and bombers in the 20th Century. While we learn a bit about the planes they flew, the focus of the book is on the men.

He covers most major wars of the 20th Century except Korea. His first excerpt is about the first pilot to shoot down a Zeppelin in WW I. The final entry is about the last American to achieve the title of ace. Because of advances in technology, there probably will be no more.

Some of the fliers such as Rickenbacker, Alan Deere, Robert Scott, Ted Lawson, Doolittle, "Pappy: Boyington, Adolf Galland, Saburo Saki abd Paul Tibbitts will be familiar to readers of air war books.

The advantage of this collection is that one can see how the progression of technology influenced how men fought one another in the air.

Coonts includes a bibliography of the books from which he selected the entries. ( )