Jim Leeke

This is a pretty good semi-popular account of an event that I can't claim to have been that familiar with, as in 1946, with service unification looming, the United States Navy and United States Army Air Force were in a race to set a new non-stop flight record. The Navy's "Truculent Turtle," a Lockheed PV-2 Neptune, set the new record by flying from Perth to Columbus (Ohio). On the other hand, the Army's "Pacusan Dreamboat" (a stripped-down Boeing B-29 Superfortress) preformed the arguably more difficult flight, winging from Honolulu to Cairo over the North Pole. Whatever else these flights demonstrated, the wider public now knew that no place was now out of range of air power.… (mais)

While readable and entertaining, this mongraph strikes me as being something of a lost opportunity, seeing as there is no evidence of Leeke having done any archival research; this is odd seeing as the prime American repositories are about a four hour drive from the author's town of residence. Even if Leeke is more concerned about the personalities involved, I also wonder why Norman Friedman's works are not included in the bibliography, among other secondary sources. Finally, Leeke tip-toes around the post-war controversy relating to the behavior of Sampson & Schley at Santiago, and how that impacted the officer corps… (mais)