Air Combat at 20 Feet...

The seemingly unlikely scenario suggested by the title of this article is not only feasible, but was practiced skillfully in a B-25 Mitchell bomber by the author of a book by the same title...Another war history aficionado, known in internet circles by the sobriquet of Independent Voter, was kind enough not only to make me aware of this literary gem, but to lend me his treasured autographed copy...

I read it, and enjoyed it so much, I located and bought my own copy for my small library...Books written by lesser known writers and published by obscure printers are sometimes overlooked, and even looked down upon by reviewers as unworthy, but this is not the first time I've located worthwhile writing hiding in plain sight...

Certainly not a polished, professional writer, Garrett Middlebrook has put into understandable words a straight-from-the-shoulder account of his military experiences in the Southwest Pacific Theater during WWII...Told from the viewpoint of a citizen/soldier thrust into war against an enemy he did not know, Middlebrook looked on his duty first as an American, and more narrowly as part of a small group caged together in aluminum and canvas, dedicated to keeping each other alive and unharmed...

He begins by explaining unapologetically for his use of certain terms and words in his narrative which might be taken as misused by some purists...As a former enlisted crewman, I thought his narration was perfect as representing the thoughts of men sent to do a job that nobody wants, with their only reward being a return to normal life carrying memories of horrors that no one should be asked to recall, decisions that can't be undone...

Decades had passed before Middlebrook sat down to organize and record the events in his memory, but he had an ally in his task, his diaries in which he kept notes of the everyday happenings in a combat pilot's life...Of all the histories of war I've read, this one is the most useful to me because I've learned of things no one else has written of...I now know of the improvisation of tactics that can't even be conceived in a pre-flight briefing...

I now know how ingenuity is born of desperation when a battle plan goes awry, when the unforeseen becomes reality and only split seconds separate a crew from flaming death...I know how some explicit orders simply can't be followed by one man, and are undertaken by another with no regrets from either when the battle stops...

I now know how a crew can fly toward a target thinking only of their duty completing a mission, and on the turn toward home their only thoughts are of each other, and the safe return of all aboard...I know the respect and admiration warriors can have for other warriors although they will never meet, or even learn each other's names...

I already knew how an upset in the pecking order can affect those left down the list, but now I know how it's handled by those who put the job ahead of personal advancement, whether they're in it for a career or not...I also already knew how those in the military speak a different language among themselves than that which they use writing reports, and the conversations depicted in the book were certainly not word-for-word as they took place...

But I also understand why Middlebrook, as a writer, chose the more stilted, drawing-room dialect in his narration of talk between crewmembers, rather than the rougher, more casual words actually used by those in the military...Middlebrook at some point realized that an accurate depiction of common talk does not play well in print...He understood that accents, excited slurs and inside jokes do not translate as well to all readers as they would in spoken words...

Therefore, I imagine that, given the choices available to a writer more interested in telling his story than auditioning for a screenplay assignment, he chose to represent most conversations as they might have been written for a 1930's British film drama...This made it far more readable and understandable to a broader based audience than a verbatim recitation of jargon between military men...

This has become one of my favorite WWII histories as it tells the story on a personal level, rather than a look back in time from someone who was never there...The author managed to tell a story in which it was obvious he played a bigger part than what he gave himself credit for, but he did it in a way that shows what a team effort it took just to survive such an experience...

Far too little is known of the smaller wars fought and died for in the larger theaters engaged by men, and on another level by women, who experienced fear, courage, tedium and joy, sometimes all in the same hour, in the hope of resuming a normal life, all the while knowing others would be left behind, never to return...

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