Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.
Frank G. Tinker, Jr. was the top American ace flying under contract with the Spanish Republican Air Force in the Spanish Civil War. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1933, he went into combat with Soviet airmen during the war. Through sheer perseverance, he rose from a teenage enlisted seaman, through the U.S. Naval Academy, to the officer's wardroom?then pressed on to claim the wings of a naval aviator and to become a top-flight fighter pilot and a published author. Tinker possessed extraordinary people skills?skills that allowed him to move with relative ease among common seamen,… (meer)
This is a rather interesting book from a number of different angles. Its subject had 15 minutes of fame by writing up his experiences flying for the Spanish Republic, only to die of a gunshot wound in a Little Rock hotel room (arguably by accident despite suicide being the official ruling) before he could really figure out what to do with the rest of his life. The lead author, a noted historian of aviation history, had a mostly finished manuscript sitting on the shelf, only he had run out of patience with Tinker, leaving it to R.G. Hall to bring the project home. Besides being a fine yarn about air combat in the Spanish Civil War, one that is remarkably fair-minded about a conflict that still has the capacity to disturb memory, it's also a portrait of a man of action who just didn't have it in himself to practice a little impulse control and so squandered the many chances he had to have a life of real accomplishment. This lack of self-discipline in Tinker probably came off as lack of character to Smith (who had a taste for adventure himself) and one suspects it's why he set the narrative aside; Hall is to be complimented for finishing the job. ( )
Five Down No Glory is a well written, fast paced, biography of the American mercenary, Frank Tinker and his career as a fighter pilot for Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The world of combat aviation in 1936 was much closer to World War I than what it became in World War II and the Civil War in Spain bore witness to the shift from the former to the latter. Tinker lived this transition and the authors provide vivid descriptions of Tinkers adjustments to the changes in planes and tactics. At the same time this narriative gives the reader a clear understanding of the state of aerial combat techniques on the eve of the Second World War. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in aviation history and aerial combat in the period between World War's I and II. For a sample of the style and pace of the writing see the quotation in the Common Knowledge section of this book listing. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
The young man slouched comfortably in the mohair cushions of the French train compartment, his cheek pressed agains the window's cool glass.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
While Ukhov's pilots ate a hurried breakfast on 11 June 1937 , the sun remained hidden behind the distant Sierra de Altomira, but the eastern sky had begun to pale. They stepped into the Calle de Cervantes, boarded a bus, and drove through empty streets to the airfield where mechanics were readying their airplanes. The cool of the morning felt good; the stillness at the airfield seemed unreal. Then the whine of an engine being started shattered the air, the hard coughs of its ignition followed by the throaty roar of nine exhausts pulsing with the labors of hardworking pistons and valves. Another engine started,and another, and within a few minutes the air was filled with the angry sounds of a dozen engines being run up for magneto checks. As if the engines orchestrated the day, the sun appeared out of the low eastern haze, and as dawn became daylight, Valentin Ukhov led his flock of fighters bumping through the grass to the downwind end of the field where each in its turn roared off into the rising sun. Ukhov circled Alcala until he had gathered a half-dozen of his airplanes around him and then turned his formation east for Liria, a small town about twelve miles northwest of Valencia on the Mediterranean. Liria, 165 away, was a fuel stop where they would rendezvous with another Russian fighter squadron befor flying to the front in Aragon.
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
The sum of what he might have become in a future he never had, and the actual circumstances of his death, is had in two cryptic words carved into the granite of hs DeWitt tombstone: Quien Sabe?
Frank G. Tinker, Jr. was the top American ace flying under contract with the Spanish Republican Air Force in the Spanish Civil War. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1933, he went into combat with Soviet airmen during the war. Through sheer perseverance, he rose from a teenage enlisted seaman, through the U.S. Naval Academy, to the officer's wardroom?then pressed on to claim the wings of a naval aviator and to become a top-flight fighter pilot and a published author. Tinker possessed extraordinary people skills?skills that allowed him to move with relative ease among common seamen,
)
)
Google Books — Bezig met laden...
2