Review of "Red Randall on Active Duty," by R. Sidney Bowen

 Review of

Red Randall on Active Duty, by R. Sidney Bowen

Four out of five stars

A story of WWII era super soldiers

 This book was published in 1944, when World War II was raging. The setting is the Pacific Theater, and it features pilots Red Randall and Jimmy Joyce. The timeframe is shortly after the Japanese launched their surprise attack against the United States, Bataan has not yet fallen, in fact General MacArthur is still in the Philippines.

 The two pilots are stationed in Darwin, Australia and are anxious to get into the action. When a small unit of Japanese planes attack Darwin, they rise to meet them and are successful in their attack. They are suddenly withdrawn and assigned to a secret mission that is to take them to the Philippines. They fly off a carrier and while they are able to fight off a Japanese fighter, they crash land near a Japanese held island.

 Their adventure then takes an incredulous path, where they manage to evade the Japanese, get back in the air and single-handedly deal the Japanese a major blow. It is the super soldier genre form of war propaganda, where the heroes are able to do the seemingly impossible and emerge alive from the other side. Modern readers will also be amused by the language used by the pilots as they face and overcome their dangers.

 It is a good story, but only if you read it through the filter of the war fury and language restrictions of the time.