Lucky 666

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin go through all the logs of Jay Zeamer, Jr.'s history in "Lucky 666." The recent release of this paperback edition may find a new audience for such a large scholarly work on one of our best-recorded wars, and yet least understood in terms of simultaneous, coordinated war. I think that both the Pacific settings and African settings of the Second World War do tend to be ignored in favor of the European settings. It is also no accident that the brave men featured in this book are brave white men.

This book skips over the African campaign and lightly touches on the effects that the European campaign had on supplies and morale in the Pacific. For people familiar with the South Pacific, the names and places will be familiar. For others, this book may be unfathomable. Quite a few of the natural disasters and weather patterns of the area are explained quickly, as an aside mostly, but the story never veers far from the mission that is the book's title.

If you have an interest in the history of all sides of World War II, the mission that is the climax of the book is the most tactically important mission in the specific area and the timeline. That is undisputable fact, as are the truths that, in many ways, our Air Force was almost hilariously outgunned, out of their league, and outmanned the entire time. Drury and Clavin don't sugarcoat the odds, but they do treat the subject of racism in the book in a modern way. Both racism of the Japanese towards the Americans they are fighting, as well as the racism from Americans toward the Japanese, is explained as realistically as possible. Drury and Clavin also went the extra mile and included data and stories from the Japanese fighter pilots' logs.

For historians who may want to pique someone's interest in modern flight and World War II in the Pacific, this book is the perfect primer as well as a good resource for further investigation. Made mild in some ways by the distance of time, as well as more modern sensibilities, "Lucky 666" is closer to a research project and far from patriotic propaganda. It is a fitting tribute to the men who gave their lives to give the U.S. a better chance at ending a war that had already claimed so many innocent people.

"Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission That Changed The War In The Pacific"
Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
$17, paperback
Simon & Schuster
http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lucky-666/Bob-Drury/9781476774855