A ripping good, no nonsence autobiography. McWhorter grows up in Florida, has his first joy flight at eight years of age which triggered his desire to become a pilot. A few months later he watches a squadron of P26 fighters taxiing and taking off, and this confirms his resolve to become a fighter pilot. He learns to fly as a civilian and then signs up to become a navy pilot before war breaks out. He trains on Wildcats and then the new more powerful Hellcats. By now America has been drawn into combat in Europe. In 1942 the US takes an armada to help with an allied invasion of NW Africa. The French forces in Algeria were under the control of the Vichy govt which had emerged following the fall of France in 1940 and which operates with some autonomy at Hitlers pleasure. He sees combat and downs his first enemy aircraft. The majority of the story concerns his three combat missions in the Pacific and this is gripping stuff. There is some history on how the US push the Japanese back out of the Pacific. The most massive effort is applied in the taking of Okinawa. By now the Japanese are on the back foot and have resorted to Kamikaze pilots including manned bombs that are dropped out of aircraft, a no return trip for the hapless volunteer. Needless to say, any lessons the kamikaze pilots learn on combat duty are not passed on to the following volunteers. The air battles seem a bit one sided. The Zero is very light because it has no protective armoury so it is quick and very manoeuvrable but it explodes very easily. As the war progresses the Japanese pilots are simply too inexperienced to worry the very experienced US pilots. Despite the uneven combat, these US pilots are simply the best, very brave just flying these monster aircraft at breakneck speed in steep dives, flying off carriers, flying into very effective ground defences, flying back to carriers with only primitive radar for navigation and then landing on these moving vessels. Many of his fellow pilots crash and die making mistakes with any of the above activities and of course there are plenty of deaths from “friendly fire”. The writing style is business like, lots of abbreviations (there is a long list at the books beginning), lots of names as a way of honouring his fellow aviators which suggest it is written for the naval airman enthusiast. There is a sweet love story woven through the tale. I enjoyed it thoroughly.