DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9704300721

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BY BILL ROACH

                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

FROM THE MILITARY SHELF

WAR IN THE AIR

True Accounts of the 20th Century's Most Dramatic Air Battles by the Men Who Fought Them

STEPHEN COONTS

Pocket Books. 331 pp. $24.

A stirring collection of 26 vivid accounts of aerial warfare, War in the Air encompasses three from World War I, including one about Eddie Rickenbacker; 16 from World War II; one from the Korean War; and six from the Vietnam War. Most are accounts of fighter pilots (``Saved for Another Day'' by Joe Foss), but several recount bomber actions (``The Doolittle Raid'' over Tokyo, by Ted W. Lawson, and ``The Flight of the Enola Gay,'' about the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima), and two tell of Vietnam helicopter actions (``la Drang Valley,'' by Robert Mason, Hugh L. Mills Jr.'s ``Hotdoggin' It''). Especially thoughtful is ``Carrier Pilot,'' an excerpt from a private diary that U.S. Navy A-4 pilot Frank Elkins kept in Vietnam.

In his foreword, Coonts, himself a decorated Navy attack pilot, cites a ``fundamental truth'': ``You must aggressively seek the enemy, engage him, kill him and get home before your fuel is exhausted.''

OFFICERS IN FLIGHT SUITS

The Story of American Air Force Fighter Pilots in the Korean War

JOHN DARRELL SHERWOOD

New York University Press. 239 pp. $26.95.

Sherwood provides a definitive account of Air Force pilots, their training, operations and battles, in the Korean War. Although the writing is pedantic, Officers in Flight Suits makes up in thoroughness what it lacks in style. The author is a military historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington.

PHANTOM OVER VIETNAM

Fighter Pilot, USMC

JOHN TROTTI

Presidio. 250 pp. $14.95.

Phantom Over Vietnam, a first-person account by a Marine fighter pilot who flew 600 missions in two tours, offers fascinating insights into the thoughts and thought-process of the career military flier. Trotti vividly describes air operations and occasional comments on the ramifications of military or political policy.

EASY TARGET

The Long, Strange Trip of a Scout Pilot in Vietnam

TOM SMITH

Presidio. 268 pp. $24.95.

Rebellious Tom Smith, a U.S. Army helicopter scout pilot in Vietnam, has strong opinions about that war in this first-person narrative. But the book's value resides in the story-telling of battles and operations by helicopter pilots in action. Smith was shot down three times.

AIR WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF

WILLIAMSON MURRAY

Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co. 338 pp. $24.

This study of the air war in the Persian Gulf concentrates on the conduct of operations and emphasizes the first days of the air campaign against Iraq. Murray says the work ``aims to convey the ambiguities and difficulties that confronted air commanders and planners in the war against Iraq.'' He is a professor of European history and director of the military history and strategic studies program at Ohio State University.

WONDERFUL FLYING MACHINES

A History of U.S. Coast Guard Helicopters

BARRETT THOMAS BEARD

Naval Institute Press. 240 pp. $32.95.

Beard traces the development and use of the helicopter by the Coast Guard, focusing on Coast Guard Capt. Frank A. Erickson, who pushed for the USCG's early use of Igor Sikorsky's invention. Wonderful Flying Machines chronicles the hurdles and feuds that marked the development of the flying service, but also thrillingly describes, from inside a helo, an actual rescue mission. The author has been a Navy and Coast Guard flier, and spent a decade as a search-and-rescue pilot.

DARK EAGLES

A History of Top Secret U.S. Aircraft Programs

CURTIS PEEBLES

Presidio. 344 pp. $17.95.

This concise summation of the development and use of ``black'' airplanes - those special aircraft developed, tested and flown in deep secrecy - opens with the 1942 testing of the first one, the XP-59A Airacomet. It then covers the U-2 planes, ``Blackbirds,'' the first stealth craft and even the U.S. MiG programs. The author (Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth) is a fellow of the British Interplanetary Society.

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