The Fight in the Clouds: The Extraordinary Combat Experience of P-51 Mustang Pilots During World War II
by James P. Busha, Zenith Press, Minneapolis, Minn., 2014, $30
Heading home from battle in WWII, air ace Pierce W. “Mac” McKennon had a favorite prank: He would position a wingtip under his wingman’s and bang it up and down, as if to force the other pilot to flip over. To pilots this was playful behavior; to maintenance crews it meant unwanted metal damage. That’s the kind of detail you get only from someone who was there. Jim Busha’s book—its title drawn from William Butler Yeats’ poem “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”—is filled with personal recollections told in distinct voices. Air ace Don Bryan’s description of the cockpit of the P-51 Mustang is the most detailed I’ve ever read. Ace Harrison Tordoff speaks in vivid language of the P-51’s vulnerable underbelly, where its coolant system was susceptible to small-arms fire. As the publisher tells us, “This is as close as you’ll ever get to a P-51 without flying one yourself.”
Busha, a police detective, Aeronca L-3 observation plane owner and editor of two Experimental Aircraft Association magazines, has been collecting accounts by aerial veterans for decades. The Fight in the Clouds gives us the best of those from P-51 pilots, whether engaging the Me-262 over the Third Reich or caught up in an epic long-range battle over the Pacific.
Apart from a small amount of content describing the aircraft, which reads more like padding than enhancement, this book contains no third-person analysis —and that was the right decision. The words of the pilots themselves are what matter to many of us, and Busha rightly presents them without embellishment or judgment. The publisher’s claim is fully redeemed by these first-person accounts: You actually feel you’re there, in the cockpit of your own Mustang.
This is a beautifully designed volume that will add luster to your bookshelf and insight to your perceptions of one of WWII’s most important fighters.
Originally published in the January 2015 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
