''Flyboys: A True Story of Courage'' is a 2003 nonfiction book by writer

James Bradley James Bradley (1692–1762) was an English astronomer and priest who served as the third Astronomer Royal from 1742. He is best known for two fundamental discoveries in astronomy, the aberration of light (1725–1728), and the nutation of th ...

, and was a national bestseller in the US. The book details a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

incident of the execution and cannibalism of five of eight American

POWs A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

on the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

island of

Chichi-jima , native_name_link = , image_caption = Map of Chichijima, Anijima and Otoutojima , image_size = , pushpin_map = Japan complete , pushpin_label = Chichijima , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_map_alt = , ...

, one of the

Ogasawara Islands The Bonin Islands, also known as the , are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some directly south of Tokyo, Japan and northwest of Guam. The name "Bonin Islands" comes from the Japanese word ''bunin'' (an archaic readi ...

(Bonin Islands). This event is now known as the Chichijima incident.

Overview

The book documents the backgrounds of several American airmen who flew raids over Japan during World War II, and includes interviews with Japanese veterans of the conflict as well as the family and friends of some of the American airmen. It describes an air raid over the island of

in which ten crewmen survived being shot down, with nine captured and subsequently killed and cannibalized by their captors. The tenth crewman and future US president, Lieutenant George H. W. Bush, eluded capture. These atrocities were discovered in late 1945 following the conclusion of the war and were investigated as part of the war crimes trials. In 1946, 30 Japanese soldiers were court-martialed on

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

and four officers (Maj. Matoba, Gen. Tachibana, Adm. Mori and Capt. Yoshii) were found guilty and hanged. Bradley also devotes part of the book to describing the advance of military airpower during World War II, and describing the American bombardment of Japanese cities with

napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated alu ...

, which brought more death and devastation than the

atomic bombs A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

dropped on Hiroshima and

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flyboys: A True Story Of Courage 2003 non-fiction books History books about World War II Little, Brown and Company books Bonin Islands Non-fiction books about cannibalism Prisoners of war in popular culture