A valentine for one of the ugliest, albeit most lethally effective,
warplanes ever built--as well as for the men who flew them during
the Desert Storm campaign. Drawing on interviews with over one
hundred A-10 pilots who served in the Persian Gulf during the
1990-91 hostilities, Smallwood (himself an aviator and Korean War
vet) offers riveting perspectives on aerial combat. Setting the
stage with an informative briefing on how, in the 70's, the Air
Force developed the A-10 (a.k.a. Warthog'') as a means of
supporting ground troops with massive firepower, he moves into
anecdotal vignettes detailing the ways in which so-called hog
drivers'' and their commanders whiled away the weary hours of the
calm before the storm in Saudi Arabia's inhospitable clime. At the
heart of his narrative, however, are vivid accounts of how A-10s
accomplished their tank-busting missions and then some once the
battle was joined. Tasked, among other objectives, to take out
missile launchers and artillery emplacements far behind the front
lines (assignments normally reserved for jet fighters), the
slow-moving, heavily armed Warthogs were credited with over half
the bomb damage inflicted on Iraqi forces and installations.
Employing improvisational tactics, A-10s also flew reconnaissance
and assisted in rescues of coalition pilots; they even scored
air-to- air kills, downing a couple of enemy choppers. Indeed, the
plane's ungainly Gatling-gun platform performed so well that pilots
demanded their craft be redesignated RFOA-10'' (for
reconnaissance/fighter/observation/attack'').
"An absorbing tale of how a decidedly ugly duckling became a
military hero of some consequence." -"Kirkus Reviews"
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