Anti-aircraft Fire Research Articles

The protection of critical infrastructure facilities from air strikes due to compatible use of various forces and means

The relevance of the study is emphasised by the need to investigate and develop effective strategies for protecting critical state infrastructure in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2022. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of interaction between the means of physical and electronic influence in the context of protecting critical infrastructure facilities of the energy sector from air strikes. The object of research is the system of protection of critical facilities of the state’s energy sector. Research methods included the use of system analysis, the development of strategies for determining the optimal locations of the means of physical influence, and the use of mathematical modelling. Research in the field of interaction and simultaneous use of physical and radio-electronic means included a theoretical analysis of abstract objects and their relationships. These objects were designed to create an idealised description and investigate possible scenarios, as well as to determine optimal actions in specific situations. This study examined in detail the possibilities of improving the effectiveness of protecting important energy facilities from air strikes through the use of combined strategies such as anti-aircraft fire and fire protection. Methods for determining the optimal locations of the means of physical influence were analysed, which allowed predicting expected results when using them together. It was developed evidence-based recommendations for the effective integration of these methods, which is an innovative approach to the problem. The means of physical influence included small arms, which were part of the armament of the Armed Forces, and interceptor drones. Electronic means of influence included technical means of radio frequency warfare and electromagnetic guns. The practical significance of this study lies in the fact that it presents specific strategies and technological solutions for comprehensive protection of critical infrastructure facilities from air strikes. This paper can serve as a basis for developing effective security and protection policies in countries and regions, helping to improve overall sustainability and security

Mathematical Model for Solving Problem of Target Allocation of Antiaircraft Fire Weapons in AD Contour of Surface Ship (in AD System of Group of Ships) in Case of Attack Threat and Repelling Attacks of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles

The improvement of the algorithms of processing information and controlling of weapons systems in combination with their automation, which can significantly reduce time from the moment of detection of air targets to their destruction, is a promising direction in organizing of building and effective combat use of such complex systems as the contour of antiaircraft defense (AD) of a single surface ship and the AD system of a group of the surface ships. The transition to the creation and use of the precision-guided long-range munition, e.g. anti-ship missiles (AShM), allows to destroy ships from remote lines without entering the zone of the fighter aircraft action and reach of the antiaircraft missile system. When repelling attacks of anti-ship cruise missiles, a poor-quality solution of the problem of the target allocation of the antiaircraft fire weapons of a ship (group of ships) does not allow to realize the combat capabilities of the AD contour (system) as a whole, which leads to a loss of combat capability of the ship (ships). The main difference between the proposed mathematical model for solving the target allocation problem and those implemented in the combat information and controlling systems of the surface ships is the fact that it provides the possibility of evaluating own antiaircraft fire weapons and enemy’s AShM when developing an optimal target allocation plan based on a detailed account of the AShM detection range, coordination of the destruction zones, sectors of fire, lines of the implementation of the AShM tasks, mutual security measures, electromagnetic compatibility of the electronic means, i.e. taking into account the existing zones of the destruction of the antiaircraft fire weapons, as well as solving the problem of the target allocation in time. The solution of the task is carried out both directly during the antiaircraft combat, and in the case of the attack threat of the AShM. In its turn, the last one makes it possible to optimize building of the antiaircraft fire covering system and the AD system of both a single surface ship and the group of the surface ships as a whole, and to optimize the solution of the target allocation problem, in particular. The presented mathematical model and the algorithm and program developed on its basis can be recommended after appropriate modification for inclusion in both automated combat control systems and respectively combat information and control systems of connections of surface ships and single ships, that allows to solve the problem of the target allocation on a time scale close to real.

The Lighter Side of Aviation Medicine during World War 2: Aero Medical Training Cartoons

The air war of 1939‐1945 was the world’s first high‐speed, high‐altitude air war. The limiting factor in aerial combat was no longer the warplane’s performance, but rather, the aviator’s limited tolerances for exposure to the rarefied, anoxic, subzero atmosphere. Aviators flew unpressurized planes to altitudes of 20,000‐35,000 feet during reconnaissance and bombing missions to evade enemy interceptors and anti‐aircraft fire. At altitude, warfighter performance could be impaired by anoxia, decompression sickness, hypothermia & frostbite. Escaping from a disabled aircraft at high‐altitude also presented physiological challenges, including anoxia, frostbite, and parachute opening shock G‐forces. High‐performance fighter aircraft also subjected pilots to G‐forces during violent dogfighting maneuvers that left them temporarily blinded and unconscious from reduced brain blood flow. One of the challenges for the “medical men” was teaching young airmen, from all walks of life, the fundamentals of aviation physiology and how to use their oxygen equipment in this new physiological air war. This task fell in large part to the physiologists of the U. S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) and U. S. Navy (USN). The USAAF used training cartoons known as Thought Pictures to illustrate conceptually difficult topics in anatomy, physiology, and the physics of the atmosphere (Figs. 1 & 2). Thought Pictures, drawn by the artist/author Eric Sloane (1905‐1985), were combined with concisely written text in the popular training manual, Your Body in Flight (1943, 1944), which was published by the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. The USAAF also published aero medical training cartoons in Air Force Magazine.In the USN, a popular training cartoon character was the accident prone, bumbling airman, Dilbert Groundloop,drawn by satirist Robert C. Osborn (1904–1994). The USN Bureau of Medicine also highlighted important aero medical issues using comical illustrations in the widely distributed Senseseries; e.g. Oxygen Sense, High Altitude Sense, “G” Sense& Parachute Sense. Likewise, the School of Aviation Medicine, U. S. Naval Air Station, Pensacola, FL, published altitude training cartoons in CONTACTmagazine. Even Boeing and Lockheed aircraft manufacturing companies published humorous cartoons in Boeing News Magazine and Hangar Flying to reinforce the medical dangers of altitude flying to their test pilots and flight engineers. Finally, those mischievous pixies of the air, the Aero Medical Gremlins, proved to be another valuable training tool (see author's Aviation Gremlins abstract). Together, these humorous illustrations enabled America’s aviation physiologists and flight surgeons to drive home the serious nature of the physiological challenges of combat flying to aviators, while at the same time, presenting difficult material in an easily remembered format that was also amusing and entertaining for airmen soon to be facing life or death on every mission. Aero medical cartoons worked so well as a training tool that interrogation of German aviation physiologists at the end of the war revealed a professional admiration by them for the depth of understanding that American aviators had regarding the physiological effects of high‐altitude and the physiologic principles underlying their protective flight gear.

Control Optimization of Readiness Mode of Antiaircraft Fire Weapons in Antiaircraft Fire Covering System of Surface Ships Formation in Case of Attack Threat of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles

Currently, the decisive factor in the development of the theory of military art in the sea is the fact of transition to the creation and use of precision-guided long-range munition by an enemy - anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), so that to destroy ships from remote lines without entering the zone of the fighter aircraft action and reach of the antiaircraft missile system. A promising direction in the organization of the building and effective combat use of such complex systems as the anti-aircraft defense contour of a single surface ship, and the anti-aircraft defense system of a group of surface ships in the threat of attack and repelling attacks of anti-ship cruise missiles, is the improvement of the algorithms for information processing and control of weapons systems in combination with their automation. Modern information technologies based on the use of computer technology and mathematical modeling allow improving the decision-making process in the tasks of building complex systems, processes of planning and organizing their activities. The methods of “artificial intelligence”, automation of the process of forces and means control in combat significantly increase the efficiency of decision-making. The fleeting nature and rapid change of the situation in anti-aircraft combat require solving the problem of repelling attacks by anti-ship cruise missiles in real time, that is impossible without full automation of the process of controlling the forces and means of anti-aircraft defense, in case of that human participation in anti-aircraft combat should be minimized, and completely excluded if possible. One of the complex systems that require full automation and real-time operation is the anti-aircraft fire covering system for surface ships formation. Determination of the optimal (expedient) combat readiness mode of the anti-aircraft fire weapons included in its composition is a prerequisite for the effective functioning of the anti-aircraft fire covering system in anti-aircraft combat. The article proposes a problem solution of the control optimization of the combat readiness mode of the anti-aircraft fire weapons in the anti-aircraft fire covering system of the surface ships formation in the case of the attacking threat of the anti-ship cruise missiles. The obtained results will substantiation of an optimal (expedient) mode of combat readiness and also creation of recommendations for setting the duty schedule of the anti-aircraft fire weapons in the interests of anti-aircraft defense. The presented mathematical model and the developed on its basis algorithm and program can be recommended for inclusion in both automated combat control systems and respectively combat information and control systems of connections of surface ships and single ships.

Landmarks in Romanian History of Anti-Aircraft Artillery

The main purpose of this article is to present the decisive contribution that Brigadier General Ion Bungescu had to the development of anti-aircraft artillery in Romania. To achieve this objective we describe in the paper the evolution of the anti-aircraft gun director computer he invented, as well as its modus operandi. The adopted methods include quantitative and qualitative analyses of documents, manuals and albums published during the considered period, and some published by Brigadier General Ion Bungescu. The results of the article are presented in the context of the accelerated development of military aviation between the two world wars. This development put terrible pressure on the development of anti-aircraft artillery that started with land guns adapted for anti-aircraft firing in 1916 and reached anti-aircraft guns controlled by Gun Director Computer in 1945. We can compare the development of military aviation during that time with the development of information technology over the last 30 years, from connecting computers in the network to the use of artificial intelligence.

Computational Reconstruction of an Anti-Aircraft Artillery Firing Scenario

The paper describes a computational reconstruction of an anti-aircraft artillery firing scenario and its use in analysing firing data. Computational reconstruction supported by 3D visualization can be a useful tool for evaluating soldiers’ training. A system for collecting, analysing and visualising the results of anti-aircraft artillery firing is described. The information collected can then be re-used to evaluate the effectiveness of soldiers’ training, and to make an optimal use of the available data. Particular attention is paid to the solution of the problem of restoring the trajectory of the target and the projectiles, and to their synchronisation in time.

Средства автоматизации стрельбы при управлении огнем зенитных ракетных подразделений с ПЗРК

Средства автоматизации стрельбы при управлении огнем зенитных ракетных подразделений с ПЗРК

A Closed Form Ballistic Solution for Ground and Anti-Aircraft Gun Fire Control System

A Closed Form Ballistic Solution for Ground and Anti-Aircraft Gun Fire Control System

Solution to the Anti-aircraft Fire Control Problem on a Naval Platform Using the Direct Geometric Model

To find the kinematic model in applications different from robotics, the free-body diagram and coordinateconversion using Euler angles is frequently used. In robotics the Khalil-Kleinfinger (1986) method is used(and others), which allows coordinate conversions over several joints. In this paper a new application ofthis method to solve the fire control problem of a naval anti aircraft gun is proposed. To demonstrate theapplication a virtual model is built using Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and controlledby Matlab Simulink®. From the direct geometric model the solution of the problem is found, includingthe detection system, platform, gun and flight of the missile. This model serves as a tool for the design,testing and integration of controllers for the gun and detection system. The prediction algorithms ofthe trajectory of the target and the missile in flight models can also be integrated. The results show thatthe geometric model of complex systems with many degrees of freedom can be constructed in a precise,methodical and easy to understand manner.

Claude Ambrose Rogers. 1 November 1920 — 5 December 2005

Claude Ambrose Rogers and his identical twin brother, Stephen Clifford, were born in Cambridge in 1920 and came from a long scientific heritage. Their great-great-grandfather, Davies Gilbert, was President of the Royal Society from 1827 to 1830; their father was a Fellow of the Society and distinguished for his work in tropical medicine. After attending boarding school at Berkhamsted with his twin brother from the age of 8 years, Ambrose, who had developed very different scientific interests from those of his father, entered University College London in 1938 to study mathematics. He completed the course in 1940 and graduated in 1941 with first-class honours, by which time the UK had been at war with Germany for two years. He joined the Applied Ballistics Branch of the Ministry of Supply in 1940, where he worked until 1945, apparently on calculations using radar data to direct anti-aircraft fire. However, this did not lead to research interests in applied mathematics, but rather to several areas of pure mathematics. Ambrose's PhD research was at Birkbeck College, London, under the supervision of L. S. Bosanquet and R. G. Cooke. Although his first paper was a short note on linear transformations of convergent series, his substantive early work was on the geometry of numbers. Later, Rogers became known for his very wide interests in mathematics, including not only geometry of numbers but also Hausdorff measures, convexity and analytic sets, as described in this memoir. Ambrose was married in 1952 to Joan North, and they had two daughters, Jane and Petra, to form a happy family.

Three-dimensional path planning for unmanned aerial vehicle based on interfered fluid dynamical system

This paper proposes a method for planning the three-dimensional path for low-flying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in complex terrain based on interfered fluid dynamical system (IFDS) and the theory of obstacle avoidance by the flowing stream. With no requirement of solutions to fluid equations under complex boundary conditions, the proposed method is suitable for situations with complex terrain and different shapes of obstacles. Firstly, by transforming the mountains, radar and anti-aircraft fire in complex terrain into cylindrical, conical, spherical, parallelepiped obstacles and their combinations, the 3D low-flying path planning problem is turned into solving streamlines for obstacle avoidance by fluid flow. Secondly, on the basis of a unified mathematical expression of typical obstacle shapes including sphere, cylinder, cone and parallelepiped, the modulation matrix for interfered fluid dynamical system is constructed and 3D streamlines around a single obstacle are obtained. Solutions to streamlines with multiple obstacles are then derived using weighted average of the velocity field. Thirdly, extra control force method and virtual obstacle method are proposed to deal with the stagnation point and the case of obstacles’ overlapping respectively. Finally, taking path length and flight height as sub-goals, genetic algorithm (GA) is used to obtain optimal 3D path under the maneuverability constraints of the UAV. Simulation results show that the environmental modeling is simple and the path is smooth and suitable for UAV. Theoretical proof is also presented to show that the proposed method has no effect on the characteristics of fluid avoiding obstacles.

’n Nuwe lewe: Olga Kirsch se studentegedig “Resurrexit” / A New Life: Olga Kirsch’s Student Poem “Resurrexit”

Abstract The poem “Resurrexit” published by Olga Kirsch in 1945 in the student paper WU´s VIEWS has been all but forgotten. It is, however, a beautiful and an important poem with a pantheistic character. It commemorates the death of the young Jewish flight navigator lieutenant Alec Medalie, whose fighter plane was shot down by German antiaircraft fire near the Yugoslavian coast in 1944. Psychoanalysis opens the poem up to a reading which turns the typical male symbolic order’s death and men’s chaos caused by war into the young man’s rebirth as a new form of being. This happens through the maternal earth’s uterine sea. The fallen is absorbed by the sea and after a period taken up into the clouds to return to the mother and the earth, albeit in a new form. The concept of the chora plays a part in this resurrection which offers consolation to all who are subject to the inevitable uncertainty of the human condition and those who stay behind after a sudden death.

Antiaircraft Missile for the Group Target Shooting Performance Model and Simulation Analysis

Through selecting antiaircraft missile firing on group performance indicators and target shooting performance analysis modeling, digital simulation algorithm for the simulation model with examples, drawn Shots with different parameters of various simulation results, and the conduct of the analysis. This performance assessment and equipment antiaircraft missile system construction is important。

Calculation of Ammunition Consumption for Anti-aircraft Missile System to Destroy Aerial Targets

Abstract The required ammunition consumption for anti-aircraft missile system to destroy aerial targets is a random variable. This paper proposes calculation method of ammunition consumption for the missile system to destroy aerial targets, which can calculate the average ammunition consumption for the missile system to destroy a single target, thin targets and dense targets respectively. The example shows the proposed calculation method is simple, and can support anti-aircraft missile firing operations.

DIE GEALLIEERDE BESTETTING VAN MADAGASKAR IN 1942 (DEEL 2): DIE KONSOLIDASIETYDPERK, MEI - AUGUSTUS 1942

The British occupation of the Diego Suarez area in Madagascar did not lead to the capitulation of the whole of the Island which had been hoped for. It was found necessary, therefore, to plan operations against the harbours Majunga and Tamatave with the object of advancing from there on the capital Tananarive. Japanese defeats in the Pacific, however, had diminished the danger of an Axis amphibious attack on the Island considerably. The need for immediate action against Tamatave and Majunga was thus lessened and attempts were made instead to come to a modusvivendi with the French in Tananarive. No progress in that direction was made during the periodMay to August 1942. While policy matters were being discussed, three flights of light bombers arrived in Madagascarfrom South Africa. These aircraft were withdrawn from the Union coastal defence system forreconnaissance work on the island. It was originally intended to have them relieved by British aircraftafter a few weeks, but as only a few of the latter were available, the South Africans remained for months. Operationally the South African aircraft were under command of Colonel Melville, who received his instructions directly from the British officer in command of the Madagascan operations. Operations were launched the day after the arrival of the first aircraft. Most of the time was spent on routine sea patrols, a task considerably hampered by difficulties encountered with the engines ofthe Beaufort aircraft, which made sea-patrols an unpleasant undertaking. On at least four occasionsSouth African pilots were forced to make crashlandings due to engine failure and one aircraftwas damaged by anti-aircraft fire. No fatalities were suffered in action. The South African Air Force was involved in both highpoints of the period May to August 1942, namely the anti-submarine actions after the torpedoing of the Ramillies and the occupation of the Mayotte-group of the Comoro Islands.

Fly Girls: The WWII Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (review)

Reviewed by: Fly Girls: The WWII Women’s Airforce Service Pilots Wallace Lewis Fly Girls: The WWII Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (1999). Written, Produced, and Directed by Laurel Ladevich Silverlining. Productions for WGBH and the American Experience. www.wgbh.org, 56 minutes. During World War Two, the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) ferried military aircraft around the U.S., trained male pilots, towed targets for anti-aircraft gunnery practice, and flight-tested aircraft. More than a thousand women flew for the WASP, and thirty-eight died while doing so. Yet they had civilian—not military—status, and their contributions and sacrifices were long obscured from public memory. The documentary film Fly Girls, which appeared on PBS television in 1999, lifts some of that obscurity. Woven together with the story of Jacqueline Cochran’s struggle to form and command the WASP are personal experiences related by six of its surviving veterans. Cochran, the one-time beautician who had reinvented herself as a world class racing pilot, was able to establish rapport with General H. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces. Arnold ordered a competing plane ferrying service to merge with Cochran’s group and train at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. Following successful graduation at “Cochran’s Convent,” as the airfield became commonly known (she soon forbade “emergency” landings at the all-woman base by male pilots), the women received their silver wings and were assigned to various Army Air Corps bases. The WASP pilots put in long hours in the air, often not knowing when or where a particular task would end. Once, expecting a one-day trip, Teresa James recounts that she was gone for a month without a change of clothing. Male pilots were often hostile to their female counterparts, and men sometimes would not ground planes that needed maintenance if they knew that women would be flying them. Investigating a series of engine failures and two fatalities at Camp Davis, North Carolina, Jackie Cochran discovered sugar in one fuel tank. But she declined to force an official investigation because she feared it would threaten her program. And there were accidents. One woman burned to death in a crash landing. Cornelia Fort was killed when a male pilot accidentally clipped the wing of her aircraft. Often, antiaircraft fire came dangerously close to—or actually hit—planes in which the women were towing targets, resulting in one fatality. Of the WASP veterans who spoke on camera, Ann Baumgartner perhaps pushed the envelope furthest. She served as a test pilot at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, flying the first U.S. experimental jet fighter—the Bell WP59A—in 1943. Another, Dora Daugherty, learned to fly the B-29 Superfortress bomber and then trained men to operate the aircraft. At the time, the B-29 had a bad reputation for safety among bomber pilots, many of whom feared flying it. On her first training flight in a B-29, Daugherty had taken control of the plane from her instructor, Paul Tibbetts (who would command the Enola Gay and drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima), when she was confronted with the loss of one engine and smoke in the cockpit. She coolly followed procedure to resolve the situation. When it became apparent that women could operate the aircraft with little trouble, the egos of male pilots responded—just as Tibbetts had hoped. Militarizing the WASP became an issue in 1944. Hap Arnold wanted to make it part of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs), but Cochran feared that such a move would ground her pilots and make her subordinate to the WAC commander. She lobbied General Arnold to push for a separate military WASP unit. However, the timing was bad. Many Army pilots faced retraining as combat ground soldiers, since demand for their flying was declining late in the war. Ferrying aircraft gave them a chance to avoid that fate. In addition, public opinion about many of the roles women filled in the war effort was beginning to swing away from admiration to condemnation. By the fall of 1944 it was widely considered to be unpatriotic for a woman to do a man’s job. When, [End...

Field of Spears: The Last Mission of the Jordan Crew (review)

Reviewed by: Field of Spears: The Last Mission of the Jordan Crew Stanley L. Falk Field of Spears: The Last Mission of the Jordan Crew. By Gregory Hadley . Sheffield, U.K.: Paulownia Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9555582-1-4. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Index. Pp. x, 160. £14.95. In the fifteen months of the World War II American strategic bombing offensive against Japan, nearly 150 B-29s were lost to enemy fighters and antiaircraft fire. Many of the eleven-man bomber crews perished with their aircraft, but hundreds of flyers fell into Japanese hands. A great number were killed by enraged civilians seeking revenge for the devastation of the bombings or for the death in overseas combat of soldier relatives. Many others died at the hands of the Japanese army or were brutalized and tortured during painful interrogation sessions. Well over 200 American airmen are estimated to have been killed by their military captors — some, indeed, even after the official Japanese surrender. Only 362 survivors returned home safely from captivity. Field of Spears is the dramatic story of one B-29 crew shot down over Japan. Captain Gordon Jordan's plane was one of five bombers dropping mines on the harbor entrance to the northwest Honshu port of Niigata on the night of 19-20 July 1945. As Jordan turned the plane to leave the area, his navigator made the fatal mistake of choosing a route directly over the center of the city. Before long, Japanese anti-aircraft fire crippled the aircraft. All of the crew except the copilot were able to bail out and reach the ground safely, but three of the flyers were killed by excited, screaming, angry mobs; Japanese soldiers captured the remaining seven. Tied up and blindfolded, the Americans were held locally, roughly interrogated by kempei-tai officers, and then sent on to Tokyo for further, more brutal kempei-tai questioning. When Japan surrendered on 15 August, the seven were shifted to a nearby prisoner-of-war camp from which they were finally liberated by American forces at the end of the month. All of the men had somehow survived their brief but bitter captivity. Gregory Hadley, a Professor of English and American Cultural Studies at Niigata University, narrates these harrowing events with skill and perception. [End Page 279] He carefully describes the personal background of the flyers, their training and previous experience, and their individual actions on their final flight. Several photographs taken immediately after their capture lend dramatic emphasis. Hadley also examines wartime life in Niigata and the personalities, behavior, and motives of key local Japanese civilians. His research is extensive: his chapter endnotes include archival and published materials, interviews and correspondence with the American survivors and several of the Japanese, and a number of written Japanese accounts. Some of the Japanese with whom he spoke refused to allow their names to be used, or would not answer questions at all, but Hadley nevertheless elicited an impressive amount of information from these hitherto untapped sources. In the end, Field of Spears emerges as a well written, balanced, and, indeed, very sensitive account, a model case study of a B-29 mission over Japan. Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History

Name of the Game

Will's best friend at Korat Air Base is a guy named Gordon Rogoff. The other guys call him Rog sometimes?like rogue?but usually it's just Rogoff. Will isn't sure why he likes Rogoff. The guy couldn't be more different from himself. Rogoff has a college degree, for starters. Not only that, but he majored in classics, slogging through both Greek and Latin, before he chucked it and joined the Air Force. Best move I ever made, he tells them, stopping to swig from his beer. Will, whose hooch is across from Rog's, knows the guy has a stack of Latin and Greek books on the table by his bed. They're paperbacks, but still. Not many guys drag books halfway around the world just to see them bloom with mildew in the Thai jungle. Rogoff is probably the only guy in the war who can recite dirty poetry in Latin and recount attempt on Rome. Hannibal's problem was not unlike ours, he tells them. He took stock of the enemy just fine. But he failed to factor in the god damned weather. Will arrived at Korat in July, 1967. In August, Washington declared Hanoi no longer off limits for bombing runs. Now they fly almost daily into the most heavily defended airspace in the world. Weather stops their bombing runs more often than anti-aircraft fire. But weather they're used to. What's new is flying through a sky so full of flak there isn't time to think. You dive in, drop your load, and head for the hills. One pass, haul ass, Will's wing commander told him his first time into Hanoi. That's the name of the game. On average they lose about one guy a week. When you step out over Hanoi, you take a deep breath and hope for the best. Nobody's coming in after you. There's a saying around the base for rescue operations in Route Pack Six. Ain't no way.

A Salute to the Nurses of World War II

The nation recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of World War II (WWII) with a renewed interest in Pearl Harbor and D-Day (ie, the day the Allies invaded Europe.) One group of war heroes--all volunteers--received little attention, although they endured bombings, torpedoes, antiaircraft fire, prison, starvation, and death. They were the nurses of WWII. They served all over the world and left a legacy that today's perioperative nurses are committed to preserving. This article was written to honor the nurses of WWII. It relates only a few stories of thousands that could be told.

The Sounds of Rescue, The Signs of Hope by Robert Flynn

260 Western American Literature The Sounds of Rescue, The Signs of Hope. By Robert Flynn. Introduction by Robert Flynn, Afterword by Fred Erisman. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1989. 277 pages, $11.95.) Fred Erisman’s masterful Afterword in this re-issue of Robert Flynn’s 1970 novel serves as a clear and compelling introduction to an important writer, and the author’s own Foreword provides a lucid explanation (con­ firmed by Erisman) of the theme of The Sounds of Rescue, The Signs ofHope. Gregory Wallace, Flynn’s protagonist, “is a non-heroic everyman who finds that the world he lives in isnot the world he was trained for....” Wallace is a World War II fighter pilot in the Pacific. Shot down by anti-aircraft fire, he struggles toward an island only to find himself in danger of being drowned by the life jacket and parachute his civilization has provided for his survival. Drifting into unconsciousness, he is rescued by Flynn’s version of Friday, the non-English speaking “savage” Wallace’s cultural training has taught him to fear and to conquer. Together, with W'allace giving the orders byexample and by hand signals, they search desperately for food that provides subsistence only, build shelters that eventually fail, and construct bonfires to signal rescue planes that never come. Of deeper and more extensive relevance, however, is the personal history of Gregory Wallace. When survival efforts permit, he remembers and reflects on his life in America, reaching a bleak conclusion. What he has been taught as a child and youth is simply a lie, a propagandistic illusion that has not prepared him for life as a civilian anymore than military training has prepared him for survival on a primitive island. Flynn’s novel thus becomes a critique of American civilization. Appropriately, the style varies with the narrator’s physical and mental condition, a device the author handles with consummate skill. The characters —Wallace himself, those who do not appear on stage, even the voiceless “sav­ age”—are drawn with clarity and force. Some readers will have a problem with the protagonist. Wallace does better under stress than most of us would (until the end), and he is billed modestly as a “non-heroic everyman.” Nonetheless, Flynn’s doomed pilot is petty, selfish, and chauvinistic. His major characteristic isan amazing ability to rationalize his faults and shift the blame to others. Are Wallace’s complaints an accurate indictment of his culture, an ironic indictment of himself, or is Flynn dramatizing an act of collusion between the individual victim and the victimizing nation? Without wanting to fly off into a conundrum that stretches from Medea, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and Paradise Lost to Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas and almost any Nelson Algren protagonist, I mention the question because it strikes me as relevant to the novel at hand and to many other good novels— Milk of Wolves and The Big Sky, for example—associated with the American West. Writers may disturb and challenge our prejudices and our stingy capaci­ Reviews 261 ties for empathy, thereby raising some fascinating questions about the self and about the limits of literature’s fundamental appeal to an ever-broadening perspective. However wfe judge its version of “everyman” and even if date-rape, murder, and misogyny subtract the last straw from our bundle of sympathy, The Sounds of Rescue isin my judgment a provocative and first-rate novel. MAX WESTBROOK The University of Texas at Austin Bulow Hammock: Mind in aForest. ByDavid Rains Wallace. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988. 170 pages, $17.95.) There isa growing body of contemporary American writing that is appro­ priately referred to as the Literature of Place, and David Rains Wallace is one of its mostskillfulpractitioners. Perhaps the greatestchallenge facing thewriter who focuses on a particular place in the world is how, in rendering sufficient detail, to avoid mere parochialism. Wallace is a master in this regard. In The Klamath Knot, he integrated accurate observationsof nature with livelymedi­ tations on evolution and epistemology—all without ever lapsing into dullness or stuffiness. In his latest book, Wallace again offers that blend of natural history and meditation that we have come to expect from...