Papa Lynch's World War 2 Book

[Greg]

Still processing the fact that of the two reviews for the book on Amazon, one of them is from my mother.

[Drunk Monk]

My mom never reviewed my book on Amazon. She doesn’t even know what Amazon is.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

"IT'S SHIT COMPARED TO STEINBECK THE GOD OF LETTERS!!!! I NEVER SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT HIM TO READ!!!!!"

[Greg]

"IT'S SHIT COMPARED TO STEINBECK THE GOD OF LETTERS!!!! I NEVER SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT HIM TO READ!!!!!"

I see you've read the review.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Just finished it. Very good "slice of life" of a very accomplished and long-lived fighter group. Did your dad still have his German helmet from your grandpa?

[Greg]

Sigh. Lost to the sands of history.

Thank you for reading the book.

[Drunk Monk]

I haz book.

I’m reading something for work this week, then I have another friend’s book that I’ll start on because that book came to me first, then I’ll crack this baeB. Soon come.

[Greg]

Yay!

[thatguy]

Oh no! I looks like I will be having a book conundrum! Don't expect reviews any time soon. I'm a terribly slow reader.

You have a hold available for pickup as of 10/03/2023:

Pickup by: 10/12/2023

Title: The Black Scorpions 

Author: Lynch, General James A.

Copy: 

Location: Bookmobile - North

Monterey County Free Libraries

17822 Moro Road

Salinas CA 93907

Your library does not charge fines for materials returned late, but please return your items at the library branch as soon as possible. Items over 60 days late will be automatically declared lost and your account will be charged replacement, processing, and collection agency fees.

Su biblioteca no cobra multas por materiales devueltos tarde, pero favor de devolver sus materiales a la biblioteca lo antes posible. Materiales con más de 60 días de retraso se declararán perdidos automáticamente y se le cobrarán a su cuenta los cargos de reemplazo, procesamiento y de agencia de cobro.

--tg
PS: The movies might come out before I finish, but I'll do my best...

[Greg]

I'm just excited your library bought the book.

[King Bob]

You've got a bookmobile! That's excellent. I loved it when we were kids. It used to stop on Phar Lap once a week.

[Greg]

Just received another review. This time in The Journal of The Air Force Historical Foundation. The pull quote: "...an excellent review of what fighter-squadron ground-support personnel had to go through to keep our boys flying during the Second World War."

Although the line right before that is: "Not a page turner, but...."

[Drunk Monk]

You are learning the fine art of quote clipping. 

[thatguy]

I read a book! It only took me 2 months (getting harassed by the library is pretty good incentive for me).

Some thoughts:
- I know this was created from log/diary entries, but the deaths - on both sides, must have been horrific and as readers, we only glimpse it.
- I live in what was former Ft. Ord. There are old base building 1/2 mile from here waiting for someone to put in $$$ to renovate them, so they sit boarded up. There are some historic plaques indicating what each building type was and what it was used for. There are 8 warehouses and the plaque says that they housed German POWs here during WW2. Reading the book, I kept thinking about the logistics of having to manage captured soldiers. You have to feed and house them, and if you are on the move constantly, it must be a huge hassle. And the Germans constantly shipping captured airmen to Stalag 13 or whatever seemed crazy…it did put Hogan's Heroes in better context.
- Short format journal entry style was great for my poor reading habits. Very easy to pick up where I left off, or read a few short passages between doing other things.
- I would have liked a glossary. There are some terms that weren’t explained right away and I sometimes wanted an explanation. I can’t remember specific examples, but a table of plane nicknames/models is one.
- I would have like an overall timeline of events and map in the appendix.
- There’s a little bit of redundancy in phrasing or sentiment here and there. As if the author was busy focused on other things (go figure)

I liked the George Dorval’s Survival story in the appendix. Similar context, different cadence to the story telling. A nice compliment to the other material.

If you ever do a second printing, here are some proofreading notes:
P18 - 2nd to last paragraph “some of use wondered why” should be “some of us wondered why”
P66 - bottom photo is really blurry. I would sharpen it
P275 - The Florence phot is captioned “I took the volleyball team to Florence”, but the actual passage describing that event doesn’t appear until P288.
Style comment: I didn’t like that every new chapter starts on the right. With the short form entries, it leaves a lot of blank left pages. I think for this diary-esque book, new chapters should just start on the next page, right, or left, with no blank page in between…

Kudos, Greg, that was a big undertaking!

—tg

[Greg]

Thanks for reading. Thank your library for getting the book.