Amazing story about George H.W. Bush

The Imus in the Morning Show ^ | James Bradley

[The G Man]

Anyone hear Imus' interview this morning with James Bradley, author of "Flyboys"? Here is a summary of the book I found online:

Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
by James Bradley

Also Available as a Time Warner AudioBook, eBook and Large Print Edition

James Bradley's #1 bestseller Flags of Our Fathers made real the humanity and legacy of war as few books had before. Now, in Flyboys, Bradley returns to World War II and an extraordinary-and totally unknown-true story of courage.

Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. One of those nine was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine. The others were captured by Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jima and held prisoner.

Then they disappeared.

When the war was over, the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. The records of a top-secret military tribunal were sealed, the lives of the eight Flyboys were erased, and the parents, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts they left behind were left to wonder.

Flyboys reveals for the first time ever the extraordinary story of those men. Bradley's quest for the truth took him from dusty attics in American small towns, to untapped government archives containing classified documents, to the heart of Japan, and finally to Chichi Jima itself. What he discovered was a mystery that dated back far before World War II-back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's first confrontation with the western world.

Bradley brings into vivid focus these brave young men who went to war for their country, and through their lives he also tells the larger story of two nations in a hellish war. With no easy moralizing, Bradley presents history in all its savage complexity, including the Japanese warrior mentality that fostered inhuman brutality and the U.S. military strategy that justified attacks on millions of civilians. And, after almost sixty years of mystery, Bradley finally reveals the fate of the eight American Flyboys, all of whom would ultimately face a moment and a decision that few of us can even imagine.

Flyboys is a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor. It is about how we die, and how we live-including the tale of the Flyboy who escaped capture, a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush who would one day become president of the United States. A masterpiece of historical narrative, Flyboys will change forever our understanding of the Pacific war and the very things we fight for.

[The G Man]

An unbelievable story. The book tells the tale of the mission that Bush was on in WWII when he was shot down. As it turns out, the other 8 men on the mission were believed all these years to have been MIA / KIA. It turned out they were taken prisoner by the Japanese on one of the islands next to Iwo Jima as that battle was taking place. They were kept alive for a week or so before the Japanese beheaded them!

The Japanese captors were tried for War Crimes and the records of this incident were sealed as classifed for 50 years. Upon their declassification, Bradley was tipped off to this incident by an attorney who was a staffer at Nuremberg so he checked it out, and out of it comes this book.

It turned out that the Bush and the families of all these men had no idea this had all taken place. They all assumed they never survived the crash, etc.

Had Bush not been pulled from the sea, he would have shared their fate.

[Poohbah]

Bush, IIRC, went into the water--the others must have come down on land.

And the course of history changed. We might have gotten Michael Dukakis in 1988 and (Thank God we didn't) Al Gore in 2000.

Hell, we'd probably be under sharia by now with THAT lineup...

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Had Bush not been pulled from the sea, he would have shared their fate.

Predicted liberal spin: "Elitist, privileged Bush weasels out of death, leaving his friends to die in his plance."

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

plance = place

[Poohbah]

Actually, it's the LaRouche spin already.

[MEG33]

How interesting.The brutality of the Japanese cannot be exagerrated.

[The G Man]

I'm not even doing it justice. It was absolutely fascinating. Bradley did several interviews with Bush and actually broke the news to him. It was gut wrenching to listen to as Bradley recapped how Bush for all these years has lived with the guilt of wondering if he could have done anything different to save these men.

[MudPuppy]

Bump and mark.
gotta get this book to add to my collection!
Semper Fi!

[GraniteStateConservative]

My guess is that Reagan would have chosen Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Donald Rumsfeld, William Simon, Jack Kemp, Richard Lugar, or Paul Laxalt. I think any could have beaten Dukakis given Reagan's 8 years of economic success.

What if history is neat, though.

[MEG33]

Thanks for the heads up about this book.I don't think survivors ever are free of what if and if only.Those thoughts are not dependent on reason.They are just there.

[Semper Paratus]

I heard the part where Lt. Bush was in the water heading to the island and certain death and the japenese were watching and waiting until the sub popped up and rescued him.

George Bush Sr. never ever used this in his campaigns unlike Kerry who is moving his former crew around like on a road tour.

[11th Earl of Mar]

I have a hard time believing that Bush, former head of CIA and President of the United States, would not be given access to this "classified" information.

I wonder if Bush was faking ignorance when he claimed to not know.

[Ole Okie]

The brutality of the Japanese cannot be exagerrated.

To me, this is precisely the element of the Pacific war that present day hand-wringers and moralizers don't understand or would simply rather ignore.

[The G Man]

He would have had no reason to think there WAS classified information out there. He, like everyone else, logically concluded these men just died at the hands of anti aircraft fire or in the resulting crash.

[11th Earl of Mar]

Can you imagine how many background checks GHWB had to go through as CIA Director, VP, POTUS, plus campaign background checks from 1980, 1984, 1988.

There are people who knew there was classified info about Bush, who 50 years ago was a nobody. But in the late `70's, he became somebody.

Some people had to know that there was a classified WWII file about their boss. And who is not going to ask the question up the chain of command, "What are we supposed to do with this?"

[SamKeck]

I recall that back during the 1988 campaign, a man from X41's old Navy squadron popped up and, thanks to help of the Dukakis' campaign staff, was very public and very critical of GHWB because "he hadn't done everything he could have done to save the life of one of the other squadron members" (or statements to that effect) on that particular mission. I wonder what he thinks about those statements today.

[r9etb]

Predicted liberal spin: "Elitist, privileged Bush weasels out of death, leaving his friends to die in his plance."

Heh heh -- IIRC, that's exactly what the spin was, back in the '88 election campaign.

[CMAC51]

>> Some people had to know that there was a classified WWII file about their boss. And who is not going to ask the question up the chain of command, "What are we supposed to do with this?" <<

The documents were not just classified, they were sealed. To view classified documents requires the proper level of security clearance. To view sealed documents requires a court order. People working in the Bush administration would have no reason to suspect anything about the sealed documents because the label would not be descriptive enough to draw attention.

[11th Earl of Mar]

You and the G-man may be right.

I just would be very surprised if GHWB did not know.

[CMClay]

Had Bush not been pulled from the sea, he would have shared their fate.

I thought Bush 41 crashed and skidded off the ship deck due to hydraulic failure, it seems highly unlikey he would be taken prisoner 20 yards from an American aircraft carrier?