Robert Coram (1)

I wonder if boys and young men still read GOD IS MY CO-PILOT and dream of becoming pilots. Several generations of youngsters did. I was one of them. Robert Lee Scott Jr.'s wartime book about flying P-40s against the Japanese with the famed Flying Tigers was possibly the most popular and famous war memoir published during the conflict, and its popularity was such that it remains in print 75 years later. As a boy, I read and re-read it until the binding cracked, and 55 years later I still remember passages from it. I have a copy today, signed by General Scott. As a result of his exploits and his book which told and augmented them, Scott became possibly the most famous American fighter pilot of all time. He also became famed for the sometimes fabulistic nature of his stories, stories which grew in drama and color with each telling. While no one denied Scott's bravery and very real contributions both to the fight against Japan and to the prestige of the U.S. Army Air Forces, some of his fellow flyers found cause to question some of the accomplishments he described for himself, and some found fault in how he made himself the face of the Flying Tigers without ever actually having been one. The legend of Robert L. Scott Jr. looms large even now, and it was with very real interest that I read this biography of the man by Robert Coram. Coram writes well and exhaustively after deep and thorough research, and the picture he paints is of a great warrior with all-too human fallibilities. Scott was driven to succeed by a desire to please his mother, and his relationship with her transcended all others, even those with his wife and child. His passion to become a flyer and his wild success at doing so are undeniable. Some of the stories he told about those successes are less undeniable. But Scott succeeded in publicizing the little-known corner of World War II known as the China-Burma-India theatre and was wonderfully effective at helping win that portion of the war through both his combat skills and his ability to marshal support from the American public for the great Flying Tiger commander Claire Chennault and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of China. Scott wasn't a good husband or father, and his whoppers grew larger the more he told them. In John Ford's film THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, a famed dictum decrees, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." This fine biography depicts, warts and all, a man who made himself a legend and who, despite the non-legendary facts presented in this book, is likely to remain one.… (more)