Mac: The Wind Beneath My Wings by Sherry Hobbs

Mac: The Wind Beneath My Wings is Sherry Hobbs's biography of her father, Colonel Harold "Mac" McNeese, who flew B-24 Liberators and later B-29 Superfortresses in the Pacific during the Second World War before going on to a long career in the Air Force. After his death, Hobbs found his wartime letters and flight log among his papers and photos, and set out to discover more about what he had lived through. The foreword by Jim McCabe, historian of the 307th Bomb Group Association, provides an excellent start, and within the first few chapters it is clear how much love and respect have gone into this work.

The book spans Mac's family history going back a few generations, which gives a solid background to his life and the era he grew up in. It covers the First World War and the Great Depression, and the dust storms on the Southern Plains hit the family hard: Mac's father died young of dust pneumonia, leaving Mac to become the man of the house. Hobbs then moves to the lead-up to the Second World War, including America's early reluctance to build aircraft for attack when its focus had been on defence, and how quickly the new bombers and their navigation systems were developed once war came. She also gives a clear account of how the war with Japan began, including the sanctions and the motivations on both sides that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, before moving into Mac's own service. Throughout, she writes for the lay reader, someone who has read little about these aircraft or the missions they flew.

I have watched Masters of the Air, Band of Brothers and The Pacific, and I have researched the Māori RNZAF pilot Johnny Pohe, one of the Great Escapers, so I came to this book with some knowledge of the war in the air. What genuinely surprised me was how dangerous the aircraft themselves were. Training, mechanical failures, navigation and sheer bad luck all took their toll, and more of these bombers were lost to accidents than to enemy fire, some without ever leaving the ground.

From Masters of the Air, I knew how desperately bomber crews in Europe longed to reach their twenty-fifth mission, so learning that Mac flew more than eighty combat missions during the war is astonishing. His first combat mission, from Guadalcanal, ended with his aircraft shot down into the ocean, and he and his surviving crew spent around three weeks making their way between Japanese-held islands before they were rescued. He then returned to combat. The missions described in the book show his intelligence and steady resolve under immense pressure, yet his letters home dwell far more on life on the ground than on the missions themselves. He seems to have taken it all in his stride.

I also appreciate the balance between the broader history and Mac's personal story. Hobbs often sets out the historical context first and then lets the man's own words follow, which gives the narrative real authenticity, and it is clear that her research has been thorough.

The Pacific Island communities are given proper attention too, and the knowledge and courage of local people are recognised as important in their own right. My one small reservation is the use of the word "natives" for the Pacific Island people. I understand this was the usual term at the time, and Hobbs's respect for these communities is evident throughout, but as a Pacific person myself, I found it a little old-fashioned in a book published today, and "Solomon Islanders" or simply "islanders" would sit more comfortably with modern readers.

Hobbs also covers the Manhattan Project, the science behind the two types of atomic bomb and how the target cities were chosen, along with the invention of napalm and its use in the firebombing of Japan. Incendiary raids continued even after the two atomic bombs were dropped, and Mac flew in this final campaign, learning that the war was over only when he returned from a mission.

Part One covers the war, while Part Two, the final third of the book, shows Mac through his daughter's own eyes, from her childhood onwards. After the intensity of the war years, some of the everyday detail of family life felt a little anticlimactic, and at first I wondered whether the two parts would work together. However, there was still plenty of movement, with life spanning both coasts of the US as well as Vietnam and France. Mac was a lifelong learner, and it is clear that Hobbs inherited this trait. By the last page, I was grateful for Part Two, because it gave me a real sense of who Mac was as a father, husband, academic and military man. He was a phenomenal man who gave time to everything important in his life in equal measure, and Hobbs shows how much of an impact he had on his family. The final pages had me emotional, and I felt every word.

Hobbs writes in a succinct, unadorned style, yet the emotion comes through clearly. I learned a great deal from this book. It gave me a sense of the real gamble of being a pilot, especially at such a young age, in a way no television series could, and it has left me grateful never to have faced anything like it. This is a tremendous tribute that will appeal to many different kinds of readers, and I highly recommend it. A well-deserved five stars.