{"id":265,"date":"2016-09-17T10:29:05","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T15:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forgottensquadron.com\/?p=265"},"modified":"2016-09-17T10:29:05","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T15:29:05","slug":"review-of-double-ace-by-robert-coram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forgottensquadron.com\/?p=265","title":{"rendered":"Review of Double Ace, by Robert Coram"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"51k8pmjd5bl-_sx328_bo1204203200_\"<\/a>In Double Ace, <\/em>Robert Coram does an incredible job spinning a fascinating tale about Brigadier General Robert L. Scott, Jr., one of America\u2019s more controversial heroes of World War II. To his credit, Coram paints the picture of a complicated man whose tall tales stretched (or sometimes completely ignored) the truth. The warmth of Scott\u2019s personality in \u201cbugling\u201d his way through stories contrasts with his selfishness in ignoring his wife and child and his multiple extramarital affairs. Coram went to great lengths to plumb the depths of Scott\u2019s own multiple narratives of his life to find some strand of truth. He even dug to find the original accident reports or other documentary evidence to find an objective touchstone for many of Scott\u2019s stories. I found myself surprised, however, that in a book that seeks to put tall tales to rest, the author perpetuated some some tall tales and stereotypes of his own. For example, he passes on the story of Wendell Willkie and Madame Chiang having an affair \u2013 a rumor now known to have little validity. He also ignores much of the complexity of World War II China and is instead satisfied to paint a simplistic caricature of Chennault, Stilwell, and particularly Chiang. To simply paint the Nationalist regime as one held together by the force of Song Meiling\u2019s personality and to paint Chiang as a corrupt petty-tyrant, is to make the same mistakes that led to American disaster in China in the first place. The problem seems to stem from Coram\u2019s overreliance on anecdotal histories of the theater \u2013 other biographies and autobiographies make up most of his source material for characterizing the war in China. That being said, Double Ace<\/em> is the best CBI-related biography to hit the shelves in some time. In both quality of research and writing, it is clearly superior to the recent When Tigers Ruled the Sky<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Double Ace, Robert Coram does an incredible job spinning a fascinating tale about Brigadier General Robert L. Scott, Jr., one of America\u2019s more controversial heroes of World War II. To his credit, Coram paints the picture of a complicated man whose tall tales stretched (or sometimes completely ignored) the truth. The warmth of Scott\u2019s…<\/p>\n

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