AN Interesting Account

The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, or better known as the Warthog, is one of those iconic military aircraft. Essentially a flying gattling gun of massive proportions, this machine rains death and destruction upon any target usings it's GAU-8A Avenger gun along with its missiles and bombs. Anyone seeing such an aircraft in action will have no doubt heard the fearsome buzz saw sound as it's massive gun fires. So, when I came across this book written by a pilot of just such a machine recounting his experiences during the first Gulf War of 1991, I was immediately interested.

The book is based off the diary kept by Buck Wyndham. The book begins with Wyndham's squadron based in Cambridge, England and follows his training while introducing us to some of his squadron mates. Further, we meet a love interest of Wyndham's, Sarah. Life is going on swimmingly until the squadron is called up to participate in operation Desert Shield. This involves being relocated to Saudi Arabia and living in a tent. Fortunately, Sarah is there too.

Much of this book details life prior to the outbreak of the actual Gulf War, so isn't packed from start to finish with tales of daring do. Combat missions form a relatively small proportion of this story, so those wanting action all the way may be disappointed. That's not to say this book is boring, not at all. It's a balanced account of what it is like to be a combat pilot with all that entails. That could mean sitting around for hours as well as all the mundane duties required of these men.

AN ongoing theme throughout is Wyndham's interest in Sarah, a woman who appears to be caught between two men competing for her affections.

The combat missions are interesting and paint a vivid picture of what it was like to fly missions in the A-10. Low visibility air to air refuelling and close formation flying in such conditions are every bit as hazardous and difficult as one might imagine with Wyndham's honest account a refreshing perspective for those who believe pilots are fearless.

Narration is good with Jim Seybert's easy to listen to voice. As ever, I have to remark upon the poor proofing at times. The call of "Jink!" by one pilot to another when coming under fire is sometimes "Junk!" A typo that appears several times, making for an odd sounding warning when read by the narrator. Also, there were several typo's involving the word Kevlar, instead being read as Kelvar. Sure, these are minor gripes, but still rather unprofessional by the publisher's to have missed ... several times!

All in all, this is a decent read, if not the best of its kind to be found on Audible.

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Great Stories

Loved the story and the presentation, the swapping of narrators half way through and back again was weird. Buck captures what it feels like to return from war perfectly

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Great account

really enjoyed listening to the accounts and experiences showing its not all action and an invite into the day to day life

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Excellent!

I throughly enjoyed this. Having grown up under the flight path of Bentwaters, it brought back some of my own memories too.

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Could not stop listening!

Wow what a listen, a really interesting story of a warthog in Iraq, I remember seeing these buzzing the tree tops in south east England in the early 1990’s as a boy! and the vivid account portrayed here makes it so much more real!
Really worth a listen!!

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An interesting tale from the Gulf War

Some excellent parts to this but a few slow bits too.

Basically as mostly a transcript of Buck's war diaries it's got a bit of a daily report about it but in some ways this is not so bad a format.

Certainly a good book with some very thought provoking and interesting parts to it and very well narrated by Jim Seybert.

Glad to have listened to it and I really enjoyed it, but was not a perfect 5 star overall for me.

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Just Brilliant

What a fantastic book from start to finish, I just couldn’t stop listening. A must for anybody who likes war/military books.

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1 person found this helpful

Great insight in Warthog ops

If you want to get some insight into what it's like to be in an A-10 squadron, this is a great listen. The author goes into detail what it's like flying missions over Iraq and operating the Warthog. It's very interesting to hear what kind of targets they went after, how they employed different types of weapons and what was going on in the air space above Iraq. You also get a feel for what was like living in "tent city" and being under constant chemical weapons threat.

The narrator makes a couple of mistakes, messing up words like "kevlar" or switching dates. It's a bit weird and should have been caught, but doesn't detract too much.

The only thing I didn't like was the absolutely cringe of the author recanting how he has a crush on a fellow officer who already has a fiance. It culminates in him awkwardly professing his love after the war is over and her confusedly turning him down. It was obvious to her there would never be anything romantic between them and she didn't even lead him on. The whole thing comes across as emo-high-school-drama. Anytime you hear him talk about Sarah, just skip forward a minute or two, it's really not worth your time.

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Excellent

Absolutely loved it. I wish it continued. Did you get out of the LPA? Gonna have to research what you did next. Hog Driver. Love it.

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Puts you right in the driving seat of a fire breathing rocket sled!

“Stumbled” upon this audio book and have thoroughly enjoyed the listen. Having watched A-10’s coming off STANTA training area here in East Anglia at tree top level when I was a kid, the book enlightened me into what the planes did during the Gulf War in early 1991 and to think that I may have actually seen the pilots mentioned in the text was amazing.
Highly recommend this book to all military airplane enthusiasts and any residents of East Anglia during the period that the A-10 was stationed here.

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