Fly-Boys, by James Bradley

Fly-Boys written by James Bradley, reveals the truth about nine young American World War II pilots that were shot down over the island of Chichi Jima. Out of the nine pilots one was rescued by a submarine. The other eight were captured by the Japanese, and disappeared. After the war the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. Which had meant that the lives of the eight Fly-Boys were erased. Only the American and Japanese governments knew that the pilots survived the war. In this novel James Bradley reveals the story for the first time. Although, critics might disapprove on all this information making him seem bias, but in reality it is the truth that has just never been discovered.

Many Critics, and readers that have reviewed this novel have different opinions on the style of writing that James Bradley chose. Some raise the question “is Fly-Boys an anti-American book? So far from reading this book I could see why many would think that. It seems as if James Bradley is making a mockery of America. In fact all Bradley is doing here is explaining the truth of our government that he had figured out by intensive research grabbing a plethora of information from untapped government archives containing documents that no one would have ever imagined existed. He is also trying to show how the Japanese got brainwashed into the things they thought, did, and acted upon.

In the first few chapters the words chosen seem as if Bradley is praising Japan by giving a lot of information from the Japanese side of things to show how bad the Americans were, “ While America cheered the fliers as its best and brightest, the Japanese had a very different view.....airmen who dropped napalm on defenseless civilians living in paper houses were the non human devils.” I personally think that Bradley is just stating the truth while others would look at this and ponder why would he say this if he is American wouldn't he want to leave all that out to make us look better. The way the author chose to write this was to show both sides of war and not just taking one side. He does say one thing about Japan which praises them and then contrasts it to America making it seem worse from that side.