In My Sights: The Memoir of a P-40 Ace

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring Story
Review: I have a unique circumstance in writing this review in that I was priviledged to meet the author a few days after reading the book. Colonel Morehead was being inducted into the Hall of Fame for the American Airpower Heritage Museum for which I am a volunteer. I was asked to be his attache during his visit. After learning of his book, having been released just a few short months before, I purchased a copy on Amazon and read it in preparation for his visit.

Col. Morehead was born and raised in rural Oklahoma during the height of the Great Depression and knew at a very young age that an education was the avenue to climbing out of destitution. His desire and tenacity to improve his life is the story within the story. He even joined air corp flight training to qualify for more scholarship money. As a result, he was highly trained as the war began and was stationed in Australia when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

When duty called, he accepted it with the same vehemence of gaining an education. Truly an inspiring read for anyone wishing to improve their lot in life. I also recommend this to any student thinking that life is too hard, or that earning an education is not expected of them.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in history; especially the WWII era as well as the Great Depression. I ranked this book a four star vs. a five as the publisher, for reasons I do not understand, cut several areas that would have added to the content. I know this as I was given a copy of the original manuscript to read. I made several remarks to Col. Morehead during our visit that prompted him to give me a copy of the original. Hope that you enjoy it.

Sincerely,
Blake Cowart

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring Story
Review: I have a unique circumstance in writing this review in that I was priviledged to meet the author a few days after reading the book. Colonel Morehead was being inducted into the Hall of Fame for the American Airpower Heritage Museum for which I am a volunteer. I was asked to be his attache during his visit. After learning of his book, having been released just a few short months before, I purchased a copy on Amazon and read it in preparation for his visit.

Col. Morehead was born and raised in rural Oklahoma during the height of the Great Depression and knew at a very young age that an education was the avenue to climbing out of destitution. His desire and tenacity to improve his life is the story within the story. He even joined air corp flight training to qualify for more scholarship money. As a result, he was highly trained as the war began and was stationed in Australia when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

When duty called, he accepted it with the same vehemence of gaining an education. Truly an inspiring read for anyone wishing to improve their lot in life. I also recommend this to any student thinking that life is too hard, or that earning an education is not expected of them.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in history; especially the WWII era as well as the Great Depression. I ranked this book a four star vs. a five as the publisher, for reasons I do not understand, cut several areas that would have added to the content. I know this as I was given a copy of the original manuscript to read. I made several remarks to Col. Morehead during our visit that prompted him to give me a copy of the original. Hope that you enjoy it.

Sincerely,
Blake Cowart

Rating:
Summary: Very well done..
Review: I was most interested in reading about the air combat experiences and they certainly are spell-binding. However, I became engrossed in just the historical content of the book as well. I felt like I was living during the war years. A very good book.

Rating:
Summary: A few Hours With Colonel Morehead
Review: It was a rare and cherished opportunity. During the course of Eric Anderson's reunion in Big Sky, Montana as a number of members gathered in the hospitality suite, I found myself sitting beside Colonel Morehead. He was striking in his dress white uniform and warm in his conversation. He started talking about his childhood in Oklahoma, the dust bowl Oklahoma during the Great Depression. His spellbinding telling of those days and times so took over my consciousness that the rest of the room ceased to exist.

In My Sights starts in those Okie years and lays the foundation for the war years to follow. The skills learned, hardships endured, and tenacity gained all pay later dividends for Colonel Morehead.

Jim introduces us to his flight cadet time wherein some humor is found. He describes various assignments and one where he is forced to parachute to safety. This captivating book takes us to the South Pacific and lets us fly along in P-40s facing the Japanese Zeros. Challenged by vast distances, inexperienced pilots, and an enemy with superior equipment, Jim, with keen insight, discloses how he and his fellow pilots managed to survive.

After duty in the Pacific culminating with two Distinguished Service Crosses, Colonel Morehead volunteered for duty against the Luftwaffe. He describes the duty in Europe and contrasts it to the desperation he felt in the dark days of 1942 in the South Pacific.

In February 1944, through a succession of transfers, Jim ended up in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. He had acquired the rank of major and was ready for a command. Circumstances created by inept leadership at a higher level caused him to have to share a command and expose himself by flying in the least favored position. Read how he hangs on and eventually prevails against bad policy, bad training, and poor execution. Flying over the Ploesti oil fields on D-Day contributed immensely to his feeling of satisfaction.

This is a book worth reading; it is a story worth telling, told by a natural story teller. A pleasure to read. ~ M. G. Worley

Rating:
Summary: A great account of a grim period of the Pacific War.
Review: James Morehead's autobiography of his World War II experiences is a very good addition to the genre. Anyone with a general interest in the subject will like the book, but those with a deeper background in Pacific War literature will appreciate it even more. It should be noted that Morehead had a very unusual perspective on events. He was one of the first US fighter pilots to arrive in the Pacific theater and consequently, along with a handful of other young men, was given the dubious honor of facing the Japanese juggernaut when it was at high tide. The book has a hard edge to it as befits a very hard period of the war for the US. For my money, Morehead's discussion of the strange but bloody war in Java and the early battles over Darwin when the Allies were usually on the short end of the stick is worth the price of admission. He describes the fragile nature of morale when defeat has shaken the very young men fighting a seemingly invincible foe. His descriptions of aerial combat are vivid. Although his tour in the Pacific ended as his men were slowly stabilizing the situation, Morehead attacks the technical inferiority of early war equipment and US preparations for war in general. There is a hard edge to the narrative that is most appropriate to an account of the period that Morehead flew over the Pacific. As counterpoint, Morehead later in the war flew a tour in the Mediterranean. Piloting a fine P-38 with well trained comrades, the physical and psychological balance had turned on it's head - the US was winning and its pilots knew it. This experience only made Morehead's early tour seem more wasteful of brave but ill-prepared young pilots. As well as a fine memoir, In My Sights is a sobering reminder to what can happen if a nation gets involved in a military campaign without proper preparations and underestimating a dangerous enemy. I certainly recommend this account.

Rating:
Summary: P-40's to Start with!
Review: This book is not written like a history of what happened, it is written with the feelings and thoughts of the man that flew the plane. He doesn't say that they were heros, just that they could do a better job later in the war because they had more experience. You can see him flying the plane from the descriptions in the book. It was a nice change from just facts of war, it was good to get a pulse of what the men that fought that war felt.