FROM THE GROUND UP,

by Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain. Scribners, 1943, 197 pages, $2.50.

The New York Times in June carried a brief item: "Again a B-17 came home, beat up and shot up, and the crew said, 'When we stopped rolling, all of us, with shaking knees, just sat on the ground and thanked God.'

They had plenty of reason. For thirty-five minutes they had given battle to sixteen Japanese Zeros, knocking out five for certain and another probably."

A small (AP) dispatch but full of drama; understatement as the crew could tell you. All in a day's work of course, but drama none the less.

Corey Ford and Alastair Macßain after a six months' tour of Army Aviation Training Centers give in From the Ground Up a lucid and comprehensive description of just how a bomber crew is trained. Reading their book will make the above news-item so much clearer. For the Army Air Forces are thorough. They look after their cadets with a magnificently trained personnel, with the finest of training ships, and their method of picking men is almost infallible.

The authors tell just how a flier is made from the time he gets his uniform until he takes off for England in a bomber. This is just the book for a prospective candidate for the air forces, for the parents of such a candidate, and for anyone interested in how we train our airmen who are doing such a swell job in the Aleutians, in the Pacific, and in the European and Mediterranean sectors.

The royalties go to the Army Air Forces Aid Society, Inc.