Goodbye to Some

by Gordon Forbes

Book Overview

This novel is a searing psychological examination of U.S. Navy long-distance bomber crews in the waning months of the Pacific war.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 051757456X
• ISBN13: 9780517574560
• Release Date: April 1990
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.

Customer Reviews

In memory of uncle Walter

Uncle Walter was an Army B-24 pilot in the Pacific, shot down and killed over Truk Island in 1944, eight years before I was born. I grew up hearing about him and when I was only around 10 I saw a paperback book with a crashing B-24 on the cover and bought it. It turned out to be one of the best most engaging books I have ever read and I read a lot. I read it so much as a child that to this day I have it memorized in my mind. My old paperback is so delicate that for years I have hesitated to read it and have tried to by a new copy only to hear that it was out of print. To be able to find it just now is like finding an old childhood friend. I can't believe it. This is a wonderful book. Buy it. Here I come again "Ivy'.

A Wonderful Book

Many many years ago as a young man making my way across the US I had a long wait in Kansas City Airport for my flight. I walked down to a small shop in the airport and found this book in a garish cover, looking exactly like the sort of book that one is embarassed to be seen reading. But, having nothing else, I sat down and made a start. And I could not put it down. Over twenty five years later I still have that same battered paperback and like an old friend I take it up to read again every year or so. If you know and love flying and aeroplanes and people who fly this book will speak to you. The night takeoff as an overloaded US Navy B-24 roars down a runway straining to become airborne with the end of that runway and the sea beyond coming closer and closer had the sweat starting to drip down my back. The author must have flying in his blood because no one else could have put me in the cockpit with the principal character, the co-pilot of this aircraft, as this book did. But even if you don't love aviation there is much to enjoy here. It's not pro war nor is it anti war - it's about friends and the sense of 'belonging' that can arise amongst people bound together by difficult circumstances who work together to make the best of what they have in those circumstances. I daren't use the word comradeship, as perhaps too many will think that it urges some right wing agenda - nor do I suggest that it might be about the special relationship that can develop between men in adversity and a pride in overcoming that adversity together as this might suggest the same. But there may be those who understand what I am saying without seeing (or attempting to see) some broader significance. I love this book and I always regret when I reach the end.

from a Short List of Best Books

I keep a short list of my favorite books of the 20th Century. Forbes' is one of the Top Five; not as a best War, or Anti-War, or even air or sea stories, but simply one of the best ever. Forbes writes in a very direct style that is easy to read and just sets out what it must have been like to go through the last year of the Air War in the Pacific, or any war. If you have a conclusion on what it must have been like, well he lets you draw it, and the feelings are always very strong. I read it again every other year and I do not lend out my hard copy. It stays put as part of my short list.

Best Military Fiction In The English Language

This outstanding work is all the more surprising because so few people have ever heard of it. The cynical humour, dry wit, action descriptions and characterisations make it a stand out novel that sets it apart from other navy classics such as 'The Caine Mutiny' and 'The Cruel Sea'.Many reviewers consider this an anti-war, anti US Navy story but I consider it neither. Set in the final year of WWII it is a snapshot of a few months of one pilots military career that draws together the stresses of a lifetime of combat missions. In it you can find just about every character you have ever met in life, in business or in the military and it is this observation and detailing of characters that make the book so intriguing. The descriptions of flying and air combat are clearly drawn from personal experience so the work should be seen as semi-autobiographical, and if this is so, which character does the author play?Goodbye To Some is highly personal it that it is written in the first person and allows the reader to come into intimate contact with the emotions of the main character. The fears, the petty jealousies, the tragedies, the love of some characters and the bitter hatred of others, the Navy system, the war - it's all there - waiting to be soaked up and experienced. Perhaps it is this intimate writing style that makes American reveiwers so nervous - and in some ways it is un-American. There is no gung-ho, flag waving, ticker tape parades; there is just the dull, leaden burden of dozens of combat missions, each one taking the main character closer to his breaking point. And the narrative doesn't actually end, it just stops at a convenient point, without fanfare and without any real drama.To find this novel republished in hardback as a naval classic is a real gift to military buffs worldwide - an absolute must-have for every armchair (and left hand chair) pilots library. As a personal note, I have two copies of this book, the first copy is the paperback edition that have read for thirty years!

This is a classic!

I've read a lot of memoirs and novels of WWII in the air. This is perhaps the most memorable of all I've read. What makes this book exceptional is the narrative voice--intelligent, cynical, funny and compelling. The story moves along nicely and the ending is heartbreaking to the reader though the sense one gets is that the narrator has seen so much that he is just numb to it all. I am so happy to see that this is back in print after years and years. If you are a WWII aviation buff you will enjoy this.