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MWSA Review
One Hundred Stingers: A Novel of the Air War over the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Peter Adams Young is a well told story for both sides of a portion of the Vietnam War: American Navy fliers and North Vietnamese battery operators on the ground in neutral Laos. In spite of all the detail and all the dialogue, the story moves along nicely. The characters are fully defined with lots of back stories on both Vietnamese and American characters. The reader gets the full effect of being on an aircraft carrier with all of its discomforts, the carefulness of the fliers in the air, the struggles of being in the batteries with poorly trained gunners, and the pressures on their superiors at various levels. Both sides were well aware of their respective goals: get supplies to the south from North Vietnam; stop the flow of enemy combatants and war materials on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The book shows the many levels of support in the air for the American fliers from spotters, to intelligence, to overhead directions to keep the fliers safe from ground fire and from friendly fire shooting by various Navy and Marine fliers. The fleet of support on deck is also well described. There is lots of action, and the action is often described from multiple points of view. One also senses the repetitiveness of flights that could be deadly if not for the professionalism of air and ground personnel. The Epilogue mainly follows navigator/bombadier Davis but also circles back to his Laos years. Well worth reading.
Review by Nancy Kauffman (July 2021)
Author's Synopsis
Throughout most of the Vietnam War, American airmen waged a clandestine war in the flak-filled skies of neutral Laos.
This debut novel by Peter Adams Young, former US Navy A-6A Intruder bombardier, discloses untold stories of heroism and sacrifice as American air power sought to cut off the flow of enemy combatants and materiel headed for the battlefields of South Vietnam via the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.
ISBN/ASIN: B094T5SLT1, B0952HDK46
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle, ePub/iBook
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 827