Queens Die Proudly

It puts you there, in the South Pacific with all that went on with the men in the B-17 flying crews. Great history I knew little of.

This book was a great account of what our Army Air Crew experienced in the South Pacific at the start of WWII. This book was published in 1943 and is written in a conversation style that is different than many accounts you would typically read. I think this is a great book to have in your library if you can acquire it.

This book, and its predecessor “They Were Expendable,” also by W. L. White, is a window on American hopes and fears in the first half of World War II in the Pacific. While the outlines of what was happening in 1942 is accurate, particularly with regard to the geography of a battle in which an outnumbered and under-equipped American military was fighting, the author takes many liberties with regard to what brave airmen were able to accomplish in the circumstances. In that sense, reading “Queens Die Proudly” is the equivalent of watching the black and white war movies being churned out by Hollywood at the same time, designed to help the public appreciate the long odds against our forces in the Pacific in the early part of the war and to spur pride, sacrifice, and war production on the home front. Author White’s tale of a B-17 pilot, his plane, and the other bombers — most of which were destroyed in the Japanese surprise attack on the Philippines — doesn’t gloss over the high casualty rate among American servicemen. We are left to speculate about the fate of the number of US military who had to be abandoned as the few serviceable planes were flown to Australia in order to fight again. Planes get shot down or don’t return and their crews are lost. All this brought home to the American public at the time the sacrifices being made as the Japanese launched their surprise attacks. On the home front many were working 70 and 80 hours a week in defense plants to supply the unprecedented air, sea, and land armada that pushed the Japanese back to their home islands and eventually led to Japan’s defeat. Many defense workers, and kids collecting aluminum and rubber in surplus drives, were motivated by helping “our boys” out in the Pacific. But, as with those vintage Hollywood movies, the exploits of those flying the few airworthy planes that survived Japan’s initial attacks never achieved the lopsided victories described. And, although these veterans have sadly all passed, they would find some of the claims ridiculous. In the combat operations described, B-17s fly in twos and threes, not the mutually protective armadas in the European theater later in the war. Yet, attacked by five “Zeros” (Japanese fighter planes), in White’s account a single B-17 shoots down four with its defensive guns and scares away a fifth. Would it have been so easy. Repeatedly, lone or small groups of B-17s sink Japanese shipping including cruisers from an altitude of 28,000 feet. Again, this simply didn’t happen. The Japanese surprise attacks certainly revealed perfidy. But in White’s telling, there are some ridiculous claims probably picked up by the scuttlebutt or imaginary tales of the time. The Japanese would fly their planes dressed as natives so if they had to bail out over a Pacific island they could blend in with the crowd of natives (as if all non-Caucasians were the same). They painted their planes with American markings. They lacked the courage to press attacks even when they had a numerical advantage. By 1943, when the book came out, Americans were in an early stage of turning the tide of the war. The US Navy had prevailed over Japanese naval forces at Midway and in the Battle of the Coral Sea. US Marines and army had just captured Guadalcanal. The book’s theme was right for the time: We will win, but we have a very tough war still ahead of us. We have the brave men. We need to equip our brave servicemen in the Pacific to do the job. Read this book not for detailed factual accuracy but to take your mind back to what it was like on the American home front as the country was just emerging from the embarrassment of Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, and the defeat in the Philippines. Take heart in the bravery and competence of our men fighting in the Pacific. Get them the equipment they need. In that sense, this book is an interesting window on the times. Footnote: Reference is made to a Texas Congressman named Lyndon B. Johnson, a commissioned officer, who in the book is in a B-17 as it runs out of fuel and is forced to land in Outback Australia. In White’s telling, Johnson takes the opportunity to glad-hand the rural Aussies and ask them about the price of wool, as though he is campaigning in the Hill Country of Texas! This tale sounds true. Very controversially, Johnson was awarded a Silver Star for being a passenger in a plane that took Japanese fire. No medals for the pilot or the crew of that plane! W.L. White was the son of a famous newspaper editor, William Allen White, and his earlier book, “They Were Expendable”, was a blockbuster about PT boats operating out of the Philippines, including the boat that spirited Douglas MacArthur to safety. That book may have inspired young John F. Kennedy to volunteer to be a PT boat skipper (PT 109).

Great book with perspective of the timeframe it is written in. Lot of facts, current historical document of the times they lived in. Enjoyable reading, a good book for aviation and/or model builders. Highly recommended.

A great account about the early Pacific war and how our airmen still got the job done with shortages of food, planes, parts, fuel, ammunition, etc.

I have not read this yet but will on an upcoming trip. My uncle lived through this era and is mentioned in the book.

This is one of the best books ever published on the history of the 5th Air Force in the early days of WWII in the Pacific. An absolute MUST READ for any historian . . .

"Queens Die Proudly," Excellent account of the very early months of WWII in the South Pacific (B-17 aircraft.) and the brave men who piloted and manned them. Mike in Alamo.

It is the story of a Flying Fortress from the time of the fall of the Philippines through to the fall of Java in 1942. The author, W L White, isn't the pilot of the Flying Fortress. W L White is recounting the story of a Flying Fortress that the crew had named "The Swoose" and the accompanying Flying Fortresses (the Queens that Die Proudly) that helped defend the Dutch East Indies from the Japanese onslaught as told to him by the pilot, Frank Kurtz. It is a relatively unusual war memoir (if I can call it that) by an English speaking (United States) pilot in that it is pro-Dutch. All, bar one other war memoir that I have read, have been less than wholeheartedly pro-Dutch, in some instances to put it mildly. I found it to be well written and an easy read.