Book Review: Red Randall on Active Duty by R. Sidney Bowen
Red Randall and his buddy Jimmy Joyce have completed their flight training and been assigned to a base in Darwin, Australia. They’re looking forward to getting some revenge against the Japanese for Pearl Harbor, but there’s not much excitement at the moment. Until suddenly there is!
The young pilots distinguish themselves in the combat, and are picked for a special secret mission. It seems Douglas MacArthur needs new planes and pilots to hold the Phillippines against the Japanese invaders. Surprisingly, our heroes botch their mission and are captured by the Imperial forces. Can they free themselves in time to save the day?
This 1944 boys’ adventure book is the middle of a trilogy, between Red Randall at Pearl Harbor and Red Randall Over Tokyo. (The latter apparently inserting Red into the Doolittle Raid.) Red and Jimmy’s fathers were in the Army and Navy respectively, and were gravely wounded or killed in the December 7, 1941 attack.
To be honest, this book is bottom-grade, poorly researched (the Japanese use the wrong weapons, and our heroes take off from an aircraft carrier without being trained at all in how to do so) and dripping with racism against the Japanese. It’s not exactly spotless in other areas either; the heroic Solomon Islanders Red and Jimmy get rescued by are referred to as “the whitest black men.” It is hilarious though when Red spends a couple of pages talking in “I am speaking to a congenital idiot” lingo, only to have John Smith respond with better English than Red normally speaks.
The timing is weird too, suggesting that Red and Jimmy went through basic training, flight school and transport to Australia between 12/7/41 and 2/28/42 in order to participate in MacArthur’s retreat from the Phillippines.
No romance here; the closest the story comes to a woman is the mention of “nurses” who might be male nurses for all we can tell. The middle section of the book takes place on a Japanese-controlled island, and our heroes spend much of it flat on their faces while John Smith and company plan a rescue.
I really can’t recommend this one for young readers due to the racism and poor writing–it’s mostly interesting for collectors of WWII memorabilia.
I think my uncle would like this book. I will recommend it to him.
That could well be! Thanks for stopping by!