The Warbirds (56 page)

“What Tom Clancy did for the Navy with
The Hunt for Red October
, Richard Herman, Jr., has done for the Air Force with
The Warbirds
. But Herman has done it better.
It is doubtful that anyone has ever written more vividly and realistically about the exhilaration of aerial combat…Once you pick this book up, you won’t put it down until you’ve finished.”

Richmond News Leader

“From the first scramble to the last victory roll,
The Warbirds
soars into the wild blue yonder…A gripping story which could be the basis for tomorrow’s headlines”

Pittsburgh Press

“A military thriller that stands out from the pack…Unusually well written…Truly hair-raising…Thoroughly believable”

Kirkus Reviews

“One of the most honest novels of the Air Force in a very long time…A tip of the wings to Richard Herman”

W.E.B. Griffin, author of
The Brotherhood of War

“The Warbirds
is hot! Outstanding action…Makes it easy for the armchair pilot to put on a Nomex flying suit and put bombs on target. Excellent and completely authentic”

Lt. Col. Dave “Bull” Barker, USAF F-15 fighter pilot and former POW

“There’s no slowing down, the dialogue never lags or wavers and the novel’s men and women come across as real people facing true-to-life problems…Herman writes a good one!”

Chattanooga News Free Press

“Richly detailed…Jolting, mesmerizing”

South Bend Tribune

“[A] slam-bang action novel…Chillingly real…Breathtaking”

Wichita Times Record News

“Thrilling…Harrowing…Exciting”

San Diego Union

“A terrific adventure with some of the best dogfight scenes I’ve ever read”

Dale Brown, author of
Silver Tower and Flight of the Old Dog

“One heck of a ride…A convincing, fascinating edge-of-the-seat look at modern air combat…A book that you just can’t bail out of until the final page”

Flint Sunday Journal

“High excitement”

Orlando Sentinel

“Rendered with chilling realism…Honest as well as accurate”

Sacramento Union

“Puts the reader on an emotional roller-coaster…Herman’s characters are richly and vividly drawn…Superb…Gripping…Will keep you reading long into the night and wishing there were more”

Richmond Times-Dispatch

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.

I would like to extend my thanks and gratitude to George Wieser and Donald I. Fine who saw something in a very rough manuscript and decided to take a chance; and to George Coleman and Rick Horgan who taught me how to tell a better story.

THE WARBIRDS
. Copyright © 1989 by Richard Herman, Jr., Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-45380

First Avon Books Printing: February 1990

EPub Edition © September 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-195612-6

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