Warbird Factory: North American Aviation in World War II

The imagery is the real heart of this book and it is used to good effect. The book's narrative is clean and clear and does a very good job establishing the history of North American Aviation's California facilities. I didn't find a great deal 'new" in the book although the discussion of unionization and strike breaking in the early war years was informative and detailed.What was surprising was the book's lack of balance. Key NAA players such as Atwood and Schmeud are given short shrift given the scope of their contributions to the company. And with the end of World War II, the book runs out of steam. The story of the preparation of a modified B25 to serve as Eisenhower's personal transport takes more time to tell than the company's transition to the jet age. Pivotal aircraft such as the B45 are given a few paltry pages. The F100 is given a few words which is more than the XB70 receives.I enjoyed the read. The book is printed on quality paper which shows the imagery to good effect. The story the author tells is a good one. But what was missing was more memorable than what was offered. At the end of the day, the book was not worth the price.

The author, Fredrickson, says: “It is expected that Warbird Factory will help future historians better understand the miracle that was North American Aviation during World War II.” I must disagree. He managed to write an entire chapter about the P-51 Mustang while mentioning Lee Atwood once: “(I) turned to Lee Atwood and suggested that we wash off the mud, replace all the damaged parts and try again”, this regarding the earlier version , the NA-73X after it crashed. Oh yes, he is mentioned on page 147 as well.Not once did he state that it was Lee Atwood who led the design team for the P-51 Mustang, and he brilliantly, and single-handedly, came up with the idea to use the Rolls Royce Merlin V-12 engine, which along with the superior design of the plane, propelled it to become the top fighter plane of WWII and was the cause of the US and Allied victory.My guess, based on how little Atwood is mentioned throughout the book, is that Fredrickson has some kind of grudge against Atwood. What a shame to leave out one of the two principle players in the success of North American Aviation and WWII airplane design in general.Lee Atwood went on to become President and then CEO of North American, leading space-race designs such as the Apollo rocket. He was one of the most brilliant minds in aerospace in the last century and should be recognized as such.

The writing is okay, and the analysis doesn't go too far into depth, but the strengths of this book are that it goes into an area that doesn't see too much content - the design and industrial elements of WWII - and the great pictures. People who would like to learn more about aviation giants like Dutch Kindelberger and have particular interest in the B-25 and P-51 will find this book interesting. I appreciated that it went into depth on the industrial efforts to build Allied warplanes in WWII and had some interesting tidbits like the cheap cost of Mustang production, but I also felt this book could be so much more.

Top shelf book on North American aircraft production during WWII. I highly recommend this book to anyone who have wondered how these aircraft were put together on a production line. Author John Fredrickson does a masterful job in weaving the lives of Dutch Kindelberger and Lee Atwood of NAA to the development and manufacturing of the iconic P-51 Mustang and the B-25 Mitchell. Plus stellar photographs and illustrations of that period. A few other aircraft are covered in this hardcover book, but it mostly deals in making of Mustang and Mitchell aircraft. I give this aviation history book a big thumbs up!

As a North American Aviation fanboy this book showed quite a few of the assembly lines, and the environment around North American during the war years. I especially enjoyed some of the photographs showing the diversity of the workforce that the war forced on the company. The posters, ads and other material that was included has some historical interest. Really enjoyed browsing through this book while reading Jeffrey Ethell's excellent book on the P-38 Lightning.

Interesting, well done book. My only quibble is that I would have like more photos of the production line.Both of my parents worked for North American Aviation at times so I have a sort of family interest. I was inside of a part of one of the buildings along Imperial Highway (used for B25s and later P51s) when Carrol Shelby was making the first Mustang GTs.

This is mostly a history of NAA with emphasis on the WWII period. Nicely printed on good quality paper. The photos are reproduced very well. I have not seen most of them before. Apparently the NAA photo archives survived the company's various changes of ownership and now safely reside with Boeing's archives.

Wonderful book, lavishly illustrated and with more detail than you might expect.However, that makes the photo caption on page 188 even more bizarre. It shows Eisenhower standing before an aircraft. The caption reads "Eisenhower chats with an officer in front of a North American combat plane - likely an A-36 Apache, which was a variant of the P-51 Mustang."The plane is very obviously a Supermarine Spitfire.Beyond that little hiccup, this is a superb book, including stories I had never read before, like the custom B-25 built for Eisenhower.

At first wondered if it would be too much on the business side, but there is also a lot here to interest aircraft buffs as well.

very good book