Reviews for The wingmen : the unlikely, unusual, unbreakable friendship between John Glenn and Ted Williams
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
They met during the Korean War: the baseball star who would become a legend and the combat pilot who would become an astronaut and U.S. senator. Ted Williams and John Glenn became not just fellow pilots but friends. Lazarus (Hail to the Redskins, 2015) tracks their parallel experiences after the war, when both men achieved fame but also confronted personal and professional upheavals. Though Williams and Glenn rarely saw each other in person, they remained friends until Williams’ death in 2002. That’s what this book is really about—not ambition, not celebrity, but the endurance of friendship. Lazarus draws on original and previously published interviews, declassified documents, and personal papers (including private letters) to tell this touching story. One standout feature is the way he frequently quotes from Williams’ and Glenn’s own writing, putting them in dialogue with one another and allowing them to speak for themselves. This gives readers a sense of intimate familiarity with the men that a recitation of what they did and when they did it could never provide. Quite simply a wonderful book.
Publishers Weekly
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Historian Lazarus (Best of Rivals) provides an affable account of the war-forged friendship between Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams and astronaut-turned-politician John Glenn. As a marine fighter pilot, Williams became acquainted with veteran flying ace Glenn during the Korean War. Cheerful Glenn was initially wary of the quarrelsome, brooding Williams, but the pair developed a tight bond built around a near-death experience: In early 1953, Williams sustained anti-aircraft fire on a mission, and Glenn escorted Williams to safety before he crash-landed the plane. After the war, Glenn served as a test pilot (unexpectedly becoming a bigger celebrity than Williams when he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight over the U.S. in 1957); an astronaut (he was the first American to orbit Earth); and a U.S. senator from Ohio. Williams returned to Major League Baseball after the war, and retired in 1960 to serve as a manager and coach for several major league teams over the next two decades. For the rest of their lives, the pair maintained a strong bond. Before Glenn went back to space in 1998 (becoming the oldest person to do so), he visited Williams at his Florida home for encouragement before the journey, and despite being 80 years old and in fragile health, Williams ventured to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch. Drawing on interviews and archival research, Lazarus narrates his story in an easy and accessible style. It adds up to a touching and highly readable story of male friendship. (Aug.)
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A dual biography of two American heroes who bonded during wartime and remained friends for life. John Glenn (1921-2016) and Ted Williams (1918-2002) led very different lives before they met during their military service in Korea. “Glenn was modest, measured, and above all loyal, loyal to his Pres-byterian faith, his nation, the Democratic Party, his children, and his wife of seventy-three years, Annie,” writes Lazarus. “Ted Williams was a cocky, moody, foulmouthed agnostic, an unwavering Republican who had three ex-wives, multiple mistresses, and three children whom he only saw when it was convenient.” Williams was one of the top stars of Major League Baseball despite having lost three seasons due to his service in World War II. Glenn joined the Navy as an aviator shortly after Pearl Harbor and flew numerous combat missions for the Marine Corps before finding a postwar career as a test pilot. By the time the Korean War broke out, both men were past the usual age for combat. Glenn cajoled—“sniveled,” in aviator slang—his way into a war-zone assignment. Williams, 33, thought he would be exempt from active service. He and Red Sox fans were surprised when the orders came, but after unsuccessful attempts to pull strings, he found himself in Korea. There, he and Glenn ended up in the same squadron, flying a number of missions together. Glenn was a risk taker who earned the nickname “Old Magnet Ass” for his tendency to attract enemy anti-aircraft fire. Williams was a good flyer who survived a number of dangerous incidents, including a no-wheels emergency landing. The two developed immense respect for each other that lasted the rest of their lives. Lazarus gives plenty of detail on their missions and on their daily lives on the air base as well as their separate careers after the war. In addition to biographical material on the two protagonists, the author offers an intriguing look at air combat during the Korean War. A solid historical account of the intersecting careers of two very different American heroes. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
