This complete biography of a most colourful and uncommon young man is based not only on his memoir, but on Tinker family papers and his own personal records. Through sheer perseverance, he rose from a teenage enlisted seaman, through the U.S. Naval Academy, to the officer’s wardroom and then pressed on to claim the wings of a naval aviator and become a superlative fighter pilot and a published author. More unusual still, he possessed extraordinary people skills that allowed him to deal and move with relative ease among Navy compatriots, foreign combat pilots, left-wing literati in Madrid and Paris, and the rural folk of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, who embraced him as “one of their own.”

The book also focuses on the aerial tactics introduced in the Spanish Civil War that became standard military practice a few years later in World War II. Included are descriptions of the German introduction of the“Finger Four” fighter formation that replaced the “V of three or four” formation then in vogue; the first use of military airlift to move large numbers of troops and equipment into combat; the greater accuracy and destructiveness of dive bombers versus high altitude bombers; perfection of the “silent approach” used by high altitude bombers before the introduction of radar early warning; and air intelligence reports that asserted daylight high altitude bombers could not “get through” and return from enemy territory successfully without the protection of fighter cover.

About the Author
Richard K. Smith received his undergraduate degrees from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He died before completing the manuscript of Five Down, No Glory, which was completed by R. Cargill Hall.