Less than five years after naval aviation led the forces that defeated Imperial Japan that very organization was in serious trouble. The force had been drastically reduced and, despite the Korean War, growing sentiment supported by no less than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs argued that the new Air Force could do anything naval aviation might be required to do. Meanwhile, the naval aviation mishap rate soared. The very survival of naval aviation was at stake. It took fifty years to turn this around. Today, in spite of hot wars, cold wars, contingencies, and peacetime operations in support of friends and allies, the Navy and Marine Corps accident rate is at least as good as that of the Air Force, and it approaches that of commercial aviation. Gear Up, Mishaps Down explains that this accomplishment was achieved through dedicated and professional leadership, a focus on lessons learned from mishaps and near-mishaps, a willingness to learn from other enterprises, and by better leadership, training, maintenance, supply and more.

This book was donated as a part of the David H. Hugel Collection, a collection of the Special Collections & Archives, University of Baltimore.

The early 1890s through the late 1920s saw an explosion in serious long fiction by women in the United States. Considering a wide range of authors--African American, Asian American, white American, and Native American--this book looks at the work of seventeen writers from that period: FrancesEllen Harper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Kate Chopin, Pauline Hopkins, Gertrude Stein, Mary Austin, Sui Sin Far, Willa Cather, Humishuma, Jessie Fauset, Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Anzia Yezierska, Edith Summers Kelley, and Nella Larsen. The discussionfocuses on the differences in their work and the similarities that unite them, particularly their determination to experiment with narrative form as they explored and voiced issues of power for women. Analyzing the historical context that both enabled and limited American women writers at the turnof the century, Ammons provides detailed readings of many texts and offers extensive commentary on the interaction between race and gender. This book joins the deepening discussion of modern women writers' creation of themselves as artists and raises fundamental questions about the shape of Americanliterary history as it has been constructed in the academy.

Oversized and magnificently illustrated, this book by historians and active duty and retired officers will be cherished by aviators and the countless others who have been inspired by the feats of U.S. naval aviation. 500 photos, 300 in color.