Into the Teeth of the Tiger Paperback by Don Lopez (Smithsonian Books)

In this book, the author presents part of his biography, giving a brief glimpse into his early years, followed by a more detailed look into his training as a fighter pilot in the USAAF, and then presenting his war service in China from late 1943 until early 1945, when he returned to the US.

Overall, the book is written in an autobiographical and rather understated style, which makes it easy for the reader to follow Don's path becoming an Army Air Force pilot and his operational flying in China. We hear of so many of his pilot colleagues being killed (in combat, training and even simple non-flying accidents) that it makes one wonder how this high casualty rate would be handled in today's world...it is a testimony to the incredible war effort in the US during WWII. The author's little detached writing style may be explained by his advanced age when he wrote this book and the many years that had passed since the events happened, although this does not mean that the book is lacking interesting details. Unfortunately, the book rather abruptly ends with a chapter about his next assignment once back in the US as an aspiring test pilot, which happens to be the first chapter of his other book, Fighter Pilot's Heaven: Flight Testing the Early Jets. In other words, the second half of his memoirs are in another book that you will have to buy to read what happened next! Considering the somewhat short page count of both books, they could have easily been kept together as one volume.

There are some very interesting and rare photographs included in the book, representing a fitting complement to the easy-reading text.

If it would be possible I would rate the book 3.5 stars, considering the informative text and that there is not such a wealth of books dealing with CIB theater of war, as well as the somewhat isolated time period in the author's life included in it. I just wish the author would have compiled a complete autobiography in one volume, but in any case you will find a lot of interesting information in this book.