Ironclaw

the long version

Just ten days out of land-based training and on the eve of the Persian Gulf War, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sherman Baldwin was assigned to Air Wing Five's EA-6B Prowler squadron - call sign Ironclaw - aboard the U.S.S. Midway. Flying the Prowler attack aircraft, Baldwin, his crew of three flight officers, and the rest of their squadron were responsible for identifying, jamming, and destroying enemy radar. Ironclaw is one of the most compelling accounts yet of life on a carrier at war. For the readers of Flight of the Intruder and Yeager, Baldwin brilliantly captures the excitement and risk faced by naval aviators. He takes the reader from belowdecks in the mission-planning room, where the day's combat assignment is handed out, to the deck of the Midway, where jets are catapulted over the Persian Gulf, and into the cockpit - offering an unprecedented look at what it feels like to control one of the world's most sophisticated - and powerful - military machines.