Storm Flight

In the bitter year of 1972, deep inside Vietnam, American POWs with special knowledge or skills have been secretly removed from camps, their names hidden from official records. After a daring American raid exposes Soviet complicity, American airmen must try to free their comrades. In this fifth and final novel in the series that began with Rolling Thunder , Lt. Gen. ``Whitey'' Whisenand leads a varied group of men in this mission. Among them are Air Force Lt. Col. Court Bannister, who must leave his beloved fighters and learn to drive a ``bus'' (a B-52 bomber); Special Forces Lt. Col. Wolf Lochert, who designs and carries out a heart-stopping parachute drop; and fighter pilot Capt. Toby Parker. Meanwhile, Major Flak Apple and his buddies bravely manage to send coded messages from Hoa Lo Prison (``Hanoi Hilton''). The mission is further complicated by the anti-war movement, Kissinger/Nixon politicking and the men's emotions as they lose friends in the relentless air war. Genre aficionados will relish the wealth of military detail and the technical explanations; all readers will be rewarded by the ultimate mission, when planes, men and tactics are tested to the spine-tingling limits. Berent, whose 20 years in the Air Force included three tours of Vietnam, has developed a loyal following of military aviation buffs (including many Vietnam aviators) all eager for this conclusion to his saga. (Oct.)