Authors

ABOUT THE CO-AUTHORS

Michael H. Levy

Author Mike Levy

Mike was born in the Bronx, New York. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the City College of New York and New York University. In graduate school, he specialized in American history and East Asian history. For 29 years, Mike was a historian with the United States Air Force. Before retiring from the federal government, he worked for four years as a writer/editor with the Bureau of Land Management. The wilderness experience has been very important to him. For 13 years, Mike and his friends spent three to four weeks each summer canoeing Canada’s wild rivers. It was on these expeditions to northern Ontario and Quebec and the arctic and subarctic regions of the Northwest Territories that he became serious about sharing the beauty and wonder of nature with others. From 1984 to 2004, he did nature photography professionally. Mike began working part time for International Historical Research Associates in October 2005 as a co-author on Rampage of the Roarin’ 20′s. He is currently working on Harvest of the Grim Reapers. Mike now lives in Broomfield, Colorado, and he spends much of his free time hiking in the Colorado wilderness.

Osamu “Sam” Tagaya

Author Sam Tagaya

Osamu Tagaya, known as “Sam” to his friends, was born in Japan in 1950, the son of a former technical officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He has had a life-long interest in military aviation, and he brings a unique bilingual perspective to his research and writing, having been educated in Japan, Canada and the U.S. After graduating with a law degree from Cornell University, Sam worked for a major U.S. investment bank for many years in Japan, the U.S. and U.K. He now lives in San Francisco, California and runs a private equity investment firm while continuing to pursue his historical aviation interests, which includes contributing much of the Japanese material to the Eagles Over the Pacific series.

Michael J. Claringbould

Author Mike Claringbould with his wife Greta

Born in Africa during the colonial era, Michael is an Australian who has been interested in the history of the U.S. Fifth Air Force during World War II ever since he discovered airplane wrecks in New Guinea as a boy. This evolved into an obsession with World War II Pacific aviation in general which led to him to find, and then help salvage, the 312th Bomb Group A-20G THE HELL’N PELICAN in 1976 and 1984, respectively. He has a pilot’s license and his hobbies include aircraft restoration. Although he works full-time as a researcher for the Australian Government, his passion for aviation history has led him to accepting the position of Assistant Editor for the Flightpath magazine, Australia, for which he writes at least one article each month on World War II aviation history in the South and Southwest Pacific. In his other job, Michael has completed diplomatic postings to the Australian embassies in Thailand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, with shorter assignments to Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands. Both the Pacific war and, most especially, Fifth Air Force still loom large in Michael’s life.