Lieutenant General Edward M. Flanagan Jr., USA (ret.) is the author of Angels at Dawn: The Los Banos Raid; Battle for Panama: Inside Operation Just Cause; The Angels: A History of the 11th Airborne Division, 1943-46; Airborne: A Combat History of American Airborne Forces; and, Lightning: The 101st in the Gulf War.

One reader of Angels at Dawn: The Los Banos Raid said, “This well-written book is a "must-read" for anyone who is interested in U.S. military actions in the Pacific during WWII. Angels at Dawn tells the little-known story of the February 1945 rescue by 11th Airborne Division paratroopers and Filipino guerillas of American civilians and other nationalities who were being held by the Japanese in a prison camp at Los Banos on the Philippine Island of Luzon. This book does a better job than many dealing with the Pacific war in explaining why prisoners of the Japanese were at much risk. In part this was due to the threat of starvation and disease, but also because during the latter stages of the war in 1945, Japanese murders of prisoners increased as Allied troops advanced. Against this backdrop the author, who was a member of the 11th Airborne Division during the 1945 fighting in the Philippines, recounts how General MacArthur called on the "Angels" as the division was nicknamed, to mount a hazardous parachute and ground assault behind enemy lines to rescue the prisoners at Los Banos before starvation or Japanese violence could take their lives. As a former soldier who served in Korea, this book reminded me once again of how important the actions of U.S. military forces were during the 20th Century. We live in a better world because of what they did. Angels at Dawn tells the story of one of those actions, which resulted not so much in the destruction of the enemy, but in the preservation of the lives of American civilians, and other foreign nationals.”

The MOAA said of Airborne: A Combat History of American Airborne Forces, “This is a combat history of American Airborne forces from their birth in 1940 with the test platoon to Airborne operations in Europe and the Far East in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the many commitments of the XVIII Airborne Corps after World War II in Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, and Haiti, among others.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of Lightning: The 101st in the Gulf War, “Flanagan ( The Los Banos Raid ) here reviews the role played by the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He provides a brief history of the unit and explains its unusual structure (the 101st's combat aviation brigade, built around troop-carrying and helicopter gunships, is the main element that sets the unit apart from other infantry divisions). He tracks the 101st's deployment from Fort Campbell, Ky., to a base camp in Saudi Arabia, its confrontation with Arabian heat and sand and its elaborate preparations for battle. On January 17, 1991 the air phase of the war began with an assault by the division's helicopters against Iraqi radar installations. The division then played an important role in the war's ground phase as General Norman Schwarzkopf launched his ``Hail Mary'' flanking movement into Iraq on February 24. Flanagan's account of these actions is well-researched and well-written, but his uncritical, almost adoring appraisal of the 101st and its leadership will seem excessive to readers who believe that the Iraqi army was a pushover. Flanagan is a retired Army lieutenant general.”