Marine Fighter Pilot at the Jugular of the Solomons

Could an unobtrusive, skinny, bookish teacher who loves classical music and poetry become a fighter pilot in one of the bloodiest theaters of war our country has known? Could this modest self-described dreamer become the pilot of a Corsair F4U, the fastest plane built—equipped with six menacing .50-caliber Browning machine guns, a primitive navigation system, and a sixteen-cylinder engine so powerful that it could spin the plane over and crash if accelerated too fast? How far did Wally Thomson, the teacher, travel to become Capt. Wallace B. Thomson, the war hero of his hometown, Hackensack, New Jersey?