Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
From the New York Times bestselling author, a breathtaking account of combat and survival in one of the most brutally challenging and rarely examined campaigns of World War II
In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army steamrolled through Burma, capturing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies to this critical zone would now have to come from India by air-meaning across the Himalayas, on the most hazardous air route in the world. SKIES OF THUNDER is a story of an epic human endeavor, in which Allied troops faced the monumental challenge of operating from airfields hacked from the jungle, and took on "the Hump," the fearsome mountain barrier that defined the air route.They flew fickle, untested aircraft through monsoons and enemy fire, with inaccurate maps and only primitive navigation technology. The result was a litany of both deadly crashes and astonishing feats of survival. The most chaotic of all the war's arenas, the China-Burma-India theater was further confused by the conflicting political interests of Roosevelt, Churchill and their demanding, nominal ally, Chiang Kai-shek.
Caroline Alexander, who wrote the defining books on Shackleton's Endurance and Bligh's Bounty, is brilliant at probing what it takes to survive extreme circumstances. She has unearthed obscure memoirs and long-ignored records to give us the pilots' and soldiers' eye views of flying and combat, as well as honest portraits of commanders like the celebrated "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell and Claire Lee Chennault. She assesses the real contributions of units like the Flying Tigers, Merrill's Marauders, and the British Chindits, who pioneered new and unconventional forms of warfare. Decisions in this theater exposed the fault-lines between the Allies-America and Britain, Britain and India, and ultimately and most fatefully between America and China, as FDR pressed to help the Chinese nationalists in order to forge a bond with China after the war.
A masterpiece of modern war history.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
The Japanese occupation of eastern China in 1942 cut off foreign support to Chiang Kai-Shek's Chinese nationalist forces. In order to keep China in World War II, U.S. and British planners promised to ferry supplies, weapons, and ammunition to Chinese forces. The British would complete the Ledo Road, a supply route along the border of China and Burma. Americans chose an air route over the Himalayan foothills, a route that came to be known as "the Hump." Journalist Alexander (The Bounty) details the heroic efforts by American and British soldiers and flyers, Indigenous Burmese people, and Chinese people to ferry supplies through inhospitable terrain, monsoons, and dense jungles while fighting Japanese incursions. Alexander weaves together a wide array of primary sources to describe the conditions faced by pilots--freezing temperatures, ice buildup, buffeting winds, and peaks higher than the plane's flight path--to show the challenges troops needed to overcome. However, strategic advances in the eastern Pacific made both routes redundant by 1945, and in the postwar world, Truman did not view securing China as a priority. VERDICT Readers interested in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II and Asian history will enjoy Alexander's detailed and beautifully written account.--Chad E. Statler
Publishers Weekly Review
In this soaring account, bestseller Alexander (The Endurance) spotlights a group of American airmen stationed in Burma who flew the "Hump" over the Himalayas to deliver supplies to Chinese allies during WWII. Franklin Roosevelt was committed to supporting Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army against the Japanese, Alexander writes, though the fickle Chiang proved a difficult ally, with increasingly exorbitant demands and few battlefield accomplishments. (One American general later claimed that when a fed-up Roosevelt asked if Chiang could be replaced, the president's advisers speculated whether the Chinese leader could be "lost" flying over the Hump.) Meanwhile, flying over the world's highest mountain range tested the skills of young pilots and navigators of the Air Transport Command, who were rushed through training. Accidents were near daily occurrences, and escape meant bailing out into one of two deadly landscapes: the snowcapped Himalayas or the Burmese jungle. Despite the job's extreme peril, it was viewed as unglamorous; "on the lowest rung of the military aviation hierarchy," aircrew in Burma, who received little recognition and lived in Spartan conditions, referred to themselves as the FBI--"Forgotten Bastards of India." (However, as Alexander reveals, the lessons learned flying the Hump proved invaluable in 1948 when the ATC was conscripted to work the Berlin Airlift.) A thrilling aviation adventure that also casts an assured historical lens on a lesser-known arena of WWII diplomacy, this is sure to enrapture readers. (May)
Booklist Review
The China-Burma-India Theater of WWII is poorly understood due to sporadic record keeping and a disparate array of Allied command structures. However, the Allies invested massive amounts of manpower and resources in the fight against Imperial Japan and in support of China, including the important "Hump" airlift operation over the treacherous Himalayas. Alexander brings these operations and the personalities of their leaders to life, piecing together the diaries, memoirs, long-forgotten records, and official Army Air Forces' histories to create a captivating narrative of humans and technology triumphing in spite of dangerous terrain and extreme weather. She vividly chronicles the interactions and agendas of Chiang Kai-shek, FDR, General Joseph Stillwell, Claire Chennault of the legendary Flying Tigers, Lord Mountbatten, and many lesser-known figures. Alexander also investigates the impact of war on the Indigenous peoples of Burma, their contributions assisting ground forces (such as the Chindits and Merrill's Marauders), and their invaluable service rescuing downed airmen. Skies of Thunder is a vital history of an important and extremely complicated theater of WWII.
Kirkus Book Review
The deadly skies over the Himalayas form the backdrop of this account of the Allied forces' Burma campaign in World War II. When Japanese troops overran the British colony of Burma in 1942, they cut off the land route between Allied bases in India and the troops of Chiang Kai-shek in China, seen as the West's bulwark against Japanese aggression and insurgent Communist forces. Rearing between them were the Himalayas and their "towering weather systems" characterized by "violent, roiling, sheering masses of air" and "unbroken levels of ice" extending upward for thousands of feet. Nevertheless, supplying the Chinese Nationalist troops was seen as such a priority that U.S. pilots ferried fuel, matériel, and troops back and forth over "the Hump" from 1942 through the end of the war. The route was so dangerous that it became known as "the aluminum trail" for the wreckage that accumulated along it and tempted pilots to fly over known Japanese-held territory in order to skirt it. Alexander, author of The Endurance and The Bounty, packs the text with gripping anecdotes of nail-biting flights that often end with crashes into the Burmese jungle (another object of terror for the airmen). They make for thrilling reading, but they pile on top of one another such that the narrative begins to feel baggy, as if Alexander couldn't decide which would best serve her narrative so simply included them all. In addition to the air-transport efforts, she covers the ground war but not the air-combat campaign. Choosing to use colonial nomenclature to align with the period, largely relying on Western accounts for narrative and background, she too often presents the cultures of Burma and China through the exoticizing lenses. Her frequent, gratuitous use of the slur coolie is a further blemish. Compelling tales of aerial derring-do lift this uneven but entertaining account. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
TextDescription: 480 pages : illustration ; 24 cmISBN: