eBook - ePub
Aluminum Alley
The American Pilots Who Flew Over the Himalayas and Helped Win World War II
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Aluminum Alley
The American Pilots Who Flew Over the Himalayas and Helped Win World War II
About this book
By the time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, China was already under siege. The Imperial military invaded and choked off every land and sea route for the young country’s resupply, and what remained of China was out of gas and withering away. So in April 1942 the United States decided to help out, by trying something entirely new and a little bit crazy.
The world’s first airlift. Over the Himalayas. Led by brilliant and stubborn American generals including Joseph Stilwell, Claire Chennault, and William Tunner, this improvised lifeline for Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists aimed to keep more than a million Japanese troops tied up in an unwinnable occupation, far away from the brutal combat then unfolding in the Pacific.
For 42 months the American ‘Hump pilots’ flew aviation gas, ammunition, food and other life-or-death cargo from Assam, India over Burma and the eastern Himalayas and into southern China. Frequent ice storms, unpredictable Japanese air attacks, impenetrable jungles, and the often-invisible presence of 15,000 feet of granite and ice were a formidable challenge for young American pilots in bare-bones cargo planes with primitive instruments and no margin for error. One out of every three airmen who flew the Hump would not make it home.
Aluminum Alley is the true story of an unheralded group of pilots in a cursed and forgotten theater of combat, over the world’s highest mountains and deepest jungles – all to help the Allies defeat Japan in World War II. Based on interviews with survivors of the Hump and the airmen’s letters, journals, flight logs and other resources, this is narrative nonfiction with the immediacy and intimacy of memoir and the big-picture analysis of the best military history.
The world’s first airlift. Over the Himalayas. Led by brilliant and stubborn American generals including Joseph Stilwell, Claire Chennault, and William Tunner, this improvised lifeline for Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists aimed to keep more than a million Japanese troops tied up in an unwinnable occupation, far away from the brutal combat then unfolding in the Pacific.
For 42 months the American ‘Hump pilots’ flew aviation gas, ammunition, food and other life-or-death cargo from Assam, India over Burma and the eastern Himalayas and into southern China. Frequent ice storms, unpredictable Japanese air attacks, impenetrable jungles, and the often-invisible presence of 15,000 feet of granite and ice were a formidable challenge for young American pilots in bare-bones cargo planes with primitive instruments and no margin for error. One out of every three airmen who flew the Hump would not make it home.
Aluminum Alley is the true story of an unheralded group of pilots in a cursed and forgotten theater of combat, over the world’s highest mountains and deepest jungles – all to help the Allies defeat Japan in World War II. Based on interviews with survivors of the Hump and the airmen’s letters, journals, flight logs and other resources, this is narrative nonfiction with the immediacy and intimacy of memoir and the big-picture analysis of the best military history.
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Yes, you can access Aluminum Alley by Rory Laverty in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & World War II. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Note on Sources and Language
- Prologue: April 21, 1945
- 1: The Air Show
- 2: Dwarf Bandits
- 3: A Secret War
- 4: Army of Terrified Civilians
- 5: Flight of the Gooney Birds
- 6: Confused Bastards in India
- 7: Shadows of the Valley of Death
- 8: The Pool at Hattie Alley
- 9: Balloon Blowers
- 10: Question Mark Squadron
- 11: Hangman.
- 12: Night of a Thousand Maydays
- 13: Little Mel, a Lot Wiser
- 14: Last Men Standing.
- 15: Express Overnight
- 16: Cities of Paper
- Epilogue: The Convertible
- Acknowledgments
- Selected Bibliography
- About the Author