Descriere & specificații

During World War II, the author was a pilot for Trans World Airlines (TWA). In late 1943, he left Washington, D.C. as second officer on a secret flight, having no knowledge of the plane's ultimate destination or purpose. The plane flew south to Brazil, east to Africa, and then made its way through Egypt and the Middle East to India. After crossing the eastern Himalayan mountains above Japanese-occupied northern Burma (the dangerous China-Burma-India route known by pilots as "the Hump"), this mysterious flight reached China. In Chungking (Chongking), the plane took on two distinguished passengers: General and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese Nationalist leaders. The plane's pilots and crew transported the Chiangs to the Cairo Conference with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1943, airplanes had to stop frequently to refuel. There was no food on board; crew members had to bring their own. Cabins were not pressurized and at higher altitudes, supplemental oxygen was required. There were no satellites, GPS devices, or advanced radar and communications systems. When equipment broke in a foreign land, they either had to fix it themselves or work around it, which could be a matter of life and death. Pilots on long journeys often flew by celestial navigation, which basically required sticking a head out the window to take a reading from the stars. Sometimes, they had to look down to gauge their positions as well, watching the tree tops over a forest or the whitecaps o

Over the Hump to Chiang Kai-shek, Paperback/Karl M. Ruppenthal

Descriere & specificații

Vezi și

Produse similare