Born to Fly the Hump

History's first airlift was the Hump, a hazardous 500-mile route over the mighty Himalaya Mountains. From a dozen fields in eastern India, hundreds of American pilots delivered supplies to China to keep her in World War II against Japan. This is the story of one C-46 pilot who made 96 round-trip flights on this scary course. What was it like? Fear was a passenger on every flight -- not just the fear of crashing into the world's highest peaks or bailing out into the world's densest jungle, but also fear of the fierce weather. Thunderheads, some towering to 40,000 feet, brought panic to the heart. Like toys, the planes were tossed about in a deluge of rain or in a howling snow storm, ice driving hard against the windshield, forming on the wings and props and in the carburetors, unimaginable turbulence, airspeed dropping to stalling then rushing to a redlined 280 mph. But every now and then, the day broke clear and the night starry; the awesome beauty and majesty of the mountains could soothe a pilot's soul. The author includes in the memoir his reflections on his growing up years in the Depression before the war, and on his year in the China-Burma-India Theater: guests of the Maharajah, buzzing the Taj Mahal, comic goings-on on the base and elsewhere. He reserves his most emotional reflections for his joy at coming home.