Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker

Source of book: I bought this as a gift for my dad, but couldn’t put it down once I started. Don’t worry, I'll give it to him soon.

A conversation I have had a few times goes kind of like this: A friend asks me, “Don’t you ever read books just for fun?” The reply is obvious - to me, at least. “Learning stuff is fun! So I am always reading for fun.” This isn’t completely accurate, though, I suppose. Even books that are enlightening can sometimes be dry or difficult in other ways. And, I have read the occasional dud that I finished mostly because the book was short and I have pride. But more than that, there are books that I will read just for the thrill of the experience. Most murder mysteries fall in this category.

But occasionally, there will be a book that I read that fills me with pure, unadulterated pleasure, a kind of bliss just from the sheer beauty. More often than not, this experience will come from poetry. Gitanjali, for example, or The Book of Hours. Or Dickinson or Frost - those always thrill me.

It doesn’t happen that often from prose. Sure, Wodehouse will make me laugh, but that pleasure is more earthy and less sublime.

Skyfaring is one of those extremely rare books that I can honestly say was pure pleasure, like a mountain top view, or the apotheosis of a Beethoven symphony.

Mark Vanhoenacker is a pilot for British Airways (although he never names the airline), currently flying the 747 on international routes. He originally studied history, obtaining a Masters degree, but quit during his PhD studies to get a job in Management Consulting, of all things. He picked that field because he would be able to travel regularly. Eventually, he realized that he really wanted to be a pilot, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

The Author

This circuitous route gave Vanhoenacker one significant advantage. He has an amazing breadth of knowledge and interests, and serious writing chops. I have read a few ghostwritten books - including a few that do not attribute the contributions of the ghostwriter. There is no way that this is a ghostwritten book. Nobody could just sit down and write like Vanhoenacker does. The writing is that of someone who is truly passionate and poetic about flight. He isn’t there to tell his story - biographical details are few and far between, and exist mainly to set the stage. Rather, this is poetry in prose, the musings of a true romantic as he is caught between earth, water, and sky.

There is only one true precedent that I am aware of: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Most know of him from The Little Prince, the fantasy “children’s” book (reviewed here), which is a true classic; but few are familiar with his luminous books about aviation. I first discovered him through Night Flight as a teen. At the time, I wasn’t much into tragedies, but the book was so achingly beautiful that I loved it even as I fought the inevitable ending.

A bit of fair disclosure. My dad was an Air Traffic Controller for a few decades, starting when I was a young child. Before and during that time, he was an amateur pilot as well, so I have memories of being up above the San Fernando Valley in a little Cherokee, bouncing about in the air currents. I spent a decent bit of time up in control towers, and in radar rooms on midnight shift, when my dad was the only controller on duty. Ah, the good old days, before 9/11 ruined everything, and you could still take kids to work with you.

Anyway, I grew up around aviation, and I have always loved airplanes. I still go to air shows whenever they are close, and can probably tell you more about how stuff works than most non-pilots. So this book was certainly right up my alley to begin with.

In one scene, the author describes going with his parents to the end of the runway at a small airport, to eat doughnuts and watch airplanes. We used to do this exact same thing. Except our airport was the Van Nuys Airport, and we used to pick up a bag of bagels from Western Bagel rather than doughnuts.

So, back to the book itself. Saint-Exupéry was more than just a pilot, although he was an excellent one. Likewise, Vanhoenacker flies, but he also soars. The book is filled with references to literature, from Saint-Exupéry - of course - to Byron to St. John of the Cross, and many others of poetic bent.

The content isn’t just ethereal, however. The author brings in a wealth of detail about the mechanics and technology of flying. Those of us familiar with cockpits and control towers will recognize many of the terms, certainly. And those familiar with aviation maps will likewise find themselves in familiar territory. What is most impressive about Vanhoenacker’s writing is the way he makes the technical details both interesting and understandable. One could gain a layman’s knowledge of the art of flying from this book. It never gets bogged down in details, but the details are there and important.

And then there is the science. I assume that the author had to learn a good bit of this from his training, but nonetheless, this is not fluff in that sense at all. For example, a portion of a chapter is spent explaining the four kinds of speed that a pilot needs to know: ground speed, indicated airspeed, true airspeed, and mach number. These are not the same at all, and at a given time may differ by hundreds of knots. I had a basic understanding of these terms before, but after reading this book, I could grasp the way they connect and affect many aspects of flying. The explanation is simple, yet detailed, and fits perfectly with the rest of the narrative.

It is this way throughout the book. Personal history will flow into poetry-in-prose, which will flow into a technical explanation, which will mesh with stories about specific flights, which will connect with people, which will then turn to philosophy.

It is all integrated somehow, and one never loses the pace or the magic of it all. I suspect that the author had an outstanding editor to help with the details of putting it all together, but there is so much that is clearly the voice of the author, lost in the wonder of the skies.

A few things stood out to me in particular. First, the author talks about how places are perceived differently from the air. When we drive places, we experience place as a sequence in time. We often lose how locations relate to each other in the big picture. In fact, sometimes places that are close together, but separated by a mountain, for example, are experienced as distant. It is not so from the air, where the true relation is revealed. I found this fascinating because of how my own mind functions. I love maps. I mean, I love maps. I study them in advance of any trip, memorizing as many details as I can. I have been this way since I was a child. Even now, I can draw the major streets of the San Fernando Valley (where I grew up) from memory - and also the Los Angeles and San Diego freeway systems. I almost experience location as if I was in the air. So I remember when we would go fly, I could usually pick out where we were on the ground just from my map-memory and the visible landmarks. Needless to say, I loved this part of the book. (For kindred spirits on this subject, I highly recommend On The Map, an amazing book.)

One of the interesting things that the author describes is what he calls “place lag.” Like the time lag we call “jet lag,” there is a sense of disorientation when one steps from one world to another. I haven’t flown that much in my life, and only once out of the country, so I have limited experience. But I can say that stepping off a plane that left Los Angeles into the grey gloom of England in the fall was a shock in many ways. It is an experience that one cannot truly duplicate by road, even when traveling from California to Utah - a common trip for me.

One conversation that the author recounts is interesting.

I might eat dinner with a member of the cabin crew at a Belgian restaurant in Beijing, and he might ask if I know this or that Thai restaurant in San Francisco, or a new cafe in Johannesburg that he heard about on his last trip to Sydney. Countries blur, cities elide.

In this global age, this has become common.

Returning to the technical jargon of flight, Vanhoenacker spends some time explaining the five-letter “waypoints” which pilots follow across the sky. Clearly those who name them have a sense of humor, as there are a lot of puns and jokes strewn across the sky. One of the best was a series leading across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand. WALTZ followed by INGMA, followed by TILDA. My Aussie friends will appreciate that one.

Another in-joke that I loved was the way some of his fellow pilots would refer to the old days, when they were young: “back when Pontius was a pilot…”

There are a few books that I have read with a recognition of something that I know personally. Two Years Before the Mast is one, because it tells of the California I know and love. Even though the era is different, the landforms and the weather are instantly recognizable. Likewise in this book, when the author mentions the Santa Ana winds, which wreak havoc on the traffic pattern in Southern California. (My dad would mention these because they would turn Burbank Airport “north,” which was almost as bad as those tropical winter storms which would turn LAX “east,” and put the streams of traffic through those of other airports.)

As with Saint-Exupéry, the way that Vanhoenacker speaks of the night is magical. I am thoroughly jealous of his seeing the Auroras regularly from the air. But I completely understand when he talks about the way that “The Dark Night of the Soul” is misunderstood. St. John of the Cross speaks not of a time of doubting and casting about in the dark. He speaks of the way that things are seen more clearly in the dark, and how our journeys through that which we cannot see bring us closer to the transcendent.

One final bit, which occurs near the end. The final chapter is entitled “Return.” The author is traveling as a passenger again, and he sees a shadow far below the plane. He realizes that it is the shadow of the plane he is in. I remember the first time I experienced this, and it is the first time for the author.

I had never seen this before and I thought it might soon disappear. But the shadow stayed roughly in the same place in my window. It grew in size as the world hastened under it. I realized that the airplane and its growing shadow were approaching each other. After so many parted miles they would meet again at the moment of touchdown.

Only a few times since that morning have I seen the sun and the journey’s end aligned so well that the shadow of the jet appears and trembles on the land, as if in anticipation; as if the sound of the engines or the growing form in the sky has helped the shadow to remember what first cast it. Here is land, both noun and verb. Here we are, coming home.

The shadow keeps perfect pace with the widening wings. It crosses the earth as simply as the plane, as simply as our eye, or as if it was a kind of light, the mark made on the planet by our own falling gaze.

I kid you not. The rest of the book is beautiful like this, and to one who can thrill with its soaring, it is pure, unadulterated pleasure.

Red Tails, Black Wings by John B. Holway

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

I have been wanting to read this book at least since the movie came out. However, that is usually the worst time to find a book at the library. I picked this book as part of my Black History Month reading. 

I’m enough of a World War II aviation buff to be at least passingly familiar with the Tuskegee Airmen (aka, the Red Tails), but I had never read their entire story.

The story of African Americans and the US military is one of frustration. After a few good decades in the aftermath of the Civil War, the military became segregated - and indeed hostile to any participation by blacks. This became particularly pronounced during WWI, thanks in no small part to Woodrow Wilson, who was both Southern and a bigot. (Not my favorite president, by a long shot, shall we say.) Even those who were allowed to enroll got shunted to “service” jobs. Cooks and janitors, personal servants to the brass. Certainly nothing resembling leadership. The quotes from this book from the time are painful to read for their blanket assumption of the inferiority of non-whites when it came to character, discipline - and especially leadership.

In the face of all this, a special group of African American pilots were trained. The Tuskegee Airmen had to face a great deal of hostility to succeed. Indeed, the old adage held true: they had to be twice as good to get half as much respect.

I’ll just summarize the basics. They flew out of North Africa, and then Italy, flying primarily as fighter escorts for bomber groups. They chose to paint their tails red, so that they could never be mistaken for another group. Although they never had an exceptional “kill” record, they had one which was even better. The whole purpose of a fighter escort isn’t to pursue enemy fighters, after all. It is to protect the bombers. The loss of a B-17 would mean up to 10 men - and potentially the mission.

The Red Tails ended the war with an amazing record:

Not ONE bomber lost to an enemy fighter.

(Bombers were lost to mechanical issues - and even more to anti-aircraft fire. But these were outside of the Red Tails’ control.)

This ability - and willingness - to stay in protection rather than seeking individual glory, made the Red Tails a highly coveted escort, and helped them break down the racial barriers within the armed forces.

The book is largely told from the perspectives of the pilots themselves. There are extensive and extended quotes, tied together with enough narrative to make a coherent story. Clearly, the author spent a lot of time interviewing the surviving members. It really makes the story come alive to hear of the good, the bad, and the ugly in their experiences.

And really, the story cannot be told without the issue of race being central. From the very beginning, there were those who abused their power to try to harass the Red Tails (and others in the military). Some Southern law enforcement officials would intentionally target black soldiers - and some, like Sheriff Pat Evans, would eventually become infamous for their brutal tactics later during the civil rights protests. One recurring theme is the refusal to allow African American officers to use the officers’ club and other facilities, despite the executive order from President Roosevelt that they were to be unsegregated.

On the other side, there were a number of white officers who volunteered to train the Red Tails, in the process sacrificing their own promotion opportunities. There are several men who won the undying admiration and respect of the black pilots for their fairness and advocacy in the face of personal cost.

It is hard to pick just a few incidents and people, but the following were good enough to stand out to me.

First, it was interesting just how badly Hollywood comes out in this book. There is no doubt that Hollywood has a longstanding history of discrimination against all minorities - and women - that continues today in a truly embarrassing manner. Still, it is worth noting that the “cowboy” era was quite literally, whitewashed by Hollywood. The very word itself, “cowboy” derives from the epithet for “negro,” and fully one fifth of cowboys were in fact black. However, there is nary a one to be seen in the average Western. Likewise, African Americans fought in the army throughout the latter half of the 19th Century, to be forced out during the Wilson years. Again, nary a mention.

Theodore Roosevelt is one of my favorite presidents for a number of reasons - some of which make me unpopular with the modern Right Wing - and one (forgotten) story is a reason why. TR gets credit for the battle of San Juan Hill - but his Rough Riders weren’t the real story. That belonged to the 10th Cavalry - the “Buffalo Soldiers.” The African Americans who were never given credit - their commander was rejected for honors.

At least TR was good enough to say at the time, “I could wish for none better. They can drink out of our canteens.” This was shocking at the time - and would remain so throughout the Jim Crow era. This was also just one of many cases in which blacks would be denied honors they richly deserved.

The book tells of Charles Bussey, one of the Red Tails, who later served in Korea. He at that time was in a ground-bound position, but nevertheless risked personal danger in a heroic effort. He was recommended for the Medal of Honor. However, it was downgraded, as was admitted to Bussey by the officer who did it.

I belong to a group who believe that it’s our responsibility to keep Negroes in their place, and the most effective way is to deny them leadership. Then there’s never any threat to anyone. If the medal was posthumous, no problem. Or if you were an inarticulate enlisted man, I would have no objection. But, being who you are, you’d be out encouraging Negroes to do the things you do.

Ironically, “Negroes” were considered to be “safe” in another context. When Alexander Jefferson was shot down and taken prisoner, he was chosen by some Southerners to be their roommate because at least they knew he wasn’t a German mole.

Bussey, by the way, was born in my adopted hometown of Bakersfield, CA. Back in the 1920s, it was a pretty bigoted place, by all accounts. Heck, we had active KKK chapters well into the 1980s. Not something to be proud of.

On the positive side, one person who came off extremely well was Eleanor Roosevelt. I will admit, I am not nearly as familiar with her as I should be. She was and is unfairly maligned within conservative circles, for her association with her New Deal husband, and her feminism. (Needless to say, I now find her feminism admirable.) However, it was interesting to see how involved she was in civil rights decades before it was remotely acceptable for a white woman to do so.

One incident recounted in the book is when she insisted on going on a flight with Tuskegee Airman “Chief” Anderson, much to the horror of the Secret Servicemen assigned to her. From that time on, she was the go-to person for African Americans seeking admission to the armed forces - and she came through. She wrote personal letters back, and usually apologized for the segregation still plaguing the military. One could even be so bold as to say that she was probably the single most important factor in the eventual desegregation order from her husband. I must admit I have a renewed appreciation for her after reading this book.

Like with so many worthwhile books, the power of this one is in the personal details. Sure, these guys were legitimate war heroes, and fully deserving of the honors they received - and many they did not receive due to the prejudice of the times. But it isn’t just that. What truly struck me as amazing was that these men suffered prejudice, harassment, criminal charges and imprisonment if they dared assert their right to use shared facilities, and more. Their country tried to prevent them from serving, for goodness sake!

And yet.

They faithfully served, and were clear headed enough to decide that Nazism was worse than the injustice they experienced at the hands of their countrymen. They sought the good of those who hated them, and gave exceptional service to protect those who wouldn’t even eat with them. That is truly amazing, and shows a strength of character that is inspiring.

Fun notes on the aircraft:

My favorite WWII fighter is the Spitfire. Still one of the prettiest aircraft ever built. Second choice would be the F4U Corsair, for the elegant gull wings. On the other hand, there was something special about seeing a Hawker Sea Fury in person at the Shafter fly-in several years ago. That huge radial engine had a distinctive sound.

The Red Tails flew four different aircraft. The first was the P-40, already obsolete by the time they got them. In fact, some of their aircraft were from the Flying Tigers (the American Volunteer Group who fought in China against Japan before the US entered the war) and were barely airworthy by that point. Later, they flew the P-47 Thunderbolt, a heavy but durable aircraft, and the unusual P-39 Aircobra, with the engine behind the cockpit. (The P-39, oddly, was credited with more kills than any other US fighter, but is considered more of a curiosity today.) Finally, they got the legendary P-51 Mustang, arguably the greatest fighter of the era. 

P-40 with the Flying Tiger graphics. I still love this plane. 

P-47 Thunderbolt

P-39 Aircobra

 P-51 Mustang - Red Tail livery

Note on the Flying Tigers:

I wrote a report on the Flying Tigers when I was in high school after reading a book (the name eludes me) written by one of their pilots. I found them fascinating enough to build a model P-40 and give a report to our homeschool group. Later, my parents would meet the late “Tex” Hill on a Southwest Airlines flight. Yes I was jealous.

Even later than that, however, I got to talk with my wife’s late grandfather, who was an Army doctor serving in China during the same period. He treated some of the Flying Tigers during their stay, and could remember Claire Chennault reasonably well. (Pappy Boynton apparently wasn’t quite as memorable, alas.) Dr. Haut still had his commendation from Chaing Kai-shek, in the original Chinese, which caused a great stir at their favorite local Chinese restaurant. Good stuff.

Note on the sordid history of law enforcement as terrorism against African Americans:

This is beyond the scope of this post, but I think it is foolish to approach cases like Ferguson without having an idea of the history behind the current problems. This book touches on some bad experiences, where law enforcement flagrantly defied the law, military authority, and basic human decency. It is thus unsurprising to find that this persists today, and that modern law enforcement - which is rarely held accountable - continues the same pattern.

A Sense of Life by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Source of book: I own this.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is best known for his children’s book, The Little Prince. In yet another odd omission, I have never read this book. This, despite the fact that it is the most read and most translated book in the French language. In fact, if you eliminate religious books like the Bible and Koran (and Chairman Mao’s works, sold and distributed by force of law), it comes in third on the all time list for best selling books. Hmm, maybe I should read it.

 

Rather, my introduction to Saint-Exupéry was his novela Night Flight, which I read as a teen. Night Flight is a deeply sad book filled with the deadly beauty of the night and the atmosphere. In some ways, it could best be compared to poetry or even music.

Saint-Exupéry was a fascinating character. He made his fame in the arena of literature, with both prose and poetry, but he also was a notable aviator. He was one of the pioneers of international postal flights, during an era in which flying was hardly even minimally safe. After France fell to Nazi Germany, he managed to talk his way into a position as a reconnaissance pilot, despite being too old to meet the requirements and practically crippled from previous crashes and chronic gallstones. He disappeared during a flight in 1944. Wreckage of his plane was discovered at sea many years later, and confirmed finally in 2004. 

A Sense of Life is a collection of short works, all - except for the first - are non-fiction. (The first is a short story about a pilot and a flight.) My wife, who found this book for me at a library sale, thought it was funny that while reading this, I was also reading The Logic of Life by Tim Harford and The Sense of an Ending by Frank Kermode. This was, perhaps, the missing link. Perhaps I should have tried to make a full quadrilateral by reading Goodbye, Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind by Keith Delvin. Actually, that book looks interesting too…

Here are some of the pieces that stood out. First is a report on a visit to Moscow in 1935. It’s hard for us now to remember how it was back then. Historical hindsight eventually brought to light Stalin’s purges, which left over a hundred million of his subjects dead. But back in 1935, there was still hope that communism was just another new economic theory which would prove or disprove its viability. There was still optimism that it may have good to show to the world. And really, in theory, it had some interesting ideas. The practice turned out to suck, of course. On the purely economic side, central planning failed to live up to its promises; but it was really the ease with which it melded with megalomania that led to the great slaughter. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others were eager to seize power and destroy enemies, real or imagined.

When Saint-Exupéry visited, however, all this was either well hidden, or in the future. And let’s be honest, Czarist Russia wasn’t exactly an ideal state either. Saint-Exupéry is always an interesting observer. He has an odd sense for the poetic, and an ability to seek out and observe, not the powerful, but the mundane. The everyday person, typically poor and just trying to hold on to a reasonable life, whether it is the ditch digger or the French ex-pat women surviving by teaching French.

This wasn’t Saint-Exupéry’s only reporting job in this book. He also wrote accounts of his visits to Barcelona and Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. These were doubly poignant to me since reading The Cypresses Believe In God by José María Gironella. I’ve already noted in my review of that book that it was one of the most terrifying novels I have ever read, because of its depiction of a world gone mad. Saint-Exupéry’s report from the front lines adds another layer to that drama, both confirming Gironella’s vision and expanding the human element on all sides of the conflict. He contrasts the way that modern warriors discount a few casualties in light of the whole population and his own view of the way war affects individuals. “We are men, not ants.”

As a general rule, Saint-Exupéry is against war. He genuinely hates the way it disrupts and the way that it turns decent men into killers. As he put it in his essay on peace and war, “for who would consent to risk death except for truth, justice, and love for his fellow man.”

That said, he also believed that it was just and necessary to stop Hitler, and did what he could, sacrificing his life in the only duties he was allowed. Perhaps one could say he put his money where his mouth wasn’t.

In that same essay on peace and war, written in 1938 in the aftermath of the Munich accords, wherein Czechoslovakia was given to Hitler in exchange for a very temporary peace, Saint-Exupéry gives one of the most interesting perspectives I have ever read. Winston Churchill himself refused to fault Neville Chamberlain for making a decision that looks questionable in retrospect. Saint-Exupéry captures the no-win dilemma.

We are living through deply anxious days, and if we are to relieve our anxiety we must diagnose its causes. We have elected to save the peace. To save the peace, we have had to do violence to friends. There is no question but that many of us were ready to risk our lives to meet the obligations of friendship. Such people now feel a kind of shame. Had they sacrificed the peace instead, they would have sacrificed man; they would have given their consent to the irreparable destruction of the cathedrals and libraries and laboratories of Europe; they would have given their consent to the annihilation of her traditions and the transformation of the world into a cloud of ashes. Why else have we wavered, now this way, now that? When we thought peace was threatened, we discovered the abomination of war. When we thought war had been averted, we tasted the odium of peace.

This is but a taste of Saint-Exupéry’s writing. I find his style highly enjoyable, whether he is writing of the thrills of flying (and his distaste for modern airplanes with instruments and such) or of his feeling that war has become a matter for accountants rather than humans. He, as a poet, has a deeply poetic streak, and it shows in his prose. It indeed takes a poet to discern that “Civil War is not a war, it is a disease.” Even in those moments that I disagree with his perspective, such as when he indulges in the idea that the past was inherently more romantic and moral, I love the way he writes it. His works, fiction or non-fiction, are worth seeking out.

We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing by James Whittaker

Source of book: I own this. A library discard that my wife ran across for next to nothing.

This short book is the real-life story of the crew and passengers of a B-17 lost at sea during World War Two. The book was published in 1943, less than a year after the events took place, and while the war was still ongoing.

Although the book was written by Whittaker, and tells of his journey toward faith during the ordeal, it probably captured the attention of the public because of another of the survivors: Eddie Rickenbacker.

Rickenbacker was one of those larger than life characters that seemed to live a charmed life. He probably had more near-death experiences than anyone else, at least in his time. And they weren’t limited to his crashes of airplanes and cars - he also survived a botched tonsillectomy He first came to fame before World War One as a race car driver, then became the first United States Ace as a pilot in the war. His record of 26 confirmed kills lasted until the next World War.

Between the wars, he founded an auto manufacturer, which later went bankrupt, managed Eastern Airlines, co-wrote a comic strip, and collaborated on the development of several Douglas passenger aircraft. He was nearly killed in an airplane crash (in which he was a passenger, not a pilot), leading to the first time he was reported as dead by the press.

In World War Two, he was technically a civilian, but served as an official consultant. He continued in a diplomatic capacity after the war, all while continuing to manage Eastern Airlines. After his retirement, he toured as a speaker up until his death in the 1970s.

(Guitar buffs will note that Rickenbacker’s distant cousin co-founded the eponymous guitar company.)

Even within the context of this book, which is not really his story, he remains a formidable force, an inspiration to his companions, and a fearless and strong leader.

The events of the book are fairly simple. The plane gets off course while flying from Hawaii to another island, probably due to a faulty instrument. It is unable to reach an alternate destination on its fuel, so the pilot is forced to ditch it in the ocean. The crew and passengers take to the open sea in three life rafts for twenty-four days, with only the food and water they can capture and collect, until they are finally rescued, with the exception of one who dies before the rescue.

Paralleling the actual events is Whittaker’s personal journey from agnosticism to faith as a result of the miracles he experiences during the ordeal. These include rain timed exactly as needed, fish that jump into the boat, and a sense of supernatural strength he receives near the end as he rows his raft to an island despite being so weak from starvation that he (and the others) are unable to stand upon arrival. One of the crewmen has his New Testament along in his pocket, and they read from it and hold a church service of sorts each day until the rescue, during which the author finally learns the Lord’s Prayer.

In addition to the faith of Johnny Bartek, the owner of the New Testament, the fortitude and leadership of Rickenbacker carried the survivors through. He kept morale up through a combination of encouragement and brow-beating, complete with strong language that the author hinted at, but omitted due to the publishing standards of the time.

I found a few additional details to be interesting. One was the choice of how to ditch the plane in the ocean. The pilot noted that going head on into the waves was the usual choice, due to the use of the wind to slow the relative ground speed. However, if the nose caught a wave, the plane could go straight down without a chance for escape. In this case, the pilot chose to land between swells, in a crosswind. While more difficult, it allowed him a gentle landing that preserved the aircraft intact and allowed the crew and passengers to evacuate in an orderly manner. This was a bit revolutionary at the time, and led to a re-thinking of procedure.

Second, I noted that this incident led to changes in aircraft navigation and the development of new technology in survival equipment. Oddly, no provision for food or water was made at the time, with rescue assumed to occur before it would be needed - which might be the case in a modern disaster, but certainly wasn’t the case at that time.

Third, I was intrigued that the older survivors weathered the hardships better from a physical point of view, which was not what I expected. The author was in his forties, and Rickenbacker was in his fifties, yet they were the ones in the best shape by the end, far better than the younger members, who perhaps had less body fat to consume.

In general, this was a quick read, simply and clearly written, from the point of view of a straightforward military man not given to excess words. If you are looking for soaring description, you won’t find it here. By comparison, Thor Heyerdahl’s account of his voyage is better literary reading. However, the facts themselves are compelling, and the author lays them out plainly for the reader. The story itself is well worth the read.