SKIES OF THUNDER

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.