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From the acclaimed author of Enduring Patagonia comes a dazzling tale of aerial adventure set against the roiling backdrop of war in Asia. The incredible real-life saga of the flying band of brothers who opened the skies over China in the years leading up to World War II—and boldly safeguarded them during that conflict—China’s Wings is one of the most exhilarating untold chapters in the annals of flight.
At the center of the maelstrom is the book’s courtly, laconic protagonist, American aviation executive William Langhorne Bond. In search of adventure, he arrives in Nationalist China in 1931, charged with turning around the turbulent nation’s flagging airline business, the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC). The mission will take him to the wild and lawless frontiers of commercial aviation: into cockpits with daredevil pilots flying—sometimes literally—on a wing and a prayer; into the dangerous maze of Chinese politics, where scheming warlords and volatile military officers jockey for advantage; and into the boardrooms, backrooms, and corridors of power inhabited by such outsized figures as Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek; President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; foreign minister T. V. Soong; Generals Arnold, Stilwell, and Marshall; and legendary Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe.
With the outbreak of full-scale war in 1941, Bond and CNAC are transformed from uneasy spectators to active participants in the struggle against Axis imperialism. Drawing on meticulous research, primary sources, and extensive personal interviews with participants, Gregory Crouch offers harrowing accounts of brutal bombing runs and heroic evacuations, as the fight to keep one airline flying becomes part of the larger struggle for China’s survival. He plunges us into a world of perilous night flights, emergency water landings, and the constant threat of predatory Japanese warplanes. When Japanese forces capture Burma and blockade China’s only overland supply route, Bond and his pilots must battle shortages of airplanes, personnel, and spare parts to airlift supplies over an untried five-hundred-mile-long aerial gauntlet high above the Himalayas—the infamous “Hump”—pioneering one of the most celebrated endeavors in aviation history.
A hero’s-eye view of history in the grand tradition of Lynne Olson’s Citizens of London, China’s Wings takes readers on a mesmerizing journey to a time and place that reshaped the modern world.
- Sales Rank: #659940 in Books
- Published on: 2012-02-28
- Released on: 2012-02-28
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Format: Illustrated
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.40" h x 1.72" w x 6.36" l, 1.72 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 528 pages
Amazon.com Review
Gregory Crouch on China's Wings
The seed that became China's Wings was planted by Charlie Fowler, one of my climbing partners in Enduring Patagonia, the book I'd written about my mountain adventures in that extreme land. Charlie's other adventuring obsession was unclimbed peaks in Central Asia, and back from explorations along the Tibet/China frontier in early 2002, Charlie sent me an email: "Greg, I keep hearing stories of these old World War II American plane wrecks in the Eastern Himalaya. You're a military history guy and a mountaineer; you should spark up a story on that."
I recognized the genesis of a good idea, and as a lifetime WWII history buff, I guessed those wrecks were probably relics of the airlift from India to China the United States prosecuted over the mountains dropping down the border between Burma and China's Yunnan province--the infamous "Hump." However, I was in Oman on a National Geographic assignment at the time. I didn't get around to pursuing Charlie's lead until months later.
When I did, "flying the Hump" web searches quickly ran across the cnac.org website--an enthusiast's collection of stories, events, and people related to the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), a civil airline partnership between Pan American Airways and the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek that flew and fought in China from 1929-1949. I knew many of the tales orbiting CNAC's story--among them Pan Am's pioneering transpacific flights, the Flying Tigers, and the Hump airlift--but I'd never heard of the airline that seemed to have played such a pivotal role in those events.
I stumbled across the website's reunions page and noticed that CNAC had a reunion scheduled only three weeks later, and that it was in San Francisco, less than twenty miles from my desk. Tentatively, I picked up the telephone and called CNAC Association President Bill Maher, one of the airline's Hump pilots. I introduced myself, explained that I wanted to explore the possibility of writing a book about his airline, and asked if I could attend the reunion. "Hell yes!" Bill thundered. "Come on over. We've got great stories."
I attended, and Bill was right. He and his flying band of brothers oozed fascinating stories and outrageous adventures played out against the desperate background of the war in Asia. I was hooked. Driving away from the reunion three days later, I was physically shaking, convinced I'd discovered an untold, compelling, and significant story--one I was meant to tell.
I never did succeed in mounting an expedition to visit a World War II plane wreck in the remote mountains of Asia--although I still hold out hope that someday I might--but the years of research that followed proved the story of the China National Aviation Corporation to be richer, deeper, and more historically significant than I'd dared hope; and in William Langhorne Bond, the steady, mannerly, but sharp-elbowed Virginian whose endeavors did so much to propel the airline through two trying decades, I'd discovered the perfect protagonist to carry the story. I spent dozens of hours with Moon Fun Chin, a remarkable man born in an obscure South China village in 1913 who began flying for CNAC in the early 1930s, piloted the last evacuation flights from Hankow in 1938 and Hong Kong in December, 1941, amassed many thousands of flying hours with the company through its years on the Hump (including taking Tokyo raider Jimmy Doolittle out of China in 1942), and ended up owning his own airline after the war. Through contemporary letters, books, articles, and interviews, China's Wings took me through the breathtaking, deadly Yangtze Gorges in the early 1930s, provided an inside account of the development of Pan American's groundbreaking transpacific route, bore witness to the utter destruction of Shanghai in a colossal--and largely forgotten--battle fought after the Japanese invaded China in 1937, and to mind-boggling mechanical improvisations, the mass evacuations of cities like Hankow and Hong Kong as they fell to the invaders, pivotal meetings in the boardrooms of Pan American Airways and the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and tense, fear-choked moments in cockpits over the Hump. The story of William Bond and the China National Aviation Corporation proved the perfect lens through which to experience the U.S. relationship with China during the crux decades of the Twentieth Century.
Sadly, neither Bill Maher nor Charlie Fowler can enjoy the fruits of their assistance; Bill Maher passed away in the summer of 2011, and Charlie was killed by an avalanche in China in 2006. I will always be grateful to them for their friendship and for this story.
Review
Advance praise for China’s Wings
“Too many people think the war in the Pacific began with Japan’s sudden strike on Hawaii, launched seemingly out of nowhere. Crouch’s vividly written book explains how America’s business interests in 1930s China set it on the path to Pearl Harbor. This is the rousing story of the enterprising Pan Am pilots who built a frontier airline and went on to become aviation heroes, flying over the Himalayas, helping save China, and thereby transforming the world.”—James D. Hornfischer, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Neptune’s Inferno
“Dramatically rendered.”—Kirkus Reviews
“In China’s Wings, Gregory Crouch recalls the remarkable encounter between an ancient civilization and the most modern technology in the world, as intrepid Americans and their Chinese partners struggled to establish a sophisticated air network over a vast land that barely knew electricity. This gripping book will transport you to a fascinating lost time.”—James Bradley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers and The Imperial Cruise
“West Point grad Crouch brings us a story that’s part adventure, part unearthed history [and] not just for history buffs.”—Library Journal
About the Author
Gregory Crouch graduated from West Point, where he studied military history. He completed U.S. Army Airborne and Ranger schools and led an infantry platoon in Panama, for which he earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He left the Army to pursue other interests, most notably in mountaineering and surfing, and his work has appeared in National Geographic, American History, Outside, Climbing, and Mother Jones, among many publications. The author of Enduring Patagonia, Gregory Crouch lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Most helpful customer reviews
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Not only for the WWII buff...
By Tina Rath
I would not call myself a scholar of WWII, nor do I have a super keen interest in aviation history or this particular time period in China, but I can say that Crouch's superb storytelling abilities transported me right into the heart of the story. With fascinationg characters, like William Langhorn Bond, who is an increasingly rare breed of a man that we need more of today, the daring and out right bravery of pilots like Moon Chin, and a country striving for unity in the face of Japanese aggression, this book is one great read. It will more than satisfy the scholar as Crouch's research is impeccible and extensive, but for the average reader, you will not get bogged down in a zillion facts and figures. From the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai in the 30's to the dangerous airlift known as "the Hump", this is history told in its finest, as a captivating story with events that you just can't make up.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
An adventure story
By Kathryn Townsend
Topically, China's Wings is the story of China National Air Corporation, and the role it played in the development of China immediately prior to and during WWII. But that is not really what the book is about. The book is about ordinary people who found themselves in an extraordinary situation, and became extraordinary people. Crouch's narration is so vivid, his characterizations so skillfully drafted, the real life plot so compelling, that at times it is hard to remember that what you're reading is non-fiction. Given how impeccable Crouch's research is and how well documented the book is, the fact that it never reads like a scholarly treatise is, in itself, worth noting. China's Wings will be of interest not just to aviation history buffs, WWII buffs, or history majors, it's a book that anybody who likes an adventure story will enjoy.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
One of the finest books I've read
By James Miller
China's Wings is one of the finest books I've read in my 60+ years of reading. For academicians, Crouch has produced a well-researched, strongly-supported reference work. For lovers of adventure, he has provided many hours of excellent entertainment.
I'm an ex-airlifter who flew in East Asia (mostly South Vietnam) in 1968, 1969 and 1970, including 15 months of operations out of Taiwan, when Chiang's son reportedly held a lot of power. Upon arrival in Taiwan in 1969, we received an orientation in which we were cautioned about ill feelings on the island between the Taiwanese and the Nationalists and by both for the Japanese. This book has filled in gaps in my knowledge of the history of East Asia and provided context around stories I heard from older pilots in my squadron who had flown the Hump as young copilots.
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