Hump Pilot

Young American pilot Ned Thomas is deployed to fly the forbidding and treacherous Himalayas -- the notorious Hump -- in World War II. Facing conditions unprecedented for aircraft, he and other flyers manhandle unreliable depression-era planes up from their bases in northern India, into the boiling and turbulent sky over the Roof of the World, and down into Asia. Their effort, dauntless and unstoppable despite devastating fatality rates, provides the sole lifeline for Nationalist China in her struggle against occupying Japanese troops who otherwise would have been in the Pacific, fighting and killing Americans. Calm and genuine, Ned gives the Hump War a true-to-life human face. With him we take to the skies, discover how wartime aviators train and fly, share letters and conversations -- even the start of a lifelong romance. In actual cockpit scenes, and through a man's firsthand experience, we encounter the surreally magnificent, death-dealing range whose evocative name in Sanscrit means House of Snow. The Hump exploit will set the prototype for the Berlin Airlift and all others to come. The audacious flyers who "accomplish the impossible" will be nearly forgotten by the world, but always remembered by soldiers in the Pacific who without them, might not have survived the war. In an epic of danger, tragedy, and victory -- set against an authentically portrayed military canvas -- readers cheer Ned and these unsung heroes of the air.