The book "China's Wings" by Gregory Crouch took years to research and write and was published 5 days ago at the time I write this. The Amazon web site gives the necessary background on the subject of the book; I'll stick to my general impressions:
I had heard of the famous airlift "over the hump" to supply the Chinese during WWII, and knew some of the history of China that Crouch covers. But I had never heard of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC,) nor their remarkable feats and exploits. Most of all, I had never hear of William Langhorne Bond, the center of the story - its pillar in more than one sense - and his uncommon character. Uncommon because he comes across as having the kind of personal integrity and self-control in an executive that should be more common.
The book recounts some amazing stories of flying, but the bulk of it covers a lot of the things on the ground, lots of interesting history of an era that shaped modern China, so those looking for an aviation read concentrating on the flight deck might not like it.
But then they'd miss the aviation stories - like that of the DC-2½.
The book is a historical text that reads like a novel, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Characters grow - but many die.
I enjoyed the book. I learned more about an era of China and aviation history that I had not known before. While I did know the broad history of China being pushed around by western powers and Japan leading up to the 1930's, Crouch summarizes the history for the reader to set the stage.
I read the book on my iPad 2 - and one nice thing about reading on such a device is switching to a browser to look things up, and to read articles on Wikipedia to get a better grasp of the details of events and personalities mentioned in the story.
One note on the Kindle version: the "end" of the story happens 70% into the electronic version. The last 30% contains photos, bibliography, and notes that seem intended to corroborate every third sentence. The author is a historian by training, so this level of supporting detail is standard stuff for them.
I had heard of the famous airlift "over the hump" to supply the Chinese during WWII, and knew some of the history of China that Crouch covers. But I had never heard of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC,) nor their remarkable feats and exploits. Most of all, I had never hear of William Langhorne Bond, the center of the story - its pillar in more than one sense - and his uncommon character. Uncommon because he comes across as having the kind of personal integrity and self-control in an executive that should be more common.
The book recounts some amazing stories of flying, but the bulk of it covers a lot of the things on the ground, lots of interesting history of an era that shaped modern China, so those looking for an aviation read concentrating on the flight deck might not like it.
But then they'd miss the aviation stories - like that of the DC-2½.
The book is a historical text that reads like a novel, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Characters grow - but many die.
I enjoyed the book. I learned more about an era of China and aviation history that I had not known before. While I did know the broad history of China being pushed around by western powers and Japan leading up to the 1930's, Crouch summarizes the history for the reader to set the stage.
I read the book on my iPad 2 - and one nice thing about reading on such a device is switching to a browser to look things up, and to read articles on Wikipedia to get a better grasp of the details of events and personalities mentioned in the story.
One note on the Kindle version: the "end" of the story happens 70% into the electronic version. The last 30% contains photos, bibliography, and notes that seem intended to corroborate every third sentence. The author is a historian by training, so this level of supporting detail is standard stuff for them.
