Author: Weng Toh Ho
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing
ISBN: 9811205450
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
This book is a poignant story of a small-town boy, who stumbled into a lifelong flying career spanning 38 years as a pilot. Now at 99, Captain Ho Weng Toh, one of the last few remaining Flying Tigers, recalls the many events that shaped his life. It takes the readers through his journey of good and bad years, the trials and tribulations encountered, his journey from being a refugee student to becoming a Chinese Air Force B-25 bomber pilot, his will to live, the burning desire to contribute towards the WWII effort and his endurance of all the trials and hardships all alone and often in silent solitude.Captain Ho shares memories of his childhood days and his growing-up years in Ipoh, his family and important values imparted by his father, his wonderful friendship with his buddy of eight decades, Meng Seng and his romantic encounters.In 1941, while being a student in Hong Kong, Captain Ho witnessed bombs dropped by Japanese bombers which signalled the start of WWII — a war which not only altered the course of history but was a major turning point in his life. Its impact consequently shaped the course of his life.He encountered many trials and uncertainties during the war years. But beyond the dark clouds and thunder storms, there was new hope and adventure. He encountered new adventures in Singapore, where he used his flying experience to carve out an illustrious career. In 1951, he started flying for Malayan Airways, the predecessor of Singapore Airlines (SIA). Through his 30 years of flying career with SIA, he saw the Airline grow from a fledgling Airline of three DC-3s to a modern international Airline.His strong passion for people, sports and travel were hallmarks of his life which enabled him to live a long and fulfilling life. Having a deep appreciation of the importance of friendship, he values his friends dearly and often travels the globe to reconnect. Being keenly interested in people and world affairs, he is extremely aware of human needs and is ever concerned for people that comes his way, fighting for the underdogs, offering guidance and a little helping hand to those in need. Such qualities together with his flying experience has helped him successfully train and groom several generations of young local pilots who eventually had successful careers at SIA.Related Link(s)
Author: Sam Kleiner
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593511352
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
The thrilling story behind the American pilots who were secretly recruited to defend the nation’s desperate Chinese allies before Pearl Harbor and ended up on the front lines of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma. In the wake of the disaster at Pearl Harbor this motley crew was the first group of Americans to take on the Japanese in combat, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in the skies over Burma, Thailand, and China. At a time when the Allies were being defeated across the globe, the Flying Tigers’ exploits gave hope to Americans and Chinese alike. Kleiner takes readers into the cockpits of their iconic shark-nosed P-40 planes—one of the most familiar images of the war—as the Tigers perform nail-biting missions against the Japanese. He profiles the outsize personalities involved in the operation, including Chennault, whose aggressive tactics went against the prevailing wisdom of military strategy; Greg “Pappy” Boyington, the man who would become the nation’s most beloved pilot until he was shot down and became a POW; Emma Foster, one of the nurses in the unit who had a passionate romance with a pilot named John Petach; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek herself, who first brought Chennault to China and who would come to visit these young Americans. A dramatic story of a covert operation whose very existence would have scandalized an isolationist United States, The Flying Tigers is the unforgettable account of a group of Americans whose heroism changed the world, and who cemented an alliance between the United States and China as both nations fought against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Author: Larry M. Pistole
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
Summary: A Surgeon's wife find herself drawn to afternoon work in a brothel.
Author: Wayne Gordon Johnson
Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group
ISBN: 1936183935
Category : Depressions
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
"Whitey- - From Farm Kid to Flying Tiger to Attorney, is the fascinating and riveting story of a boy, the 11th of 14 children of Norwegian immigrant parents, who grew up on tenant farms in rural Minnesota during the Great Depression. Johnson describes in graphic detail the harsh conditions under which the family lived and survived. "We were poor but didn't know it." With commendable honesty, Johnson's story illuminates the indiscretions of youth against the backdrop of a rural farm family. His story takes us through the extraordinary journey of one man who has seen more in his life, so far, than most of us could ever imagine. Wayne "Whitey" Johnson enlisted in the Air Corps on 8 December, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Trained as a fighter pilot in the P-40 Warhawk and the P-51 Mustang, Wayne was sent to China to join the famed Flying Tigers. He was stationed in an area of far eastern China referred to as the "pocket," surrounded by Japanese troops less than 50 miles away. He relates the grim realities of war with startling realism, graphically portraying the triumphs and tragedies - and the joys and sorrows - of young men at war. Whitey, as part of a flight of 16 P-51 Mustang fighters, participated in the first fighter strike against Japanese airdromes near Shanghai. Coming in at tree-top level, and catching the enemy by complete surprise, they destroyed 97 Japanese planes - mostly on the ground - without loss of any Americans. After the war, he became a successful attorney, setting a record as the longest-serving City Attorney in the United States, serving two cities for over fifty years. Continuing his activity in Aviation, Johnson was named Mr. Aviation of Minnesota in 1968. He was inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame in 2001. The Silver Bay (MN) airport was renamed the Wayne Johnson Airport in his honor in 2005 - an honor few living airmen enjoy. He has flown over 60 military and civilian aircraft and piloted his own plane into his mid-eighties."--Back cover.
Author: Eric Lindner
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493031570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359
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Book Description
September 1962: On a moonless night over the raging Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from land, the engines of Flying Tiger flight 923 to Germany burst into flames, one by one. Pilot John Murray didn’t have long before the plane crashed headlong into the 20-foot waves at 120 mph. As the four flight attendants donned life vests, collected sharp objects, and explained how to brace for the ferocious impact, 68 passengers clung to their seats: elementary schoolchildren from Hawaii, a teenage newlywed from Germany, a disabled Normandy vet from Cape Cod, an immigrant from Mexico, and 30 recent graduates of the 82nd Airborne’s Jump School. They all expected to die. Murray radioed out “Mayday” as he attempted to fly down through gale-force winds into the rough water, hoping the plane didn’t break apart when it hit the sea. Only a handful of ships could pick up the distress call so far from land. The closest was a Swiss freighter 13 hours away. Dozens of other ships and planes from 9 countries abruptly changed course or scrambled from Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall, all racing to the rescue—but they would take hours, or days, to arrive. From the cockpit, the blackness of the Atlantic grew ever closer. Could Murray do what no pilot had ever done—“land” a commercial airliner at night in a violent sea without everyone dying? And if he did, would rescuers find any survivors before they drowned or died from hypothermia in the icy water? The fate of Flying Tiger 923 riveted the world. Bulletins interrupted radio and TV programs. Headlines shouted off newspapers from London to LA. Frantic family members overwhelmed telephone switchboards. President Kennedy took a break from the brewing crises in Cuba and Mississippi to ask for hourly updates. Tiger in the Sea is a gripping tale of triumph, tragedy, unparalleled airmanship, and incredibly brave people from all walks of life. The author has pieced together the story—long hidden because of murky Cold War politics—through exhaustive research and reconstructed a true and inspiring tribute to the virtues of outside-the-box-thinking, teamwork, and hope.
Author: K. Kesavapany
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789814841504
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
This biography documents K. Kesavapany's journey from the Malayan estates in the late 1930s to his move to Singapore when he was headhunted to join the Singapore Civil Service in the 1970s, and from his entry into Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to his subsequent sojourns abroad, such as in Australia, Turkey, Geneva, Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, United Kingdom and Malaysia. After retiring from his last post with the MFA, he took on the position of Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. This book also elaborates on the next phase of his journey where he holds several prominent portfolios in Singapore's social and academic scene, such as at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Dyslexia Association of Singapore, Singapore Indian Association, Inter-Religious Organization, as well as the Singapore International Foundation.
Author: Daniel Jackson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813180821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
Mere months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a volunteer group of American airmen to the Far East, convinced that supporting Chinese resistance against the continuing Japanese invasion would be crucial to an eventual Allied victory in World War II. Within two weeks of that fateful Sunday in December 1941, the American Volunteer Group—soon to become known as the legendary "Flying Tigers"—went into action. For three and a half years, the volunteers and the Army Air Force airmen who followed them fought in dangerous aerial duels over East Asia. Audaciously led by master tactician Claire Lee Chennault, daring pilots such as David Lee "Tex" Hill and George B. "Mac" McMillan led their men in desperate combat against enemy air forces and armies despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Aviators who fell in combat and survived the crash or bailout faced the terrifying reality of being lost and injured in unfamiliar territory. Historian Daniel Jackson, himself a combat-tested pilot, recounts the stories of downed aviators who attempted to evade capture by the Japanese in their bid to return to Allied territory. He reveals the heroism of these airmen was equaled, and often exceeded, by the Chinese soldiers and civilians who risked their lives to return them safely to American bases. Based on thorough archival research and filled with compelling personal narratives from memoirs, wartime diaries, and dozens of interviews with veterans, this vital work offers an important new perspective on the Flying Tigers and the history of World War II in China.
Author: Eugenie Buchan
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1611688663
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
A new history of the genesis of the legendary Flying Tigers
Author: Daniel Ford
Publisher: Warbird Books
ISBN: 0692734732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
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Book Description
During World War II, in the skies over Burma and China, a handful of American pilots met and bloodied the "Imperial Wild Eagles" of Japan and won immortality as the Flying Tigers. One of America's most famous combat forces, the Tigers were recruited to defend beleaguered China for $600 a month and a bounty of $500 for each Japanese plane they shot down--fantastic money in an era when a Manhattan hotel room cost three dollars a night.This May 2023 revision has never-before-published information about Chennault's early years. "Admirable," wrote Chennault biographer Martha Byrd of Ford's original text. "A readable book based on sound sources. Expect some surprises." Flying Tigers won the Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence in the year of its first publication.
Author: Kira Van Deusen
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773521568
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
Storytelling bridges culture, history, and spirituality. In The Flying Tiger Kira Van Deusen takes us into the world of the female shamans of the Amur, presenting over fifty traditional stories she recorded in the 1990s from the people of the taiga forest in the Russian Far East. More than a collection of tales, the reader learns about the lives of the story-tellers and their history, their spiritual traditions, adaptation to the environment, relationships with animals, and sense of humour.
