Pen and Sword Ltd.

Project Seven Alpha American Airlines in Burma 1942

by LCdr Leland Shanle, USN (RET)

Reviewed By Mike Hinderliter, IPMS 45124

MSRP: $39.99 Review copy courtesy of Casemate Publishing: www.casematepublishing.com Format: Hardback 6" x 9" Pages 256 / 40 illustrations. ISBN: 978-1-84415-826-3 Pen and Sword has once again put out another book about a little known project from WWII. This time it is about a group of American Airlines planes and pilots, who volunteered to fly supplies, troops and ammunition in, and wounded out, over the world's highest mountains known as the "Hump" on the eastern side of the Patkai and Himalayan ranges. The U. S. had just lost most of our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor and were spread out pretty thin. President Roosevelt was worried that the Japanese were going to take India and link up with Germany and Italy to conquer the Eastern Hemisphere. America needed to set up a defensive supply route from Eastern India. The U. S. lacked aircraft and experienced pilots so they went to a civilian airline and used their pilots, several of which were WW1 veterans. I really enjoyed this novel because of the style that the author used to tell his story. It starts off with an American Airlines pilot who is flying his last flight right before his retirement in 1984. His crew presents him with a scrapbook of his flying career, and while he is looking at it he starts to remember the past. This reminded me a lot of those old 1940 war movies that I used to watch with my dad when I was a kid. I felt like I was transported back to those times instead of reading a book. I just couldn't put it down. The descriptions of flying the Hump are very detailed, and you can almost feel your feet getting cold, and you want to turn up the oxygen. Although the info provided by Casemate says there are 40 illustrations, I counted 9, including the front and back covers. The book is very well bound and has very good paper that is bright white and has no glare when you read it. This book is really worth the money just for the way that it is manufactured. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants a really great historical read. I believe that I read that this was this author's first book. If it is, I can't wait to see what he writes next. Thanks to IPMS USA and Tara Lichterman at Casemate publishing for letting me read this wonderful book.