Tales of the Himalayas

This is a book of letters written to Carl Frey Constein, author of the WWII memoir Born to Fly the Hump. Most of the letters are from pilots and crew who also served in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. They tell of crashes and bailouts over the Himalayas and Burma, of mammoth thunderstorms and engine failures, of bombing runs out of China, of airdrops behind enemy lines. Other CBI veterans who served on the ground tell of rugged conditions in the high mountains of China and the dense jungles of Burma, or in the monsoons and heat of India. Wives and widows have written poignant, sincere letters of appreciation. The CBI was the theater of history's first military airlift, General Chennault's Flying Tigers, General Vinegar Joe Stilwell, Merrill's Marauders and Wingate's Chindits, the Burma Road. The letters illuminate the diversity and hardships of the CBI, where 350,000 Americans fought their war - and which history has all but overlooked.