And I thought Boeing was a mess. Then I read Caroline Alexander's Skies of Thunder and apparently it could be worse.

Alexander looks at an often ignored area of World War II which was the Burma/India/China theater. I have read a lot of World War II books and the missions talked about in this book are, at best, footnotes in most others. Alexander also paints a very clear picture of why! The entire theater was a mess of egos, bad planning, extreme danger, and negligible effects on World War II as a whole. The book can be broken down into two stories. One is much stronger than the other.

The weaker story is everything that is not about the pilots and missions over "the Hump." The ground missions and personality conflicts take up a large portion of the narrative and it does not have the narrative propulsion by itself. Alexander is a gifted writer and she never skimps on the research. For this part of the story, however, I wish she would have shortened it just a bit. I wasn't mad or tempted to skim, but I wanted to get back to the pilots fighting their planes. Yes, I mean fighting their planes.

Pilots flying over "the Hump" were clearly in a catch-22 situation. Only crazy people would do it, but if you are scared of flying then you are clearly not crazy. Alexander's story truly soars (pun intended!) in these sections. She weaves in the pilot's words and gives context for the nightmare that was these flights. The section on "That Night" is a perfect encapsulation of riveting writing. If you enjoy World War II stories at all, then this should be on your shelf.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Viking Books.)

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Penguin Group Viking for an advance copy of this book that details the the Burma Theater during World War II, the difficulties in both supplying and dealing with weather and environment, the people involved and the events, much of which have been forgotten over time.

In war, one can't pick the environment. This can make moving one's forces difficult, it is hard to move troops in a monsoon, with water washing out roads, making waters to flooded to navigate, and ruining the landscape, making overhead flights confused about what they are flying over. Even today with GPS and satellites, these kind of conditions play havoc on health of one's troops, eat away at machines, and cause technology to just short. Supplying troops with food, water, ammunition, heavy weapons, and more importantly fuel, suddenly takes on a Sisyphean task. During World War II this is the situation that the Allies faced after the invasion of Burma from the Imperial Army of Japan. British and American troops suddenly found themselves trying to fight a war in jungles during monsoons. With the only way of equipping their army was by flying over the vast Himalayan mountains, area unmapped with weather that could bring down planes and crews, never to be found. Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World by Caroline Alexander is a look at this war theater, one not known to many, detailing the many obstacles, including mountains, Allied troops had to conquer to defeat the Japanese army.

In 1942 the Imperial Japanese Army had achieved goals that few had thought possible. Britain due to a mix of hubris and bad leadership was on the run, losing many ports, ships and colonies, along with some fabled cities. The fall of Burma, known today as Myanmar drove both the British, and Americans who were in the area in support of China, back to India, which at the time included Pakistan. Fearing that India was next to be invaded plans were made to bring the war back in the Burma Theater. Roosevelt promised the Chinese Government that America would provide supplies, men, fuel, and weapons. The how would be the problem. The path was through the Himalayas, where planes such as the DC-3 would have to fly higher, and more laden than was healthy to keep troops even close to supplied. This flights were dangerous because of the mountains, weather, and risk to planes. Along with the technical problems the author looks at the political situation, along with the many names who will be familiar, or infamous might be a better term.

I have read a lot of books about World War II, but I have not read one that spent this much time, or explanation about the Burma Campaign. One reads about the flights over "The Hump" as the mountains were called, but one does not get the idea who bad the situation was. And deadly. Alexander discusses both the technical issues, as well as the meteorology, ice forming on planes, the primitive deicing tools. The sound of chunks of ice hitting the plane. Alexander also has lots of stories about the pilots, the soldiers, even the politicians, which really gives the history a human touch. There is a tremendous amount of research, which never bogs down, or slows down the narrative. I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and even better learned even more.

Recommended for readers of World War II history without a doubt. I know of few other books that spend the amount of time discussing Burma and the war there. A very interesting and well written book for anyone who likes history.

Caroline Alexander provides an examplary nonfiction work about the China-Burma-India theater which has been sort of ignored to other major WW II battles such as D-Day, Iwo Jima, The Battle of the Bulge and Okinawa. But Burma was brutal due to jungle condtions which killed soldiers as much as bullets and bombs. Alexander is not afraid to call out the incompetence of leaders which caused many deaths. What's interesting is the conflict between Rooselvelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek on how much military supplies should be sent to China for them to maintain a front against the Japanese. The supply line falls to flying over the jungles and mountains called The Hump through horrifying conditions leading to dozens of crashes and loss of life. There's insight on the Chinese corruption and black market sales of supplies which is totally depressing. The writing bogs down a bit with lots of statistics about tonnage on the aircraft and how many milles are hacked in the jungle to build the Burma Road. With the recent Apple TV series Masters of the Air, nonfiction readers of WW II will be drawn to this tale of brave airmen.