Eagles at War Read Online Free
Author: Walter J. Boyne
said, "I'm going off to Germany next month—it'll be my first official trip as a general officer—and I'll feel a lot better knowing you guys are firmly on board."
As McNaughton and Roget edged uneasily into a neutral conversation about the game, conscious that each had probably made an enemy of the other, Bandfield watched the other two leave, holding hands. Yesterday, life had been relatively simple for him. Now he tried to tie all the new developments together—his new job, Roget's argument with McNaughton, Caldwell's infatuation, the war that Caldwell seemed to think was certain. Things had become very complex. He wondered how it would all end.
*
En route to Hankow, China/October 10, 1938
James Curtiss Lee's father had drummed it into him that the Lees were many things—leaders, Southern aristocrats, Democrats—but above all, they were survivors. Well, he'd probably need to be in China. It had been a rough day, flying from Hong Kong to Chungking in a Chinese National Aviation Corporation Douglas DC-2 crowded with Chinese officials. The only other, English-speaking person on board was one of the pilots, an American.
Now they were bumping across a range of craggy mountains, east-northeast toward Hankow. The Yangtze River twisted and turned below, a better navigational aid than a railroad, its yellow roiling waters a vivid Chinese Mason-Dixon Line dividing the huge country into North and South. The scenery reminded him of the rugged foothills of the Rockies, rough mountains interspersed with valleys where little farm villages nestled against the side of the hills. The whole landscape was painted in a single dirty gray, save only where the river's yellow streak flashed in the sun.
He was just out of flying school, carrying a reserve commission as a second lieutenant in his back pocket. Normally he would have been assigned to some dull stateside base, flying Boeing P-26s or Martin B-l0s. Instead, his father, broke but still with political influence, had pulled strings to get him a special detached duty. He was to work for an old family friend, Claire Chennault, now tasked by Madame Chiang Kai-shek with rejuvenating the Chinese Air Force.
Lee remembered that he'd been sixteen years old when his father had driven the family to Langley Field to watch Chennault lead the "Three Men on a Flying Trapeze," the Air Corps' premier acrobatic team. Flying little yellow-winged Boeing P-12F fighters linked together with ropes, they put on a dazzling routine of loops and rolls. After a literally tied-in-tight landing, Chennault had popped out of his plane like a genie from a bottle, his nickel-Indian face cordovan-leather tan, flying suit streaked with oil stains, and a grin as wide as his black, bushy mustache. The image had never left Lee, and he determined on the spot to be an Air Corps pilot.
Lee was half dozing when the DC-2 stood on its wing and plunged like a dive-bomber. The transport leveled out to race along the side of a mountain, jinking back and forth, its left wing just missing the boulder-strewn surface, its right poised over the void. The DC-2 rolled up on its wing again so that Lee stared straight down at the mountainside. Behind the shadow of the transport, distorted as it raced across boulders and crevasses, he could see two smaller images in pursuit and thought, Man, they're not paying me enough for this!
Machinegun fire slashed through the right side of the cabin; an officer, big for a Chinese, slumped over in his seat, his head torn apart like a dropped melon. Seconds later, the DC-2 abruptly leveled out and began to climb. Lee jumped out of his seat and leaned across a screaming Chinese businessman to peer out the window opposite. Two Japanese fighters—low-wing monoplanes with fixed landing gear—were disappearing into the sun. Must be out of fuel or ammunition, Lee thought.
He unbuckled his seat belt and went forward to see if the pilots were okay. He stepped through the cockpit access door and
As McNaughton and Roget edged uneasily into a neutral conversation about the game, conscious that each had probably made an enemy of the other, Bandfield watched the other two leave, holding hands. Yesterday, life had been relatively simple for him. Now he tried to tie all the new developments together—his new job, Roget's argument with McNaughton, Caldwell's infatuation, the war that Caldwell seemed to think was certain. Things had become very complex. He wondered how it would all end.
*
En route to Hankow, China/October 10, 1938
James Curtiss Lee's father had drummed it into him that the Lees were many things—leaders, Southern aristocrats, Democrats—but above all, they were survivors. Well, he'd probably need to be in China. It had been a rough day, flying from Hong Kong to Chungking in a Chinese National Aviation Corporation Douglas DC-2 crowded with Chinese officials. The only other, English-speaking person on board was one of the pilots, an American.
Now they were bumping across a range of craggy mountains, east-northeast toward Hankow. The Yangtze River twisted and turned below, a better navigational aid than a railroad, its yellow roiling waters a vivid Chinese Mason-Dixon Line dividing the huge country into North and South. The scenery reminded him of the rugged foothills of the Rockies, rough mountains interspersed with valleys where little farm villages nestled against the side of the hills. The whole landscape was painted in a single dirty gray, save only where the river's yellow streak flashed in the sun.
He was just out of flying school, carrying a reserve commission as a second lieutenant in his back pocket. Normally he would have been assigned to some dull stateside base, flying Boeing P-26s or Martin B-l0s. Instead, his father, broke but still with political influence, had pulled strings to get him a special detached duty. He was to work for an old family friend, Claire Chennault, now tasked by Madame Chiang Kai-shek with rejuvenating the Chinese Air Force.
Lee remembered that he'd been sixteen years old when his father had driven the family to Langley Field to watch Chennault lead the "Three Men on a Flying Trapeze," the Air Corps' premier acrobatic team. Flying little yellow-winged Boeing P-12F fighters linked together with ropes, they put on a dazzling routine of loops and rolls. After a literally tied-in-tight landing, Chennault had popped out of his plane like a genie from a bottle, his nickel-Indian face cordovan-leather tan, flying suit streaked with oil stains, and a grin as wide as his black, bushy mustache. The image had never left Lee, and he determined on the spot to be an Air Corps pilot.
Lee was half dozing when the DC-2 stood on its wing and plunged like a dive-bomber. The transport leveled out to race along the side of a mountain, jinking back and forth, its left wing just missing the boulder-strewn surface, its right poised over the void. The DC-2 rolled up on its wing again so that Lee stared straight down at the mountainside. Behind the shadow of the transport, distorted as it raced across boulders and crevasses, he could see two smaller images in pursuit and thought, Man, they're not paying me enough for this!
Machinegun fire slashed through the right side of the cabin; an officer, big for a Chinese, slumped over in his seat, his head torn apart like a dropped melon. Seconds later, the DC-2 abruptly leveled out and began to climb. Lee jumped out of his seat and leaned across a screaming Chinese businessman to peer out the window opposite. Two Japanese fighters—low-wing monoplanes with fixed landing gear—were disappearing into the sun. Must be out of fuel or ammunition, Lee thought.
He unbuckled his seat belt and went forward to see if the pilots were okay. He stepped through the cockpit access door and
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