AIR ASIA FLIGHT ATTENDANT

Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations in Asia

Civil Air Transport (CAT), founded in China after World War II by Claire Chennault and Whiting Willauer, was initially a commercial carrier specializing in air freight. Its role quickly changed as CAT became first a paramilitary adjunct of the Nationalist Chinese Air Force, then the CIA's secret "air force" in Korea, then "the most shot-at airline in the world" in French Indochina, and eventually becoming reorganized as Air America at the height of the Vietnam War. William M. Leary's detailed operational history of CAT sets the story in the perspective of Asian and Cold War geopolitics and shows how CAT allowed the CIA to operate with a level of flexibility and secrecy that it would not have attained through normal military or commercial air transportation.

Several US team members began our journey from the San Francisco airport, checking in the 29 Interplast boxes filled with the medical supplies that we would need for two weeks of surgeries in Cao Lanh, a small city in southwest Vietnam. We had a great experience with Eva Air, as the flight attendants were pleasant and accommodating and we arrived at our destinations on time. We met the rest of our team in either Taipei, Taiwan or at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This is the most international team I have participated in, so in addition to hearing Vietnamese spoken by the locals, we have the pleasure of hearing terms such as chap and brilliant being uttered by our anesthesiologists from Britain and New Zealand.

Capt.Ridzwan has been instruct to the flight attendant to close the cabin door immediately, and here is the end of my trip to visit Malaysia. I hope i will be back here to explore the places that have many natural wonders. Especially nature.

In his monumental work Bloody Shambles, Volume Two, Christopher Shores described in detail the British retreat out of Burma, culminating at the end of May 1942. The monsoon then brought operations on land and in the air virtually to a halt for several months as the British and Indian forces prepared to re-take Burma. The Japanese however, had very different ideas. Air War for Burma picks up the story from the beginning of June 1942 and follows the hardfought campaigns through to the end of the war in August 1945. Here the activities of the RAF and USAAF during the desperate fighting of 1942-44, resulting ultimately in victories at Imphal and Kohima, are fully recounted. No less a forgotten air force than was the 14th 'Forgotten Army', the RAF particularly was denied the most modern and effective aircraft until late in the fighting, struggling to survive with obsolescent equipment against frequently superior Japanese machines. Described herein are the operations during the First and Second Arakan Campaigns; support for the Chindits in their long-range penetrations deep into enemy-held territory; the savage sieges of Imphal and Kohima; and the final victorious advance across the plains of Central Burma to Mandalay and Rangoon. Detailed also are the activities over the Indian Ocean and the East Indies of the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers and the aircrews of the Fleet Air Arm. Painstakingly researched from official sources, log books, letters and interviews, this is far and away the best reference work on the subject, and completes the set.