Out of the Blue by Terence O’Brien

Out of the Blue

A Pilot with the Chindits

by Terence O’Brien

Collins, 1984, [First Edition], ISBN 0002171988, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, ex-library with stickers, stamps and rubbing to front endpapers, tape residue to back endpapers, stamp to bottom edge; dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, bumping creasing and chipping (see photographs)

“Anyone who survived a full tour of bombing missions with Coastal Command had won life against long odds.  The RAF wisely and justly did its best to keep such people off operations for a year or so.  But the determined young Australian whom they sent out to India late in 1943 found a loophole.  The Chindits, the units operating behind the enemy lines in Burma, depended on air communications for their very existence.  There was no other way they could go or come, obtain supplies or evacuate casualties.  The troops in the jungle thus needed expert flyers who could assess the practicability of a landing strip or a dropping zone and who could tell the approaching pilots what to do.  Terence O’Brien volunteered, and thus experienced not only a new form of fighting as a soldier serving in the harshest conditions but a new approach to the whole business of war.”